Every Child Needs Some Love and Care

While establishing our vision statement to explain why we do what we do, this was what seemed to encapsulate it all:

  Because we believe that EVERY child should have access to the BASIC necessities of life; LOVE, CARE, FOOD, CLEAN WATER and FAMILY.

Recently we joined a movement that is giving us the opportunity to live that out and I write this blog to explain why WE decided to get involved.  That movement is called Love and Care for His Little Ones and it is "a team of volunteers with a passionate heart to serve orphans and vulnerable kids." LOVE and CARE...the first two components of our vision statement. It seems silly NOT to get involved right??!

"We were all created to be recipients of Love" 

Sam Chapman - Indigenous NZ development expert

As I stared across a sea of faces ready to begin a day of festivities, I saw children; big and small, with hearts that were hungry to receive that LOVE that they were created for.  If there is ever an instance of entitlement that a child deserves, it is this one- to receive love.  And actually if there is ever a gift we are expected to give, it is ALSO this one - 

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to LOVE one another, for whoever LOVES others has fulfilled the law. 
Romans 13:8

For with IT, partnered with a caring environment a child can develop and thrive and BECOME all that God has created them to BE. Love is SO important, for without it our hearts are left void of their most necessary component for growth. 

In seeing their faces I knew that their hunger to BE loved existed because of their lack of receiving it.  These children at some stage in their lives had been orphaned or abandoned. This is what qualified them to be here on this cold Saturday morning on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.  This event had been planned, prayed for, and implemented because there were a group of people who wanted to GIVE them the basic necessities of life- LOVE, CARE, FOOD, CLEAN WATER and an EXTENDED FAMILY. This is why WE were here. Because we joined a movement that exists to meet this need for Love and Care for His Little Ones.  

Rahel Asheber and Dawit Getachew (pictured above) are the ones who are leading this movement with an amazing team of young volunteers- students, graduates, young professionals and youth workers; people gifted to serve in so many ways to make this movement the success it has been for the last four years.  

We heard about this program because Dawit is an award winning Gospel Artist whose music has broken tradition in Ethiopia and connects young and old with the heart of God.  After finding out about his amazing music, we found out about his heart for orphans.  He in fact was present at a conference I attended in 2012 and blogged about.  It was around this same time, they started to gather young people to attend orphanages on a weekly basis to help support the children educationally, socially and emotionally. What they started is so PROFOUND.

Dawit shared a story over the weekend, as they were motivating the newly formed Hawassa team, to go and connect with the kids in the orphanages to build relationships with them.  The story was about a visit they made to an orphanage in Addis Ababa where they were going around and asking the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up.  Typical replies were vocalized- "I want to be a doctor" says one child, "I want to be a teacher" says another and more shared their desires for careers and jobs.  Then they came to one child whose response was "I want to be a ferenji." So they asked him "Why?" He said because life seems so much easier for ferenjis (foreigners).  It's easy he said for them to find work, to get money, to study and have a good life. Sadly he wasn't offered role models that could show him otherwise until Love and Care showed up. 

After discovering that most visitors to the majority of orphan centers in Addis Ababa are short term foreigners who come for a small trip and leave again, they knew that something had to change. What young Ethiopian volunteers have to offer is so much more valuable- they speak the same language, they are consistently in the area, they are young people who can inspire as these children relate to them, and they genuinely have a heart to love and care for children who don't have the parental love they need. 

Not only do they have teams all around Addis Ababa going into centers every Saturday morning, they also hold these events three times a year on special holidays.  At each event there are fun activities for the kids to participate in that they would have NEVER otherwise had the opportunity to be a part of! They have an awesome time of worship and story telling and then they feed them and give them a gift to take home.  This year that gift was a towel for each child as some children within the orphanages didn't have any at all. 

What Love and Care for His Little Ones are doing is motivated by their desire to do FOR these children what God has done for them- He has called them out of the darkness and into His wonderful light (1 Pet 2:9), He has shown them Love and Grace, been a Father and a Provider, so in turn they are doing the same for Him... 

Donate towards this New Years Carnival by clicking Go Fund Me Page 

850 children from 22 Centers, 

over 2 cities and 2 weeks 

made up what was the 

LOVE and CARE Easter Carnivals!
You can LIKE their Facebook Page
And YOU can ALSO join the movement- Stay in touch to see when you can donate to the festivities or sign up to volunteer if you live in Addis!


Also if you want to check out Dawit's music, you can listen to one our faves by buying his instrumental Jazz style album on itunes here, or you can check out his YouTube Channel!

Be blessed!

A Mother's Loss: My Somber Christmas Blog

Last night, I was disturbed by a dream that left me searching for my son.  I had sent him off somewhere not knowing exactly where he was going and two days later I realized he wasn’t coming back so I searched for him relentlessly, afraid that I may have lost him forever.  I asked family and friends if they had seen him, which left them accusatory to say the least at my lack of responsibility in protecting this ten year old boy’s safety. The ten year old boy I love the most in the entire world.

