Wednesday, June 5, 2013

The girl who inspired me

When I was five years old, my parents made the decision to move our family of five to Melbourne Australia to be closer to my dad’s side of the family.  It was a short lived experience which produced life changing results.  My mum fell pregnant to twins while we were there, we learned a lot about Australian culture and it was during that period of time that I witnessed the famine in Ethiopia on the news and announced that one day I was to be a missionary there!

One of the most vivid memories I have of my first year in Australia and perhaps one of the things that inspired my previously mentioned announcement, was a tragedy that occurred at my school.  I can’t remember how and I can’t remember her name but there was a little girl who was in my year who passed away tragically at the age of seven.  I didn’t know this girl but I knew who she was.  The whole school was in mourning as they remembered her and thoughts in my mind focussed on one thing that was said about her. This girl was said to be so selfless that when she had celebrated her last birthday she asked not to receive any presents but she wanted to give presents away to those less fortunate. I was so inspired by this girl that I wondered what would be said about me when I died.  Would they be able to say amazing things about me like they did about her?  My conclusion was probably not!

But as I look forward to my birthday this Sunday, the milestone that brings me half way through my thirties, I want to be able to give away that which may have been given to me.  So I am asking you for a gift- yeah, apparently my sister says I do that often but I swear I don’t ;) And the gift I am asking for is a tradition my Nana Anuilagi Perese started on my maternal side of the family.   For our birthdays sometimes she would give us cash as we were growing up and the amount she would give was based on the year we were turning.  So as I turn 35 this year, I am asking for $35 from anyone who is willing to give to the cause.  It’s not a big ask really…like less than a night out at the movies, or a bucket of KFC for two Samoans haha. I know that this won’t quite pinch your pocket the way it could potentially enlarge some lives.

So what is the cause, you may be asking…I am SO glad you asked.

For the last four years, I have been burdened by the prostitute situation here in Ethiopia.  Since I was exposed to the complexities of this lifestyle while on a visit to Women at Risk in Nazaret, Ethiopia in 2009, I knew that some day, some way, I needed to support this area of ministry.  Prostitutes here are not in this business because it’s lucrative, nor because it is glamorous.  Normally they get into this lifestyle out of desperation and because of poverty.  And they normally stay in there because they don’t see any way out.  They work in a bar that fronts a room where they may get the equivalent of $1 or $2 a trick.  They risk their lives and their dignity just so they can survive.

Women at Risk showed these women that there was a way out and that’s also one of my new agenda’s.  Along with Zion Church support and a possible partner NGO, we are wanting to start a rehabilitation project for the women who line the street of Zion Church.   Some of them have already found freedom from this lifestyle but they need holistic rehabilitation.  There are some also who are wanting “out” but don’t know how to make the next move.  We want to open that door for them and show them the way through. 

This involves a day program that will run over the period of six months.  Through addiction rehabilitation, spiritual discipleship, skills training, business training and parenting classes, and one on one psychological counselling, we hope to bring redemption to these women.  Redemption meaning, restoring them back to the original purpose they were created for and setting them out into the world for greater things.

These women are mothers, daughters, sisters who have the potential to make a difference in their families and also a difference in their community and society.  They are women who have great value and worth.  Beautiful women who don’t know their beauty.  Often women who are reaping the consequences of their lifestyle through diseases such as HIV that, with great regret, have now been passed on to their children.  In the last month, we have heard of two toddlers who have died on this street from HIV.  Two babies who didn’t get to see their destiny fulfilled because of the desperation of their mothers to feed them.

Emebet is one of the women who has recently come off the street.  At first when we started talking to her she was totally apathetic about life and about her situation.  She didn’t want to change nor did she desire help.  Her four year old daughter who is the size of a small two year old, would wander the streets with her friend Fikir and when asked what her name was, we got Bararew (which means Cockroach), then Mita (which is also a non-name) and then finally when we asked Emebet what her daughters name was, she said she forgot. 

After a night of abuse by one man who came into her brothel and imprisoned her in her own home, she slowly started changing her mind.  She came and spoke with my Pastor and myself and shared her desire to get out of the brothel.  She had had enough.  She shared how she was brought up in a Christian home but her parents always fought and eventually she got sick of being in the middle of it so she ran away and lived on the streets.  After finding no way to earn a living she found herself in a brothel at the age of 16. 
While she knew what she was doing was wrong, she didn’t see any other way to live but she loved her daughter and she decided this wasn’t the lifestyle she wanted for her any more.  We talked to her about giving her daughter a new name and Pastor Birhanu suggested Bereket, which means Blessing.  She agreed and started on her journey to redemption.  From being under the curse of her former name “Cockroach”, she now is destined for Blessing!  Bereket is now the girl who is inspiring me.

Faithfully Emebet has been coming to the new believer’s classes every Sunday at 8am, she has moved out of her brothel and has started a new life.  She sat in church on Sunday so hungry to hear the message that when Bereket started crying because another girl had upset her, Emebet didn’t want to take her out so she wouldn’t disturb everyone, but then reluctantly she did and sat outside to listen.  This is what it’s all about!
But there’s more restoration that needs to happen.  More gaps that need to be filled.  And we need your help to fill it.  To support a woman in this program or one of our staff who will supply the rehabilitation process, please donate now.  Don’t be limited by what I have asked.  $35 a month would support one woman through this program for six months.  $350 could pay for our psychologist fees. You can contact me on michelle.tiatia@gmail.com and find out how you can donate.  If you live in New Zealand, you can deposit money into the Love Rescue Charitable Trust bank account which is open now and the account number is 01-1845-0016412 -00.  If you live in the States, you can send a check to Redeeming Love World Missions which has been set up to support this ministry.  Their address is Redeeming Love World Missions Fund at PO Box 209, Enid OK  73703.  Note that your donation is for Project Rescue.  100% of your money will go to these women and this project.  None of it will be kept for administration purposes.  

Fikir, daughter of a prostitute who died in the last year and potential beneficiary of this ministry



No comments:

Post a Comment