Mission

I was 6 years old when I announced to my mother that one day I wanted to be a missionary to Ethiopia.  Back then, my parents had bought a vinyl record called “Psalty’s Worship Workshop: A heart to change the world.”  It was basically an audio theatre production that not only had music about “going into the world” and being a missionary but it also had verbal scripted conversations happening between each song.  I do believe that the word “missionary” was used in there somewhere for me to desire to become a “missionary” at such a young age with no model of what that looked like around me.

Over the years, however, my view of the word “missionary” has changed.  Through taking various Missions classes and being involved in church life in New Zealand, I came to realise that being a missionary wasn’t just about long distance travel or  pioneering new churches or programmes across the ocean.  When I moved to South Auckland and started getting involved with the children’s ministry in our church, I remember my mother saying to me “this is your mission field now.”  Perhaps, I thought, that this is how far I will go in terms of leaving my homeland (the North Shore) and going into “all the world.”  South Auckland was, indeed far from the culture that I was brought up in and these children that we picked up off the street were very needy and somewhat “poor”.

A song we used to sing with the kids in Otara was a song that went “Be a missionary everyday…” and we encouraged people to reach out into their community, into their family and not think that they had to spend a lot of money to evangelize the world.  This started to be comfortable with me, especially as I read and heard about “missionaries” who had ignorantly colonized different countries including our own.  So called “missionaries” who had done more damage than good as they intruded on foreign lands with the intention of imposing their own culture on the indigenous people without thought or care to preserve the rich culture that already existed.  Yes, I was happy to drop my ambition to be a “missionary” but I was not ready to drop my desire to go to Ethiopia to help the needy.

I was left however, with no other option but to do what I wanted to do, under the guise of a “Mission Trip”.  Even though a short term stint, the fact that you come under the umbrella of a “Mission organisation” and are on a “Mission Trip” somehow, makes you a Missionary.  I wonder if one day, we will be able to rename this phenomenon that is the “Mission Trip” to something a little more Post-Modern.  I guess, yes, we are on a mission.   But we were on a mission before we left New Zealand also.  We look at the New Testament and see Paul’s missionary journeys and we compare that to today.  Yet I’ve just found another journey that is a little closer to home, and a little more reflective of what I see here happening today.  It’s found in 1 Kings 10 and it comes straight out of Ethiopia. 

Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she came to test him with hard questions.  She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones. And when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind. And Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her. And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his cupbearers, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the LORD, there was no more breath in her. And she said to the king, "The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom, but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard.”

 Today, what I see is people, like us, coming here to Ethiopia because of what they have heard.  We came here, not only because there is need here, but because we found this great organization on the internet and we wanted to be a part of what they are doing.  We only knew of what we had read on their website, but it all sounded great to us and resonated with so much of what we believed to be good and wise.  It was an organization that worked with widows and orphans (something that the Bible says repeatedly that we should do.)  They worked holistically to meet the needs of the orphans while working alongside their church.  They had plans for a Children’s Centre that would function to help meet the needs of the community.  Their motto was “Excellence in Everything” and they were all about equipping people to be effective in the ministry and in life in general.  They were not under one church but partnered with five churches.  There was a great model being utilized here and they were open to more vision. 

So like Queen Sheba, we packed up all our belongings, and we see others bring many gifts and great resources to see what is happening here.  Now after being here 8 weeks and having visitors join us from overseas, we get to see others witness the great work that is happening here and then leave even more supportive than when they have come.  There is a saying that I coined when I came to Ethiopia on my first trip that says “You don’t know until you Go!”  This is what Queen Sheba experienced and articulated when she said “The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom, but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard.”  Even though she was leaving Ethiopia to visit Israel and even though she went to find prosperity and add to it, she experienced many of the same emotions that we see others experience here. 

This is the kind of mission I like.  The mission where there is not a discovering of lack, but a discovering of fulfilment.  Where the impact of your visit is an encouragement to those you are visiting.  That it isn’t about creating something new, but adding to what is already going well.  This is what we are experiencing now.   We came to find that Ethiopia is progressing forward, that the people here are using wisdom in finding solutions to help meet the needs of the poor.  

Hearing great things about what is going on here, we encourage people to come and see for themselves because you really don’t know until you go.  And so we press forward and say, what more can we do?  How can we give, like Queen Sheba, a gift of blessing to endorse the work that is being done here and the wisdom that is being displayed?  In the last month we have seen people come and give generously to the work here and it encourages people to keep on going forward.  This is the feeling that should be left after such a trip.  Not a feeling of lack or discontentment.  So we also remain encouraged and move forward with great anticipation of what God is going to do in the future. Amen!