 I questioned my own sanity in letting him go by himself and not having any way of contacting him. I felt like he had gone into an abyss that we could never get him back from. My dream turned into a nightmare.  Thankfully though, I woke to find that this was not at all true and that my son was indeed still laying upstairs safely in his bed.  Relief.

 Not so for another mother we encountered this week though;  Not so for yet another one we have met in these last five months and again not even for another mother we are reflecting on this season.  Let me tell you about these three mothers:

1.       We have just moved into a new place in the west south corner of Addis Ababa. The suburb is developing fast and many foreigners as well as Ethiopian people are moving into this area, showing promise for business owners and landlords who have built homes in the area anticipating that this would happen.  The area also leads onto the new highway that runs south to places like Debre Zeit (our old home city), Nazaret and Awash National Park.

There is a bustling supermarket and business building that is frequented by many middle class and well-to-do customers. Knowing this, many beggars stand stationed outside with their children, trying to make the most of the opportunities that will avail them.

Unfortunately though, as we found out, these children are being put at risk as they follow people across the busy street chasing that coin, that birr, that piece of bread…which is so much less than they ACTUALLY need.  My heart broke as we encountered the enormity again of the need here and our insufficiency to meet the needs.

Thursday came and Asaua and I went to do our shopping with our friend in her car to this particular supermarket which seems to be the closest thing to our western supermarket experiences (bar the security checks at the door and the potential power outages).  I had forgotten the wallet on the first trip so a couple of hours later, Asaua had to make a second trip to pay for and collect the food.  As he was getting ready to pay and leave, the driver came in to warn him that there had been an accident outside.  One of the beggar boys had been hit by a passing vehicle and he lay dead in his mother’s grieving arms.  People surrounded them to pass blame on this mother for allowing her son to be out begging with her while she wailed; Asaua catching a glimpse of his limping legs still lying on the road that claimed his life. Cars came to a halt to bypass the boy who needed bypassing just a few minutes earlier.  A life not yet lived, was taken away and a mother lost her son in one Thursday afternoon excursion. The loss of that mother rang wild in my soul as Asaua reported what had happened on his return. Oh, Lord Jesus, you know the pain that grieved her heart.

2.        Five months ago as we prepared to leave Ethiopia, a lovely lady had been put in contact with me as a potential partner with the work that we are involved with.  As it turned out, she ended up being the answer to our prayer for accommodation in Sydney as we prepared to stay near my sister’s house in the “Hills District” of this huge city.  She lived only six kilometres away from where my mum and sister’s family were living.

As we entered into her home, we heard this mother’s loss of her dear son.  Nine years earlier, her son had left his home country with his wife to be missionaries in Ethiopia. After he had arrived, our host (his mother) had visited him and they had a good time together exploring the country he had then made his home.   After her return to Australia, a few months down the track, she was alerted to the fact that her son was in a fatal fall during a rainy night excursion out onto the roof of a building that needed some maintenance.

As we heard her story, we sensed her pain and empathized with the loss this family had experienced as the result of his obedience to God’s call on his life to go to Ethiopia. It doesn’t make sense yet we have heard it time and time again. Mother’s losing children on the mission field. What pain they must endure to not have to just say goodbye once, but to say goodbye till eternity they meet.  A mother’s loss of a son surfacing in an ocean of pain.  Grief unbearable without the strength of One who carries heavy burdens.

3.       The third woman that comes to mind is the one to whom we see around us in Nativity scenes and on Christmas Cards this season.  Two thousand plus years ago, she was chosen to give birth to the Messiah. “The One who was and is and is to come.” He was to be conceived of the Holy Spirit in HER womb and to be raised in her home under the love of her arms only to then be given over to a horrendous death in which she would be witness to.  He was to be the propitiation for our sins.  Yet she took on the challenge and trusted God with her son.  She surrendered her body, her life, her grief to the One who had seen the beginning from the end.  

I wonder if she sensed the loss from the beginning, forming attachments with her beloved son – a son who did not sin! A son who did no wrong and could not have caused her harm if he had tried; her love for him would have been untainted by hurt or pain.  Yet she awaited the time when what the world would do to him would bring the greatest hurt and pain a mother could endure.  Yet she loved and protected him, chasing him down also when he seemed to go missing yet was about his Father’s business. You can read about that story in Luke 2:41-52

Though this wasn't the greatest loss this mother was to experience, it was the taste of what was yet to come. In the event of her greatest loss, Jesus comforted her and gave her a "replacement" son, John. She then got to know the joy of His Resurrection before anyone else did as she met him outside his tomb.  This is the hope that we have. The story does not finish at her loss, but rather in her regaining her Son in His Resurrection moment. This too we can partake in as we receive Eternal Life thought the very act Mary lived to grieve. Do you know that Eternal Hope? It is yours for the taking.  

In this season where the focus is on a Son, know that it encompasses the awaiting loss, an expected grief and that in that grief, He is not unaware of yours.  

He truly came to bring...

JOY TO THE WORLD!

Home is where the HEART is..

I remember the first time I got sick here…

I mean, REALLY head-down-the-toilet-for-two-hours kind of sick.  I was in Nazaret and had just finished my first reunion with the staff there at Women at Risk- a site I had visited two years prior to our return as a family.  I was with Nigist who is now on our staff and who had carried a vision to work with the women on the street of Zion church since her and her husband had planted the church right there smack BANG in the middle of the red light district ten years earlier.

The sickness came on just as we were getting onto the bus in Nazaret for the 45km ride back to Debre Zeit.  It was as if the enemy of the vision was saying…”Let the games begin!”  The enemy of our souls and the souls of the women who were about to be rescued out of HIS clutches put his fists up as if to pick a fight. 

Here the war intensified as we started to make progress towards the vision we both carried.

Just this past week, we met with another NGO who had been given funding to reach the street children and prostituted women of Debre Zeit.  He said to us that what they were asked to do, they couldn’t.  He said “THIS ministry is a CALLING  and it is serious spiritual warfare that takes time to battle.  We don’t have time or resources for that” the director of this mission based NGO concluded.  I couldn’t agree more.  From the GET GO, there has been a war raging that continually we have to guard against and then when we don’t, we have to recover from.  Better be on the “guarding against” side then on the “recovering from” side of the battle- even if it IS “easier to ask for forgiveness then to ask for permission.”

So we are sitting on the bus, buzzing about the meeting we had just had and something in my body told me that it wanted to come out.  We disembark and I find the closest toilet which was in the public bus station and it made it’s presence known by the horrific stench that caused whatever was wanting to come out of my body, to retreat back in.  It held through the next toilet which again begged for a clean and I wasn’t about to clean it.  We have been in the country less than two months and the cultural differences are still being adjusted to.  Clean toilets are still my pet peeve. 

We find a hotel across the road, I’m still holding it in yet the time where this is possible, is running OUT.  So I find a toilet that’s able to capture my stomach’s contents a few times over.  I’m getting put off Mirinda orange with every hurl.  I think about the woman of God who awaits me in the waiting room of the hotel and how great her faith is for healing.  I ask her to pray.  I think about my children and husband at home who await my return and it suddenly dawns on me where HOME is. 

Throughout life, never does “HOME” beckon more than when I am sick or tired.  The call of my pillow and my bed is never LOUDER than when my body calls for it to rest, to recuperate, to heal. 

So here I am, sicker than ever in this new land we have moved to and all the questions of where home is fade away.  Home was calling me and it was calling from Debre Zeit- not Auckland or New Zealand but it called within the confines of Ethiopia. 

This was home.  Home was where my heart was and where my family and I had settled.  This had become our new default when we opened up our search engine and typed in “Home”.  The default was Ethiopia.  Yet our old one still existed in our “History” folder.  Auckland, New Zealand.  This is our other home- the one that holds our heritage, our family- the one that calls when we are sick of our new Home and the things here that frustrate and stir. 

I tell my kids “the bible says not to murmur or complain” this week and they pull me up on my own breaking of this value.  I do it.  These days, far too often.  I repent and move on trying not to do it again.

But on days where we feel ripped off, begged off one too many times, and the electricity doesn’t work for five days, your other home calls all THE MORE LOUDER.  Especially when your eldest son plays his first big rugby game in a huge stadium and his team wins the championship...

And your older sister has just had twin babies and is sending you pics all the time and you realize that this time will pass and they will grow without you’re presence and not only them but the four cousins that have come into the world previously without being introduced to my children over the last three years...it can't pretend that that is easy.

Dallin and Pierce, cousin five and six who have been born while their cousins have been away in Ethiopia!

Sometimes there are days where pain and joy mix as sweetly as peanut butter and jam.  Because the battle here is being won.

In the lives of the women who we work with, battles are being won and the clutch of the enemy is being loosed  Yet on the other hand, the realities of living life as a foreigner in a third world country still exist.  And we asked for this life- I hear the little voice say- and we knew what we were getting ourselves in for…BUT as much as we know the call and obeyed the call, a break from it all and a return to the home that holds our history, continues to INCREASE its volume. 

The battle is being won on the home front too.  This week, we had a cool family time in the midst of the power strike and I tell my kids how when I met their father we were going on a camp and I was “helping” my Aunty and Uncle put together the lists of the teams who would be at the camp.  I sneakily put the new boy’s name (ie Asaua) on the same list as mine.  We end up having to do an item together as a team and we sing this song- a song that at the time of telling the story, totally eluded me- but it’s a song that rings in my heart today. 

The thing is, No matter where home is, if your heart is with Jesus, He is everywhere and we just need to find HIM in the struggle and the pain.  For where He is, there you can be and if you find Him, you find peace and comfort for your soul… And that’s what keeps me going

Here are the words to the song -

I am weak but Thou art strong

Jesus keep me from all wrong

I’ll be satisfied as long

As I walk, let me walk close to Thee

Just a closer walk with Thee

Jesus grant my humble plea

Daily draw me close to Thee

Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.