It takes a village to raise a child

Let me take you into the home I visited on my first home visit.  We walked through the gate of Sara’s house.   To the right we saw that their home was back dropped by one of the seven lakes that provide an oasis from the hustle and bustle of Debre Zeit.  We walked up a few stairs and into a dark room that was their home.  There was no natural light or lamps that lit up the home but I could see that it was made out of mud clad walls that were mixed with hay.  It looked old and was rented by the family from the government for only 2birr per month (the equivalent of NZ14c).  There was one bed on the left that we were welcomed to sit on.  The bed that slept all three females in the home, doubled as the lounge suite and Betty, their social worker sat on their wooden chest that doubled as their storage.  There were two of us visitors, Mariana from the Netherlands had come to see if there was a place for her at BCI.  She was asking many questions to Betty and also to myself.   As they talked, there were cockroaches running up and down the wall.  It was evidence of the lack of hygiene standards that existed in their home.

Like many houses, there is no bathroom.  The bath is a bucket and the water supply is not on site so water fetching is a daily ritual. The toilet is an outhouse with a hole in the ground.  It had been raining that morning, very heavily and I noticed that there were gaping spaces between the tin sheets that made up their roof.  I asked them if they had water coming through their roof, and of course the answer was yes.  A missionary had fixed her roof the year before but it still left room for improvement.  The smell of the house was also unsanitary, like cat urine on dirt.  There is no maintenance requirement from the government as she pays so little in rent so she is left to fend for herself.

The mother was beautiful.  She was young and had two daughters.  Her husband had died so she was left to care for her children on her own.  She worked when the girls were at school but this was as much as she could afford for her girls.  The girls are 7 and 5 and now able to attend school because Sara is sponsored through BCI.  They also get a monthly food budget.  She provides for her family by making and selling injera and also by cleaning houses.  She obviously has a great love for them and desires the best for them, but in Ethiopia, if you don’t work, you don’t get any money.

Another home we visited was of Siam.  Siam and her mother have HIV.  At the time we visited her, she was also sick with Tuberculosis.  They rent a home on the back of another property along with others who can’t afford their own homes.  The size of their whole house was the size of mine and Asaua’s bedroom here.  And our bedroom isn’t that big.  Yet their home did not have tiled floors with painted walls and an ensuite.  Their home was one room with one bed for their mother and 7 year old Siam and her 6 month old baby sister who Siam often has to look after while her mother goes to work.  See, if her mother does not work, she cannot pay the rent on her home.  She is in a desperate situation yet she is managing well.  She prepared for the five of us visiting her, a coffee ceremony.  Even though they hadn’t eaten all day, she had saved some coffee beans and popcorn for our visit.  Her baby sat on my lap, wet from her urine, and Siam sat on one of the two couches that they owned. 

Siam's mum and Betty outside their home

Siam's home.  With her social worker Betty and visiting Susan from America

Most of the homes of our children are like the ones I have just described.  There is a gap here in the care that we provide for these children and it is a very important one.  If the home environment is not good,  sanitary, or a place where the child feels safe and warm, then the rest of their well- being will suffer.  Studies show that seven out of ten children who live in such conditions will not succeed at school.  We can see the disturbance in these children.  They are restless at school.  They don’t sleep well and they are given more responsibilities than they deserve at their young age.

 

Some suffer with HIV or other diseases, and in the developed world, we would provide a sanitary environment for them, ensuring they are offered the best care.  Here, they have no choice but to keep living in the same environment they subsist in.  The mud floors should be tile like mine.  Their kitchen should have wipe-able benches so that they can ensure hygienic preparation of their food so as to not cause more illness.  The government provides medicine for HIV infected children so that they can live on with their disease.  But is it enough for them just to survive?  Should they not be protected from other potential diseases that exist?  Should they not be allowed the light of the sun to shine into their homes and welcome healthy minds and healthy bodies?  They are entitled to it as much as we are.

 

My desire for this area is to build a village.  A village like unto the Watoto Village in Uganda where one mother (usually a widow) cares for 8 orphans.  We can build many homes so that mothers like the ones I have described can have purpose and vision.  The village will be near the school so that the children can walk to school.  They will be purpose built and provide a warm, healthy environment for our children where they can be supported by others in the village and by the community around them- rather than isolated in remote areas where some who are disabled have to rely on the delivery of food and other necessities from other people. 

Will you pray about this vision with me?  With us?  Maybe you can help with making this dream a reality for our children.  We have 120 something children on our program right now, but this will mean that we will be able to take in more orphans and care for them as they deserve to be cared for.  But for us to take in more children, we will need more sponsors.  Really, a little does go a long way here.  It’s just a small sacrifice that we all need to take to show these children that they have value and that they too can be leaders In their families, community, city and nation.  We are here to raise leaders.  

Gullivers Lessons

If you haven’t seen the latest version of Gullivers Travels, I highly recommend it.  We were watching this movie on our first week here in Ethiopia and I couldn’t help but see some lessons that we can all learn from this story- especially for us as new comers in a foreign land. 

To give you a brief overview of the movie, the story is about Gulliver, who is a slightly immature, overly confident, yet very insecure, mailman who works for a large magazine company.  He likes a girl in his office where he delivers mail but can’t work up the courage to tell her.  He instead pretends to have some hidden writing skills and she asks him to put together some examples.  He freaks out then ends up copying and pasting off some other travel websites, which  she believes to be true.  She then offers him a small job and sends him away to the Bermuda Triangle to write his first piece.

 

On his way to the Bermuda Triangle he gets caught in a storm and wakes up on a beach where he is tied down by a whole lot of little people.  These little people try to capture him in a prison and he ends up using his size to the advantage of the Kingdom and helps to save them in their time of despair. They end up building him a nice big house, giving him whatever he wants and in light of this, he plays on their great admiration for him by making up stories about what his life was like before he came to their town.  He uses Hollywood films like Titanic and Star Wars to portray his former adventures.  He claims to be a king in his homeland and ends up being highly exalted.  Until one day, one of the potential Princes, who was on to Gulliver’s lies and who turned against him after Gulliver convinced his princess that she was in love with another man, decided to attack Lilliput and made himself a suit that outsized Gulliver. 

Gulliver’s lies all came to light and he ended up being imprisoned once again.  His boss from the magazine who he liked, also found out about his lies and came looking for him and the story he was meant to be doing.  She ended up in Lilliput too and thrown into the prison.  She discovered that Gulliver had told everyone that she was his queen and therefore found out about his little crush on her.  Together they went out to save Lilliput from the enemy that had overthrown them and they came out victorious and they lived happily ever after. 

This whole movie reminded me that WE as westerners, people coming from a developed and blessed country, could be tempted to feel like Gulliver.  We could come here and think that we were “bigger” than them and have so much to offer them.  We could feel a false sense of security because the land that we come from, the society that we were living in and the opportunities that we were exposed to offer us some stories that we can relate to and relay to those who will listen. 

There is a temptation, even as Westerners still living in Western society, to feel like we have so much to offer to the third world.  That actually, we ARE heroes, that we have SO MUCH MORE, and that we DESERVE to have better homes, to be waited on by those who have less and that perhaps, we can solve and fight any battle for those who are too small to fight for themselves.  That would be REALLY impressive and would ultimately give our egos some good stroking.

 

However, like Gulliver, we would or should soon discover that this perception, is a fallacy.  That actually, this community or country, or land that we have just landed in, are not in NEED of us.  There story of survival preceded our arrival.  There tactics for defeating their enemies have been proven effective and they are actually going from strength to strength.  Though they look defeated and small, they are actually no different from us.  They go through the same struggles and they celebrate similar victories.  They value relationships and pursue them with greater courage than we ever could.  They have a culture that exceeds our knowledge and place a higher value on the important issues in life and a lower value on things that we value too much. 

Perhaps if Gulliver had stayed true to who he was, the people of Lilliput could help HIM gain the confidence that he needed to be a REAL Hero in his world.  This takes humility and an attitude of learning.  We need the same combination.  We need humility and an attitude of learning – of coming alongside our brothers and sisters and listening to their stories, hearing the cries of THEIR hearts and not thinking that WE are the solution, but helping them to find THEIR Solution.

 

Asaua and Abraham -his right hand man on the field

The Bible says this “The rich and poor have this in common, Jehovah is the maker of them all.”  Proverbs 22:2.  This morning we asked our co-ordinator to explain a picture that was hanging on the wall of the guest house. . It is a picture of Jesus hanging on the cross and below each of his hands is a man on a scale.  On the right is a rich man and on the left a poor man.  The scales are equal, showing that God weighs both the same.  However, below each man is a conversation they are having with Jesus, written in Amharic.  The basic message of the rich man was that he was thankful to God for all his blessings, and God told him that it was not just for him but so that he can help to meet the needs of the poor.  The poor man was thankful to God also for all that he had and God told him that he was blessed because, though he had little, he still believed and trusted in God.   James 2:5 says “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him?”  So who really is the richer? We may be richer this side of heaven, but on the other side, the poor of this world will be heirs of the kingdom and will receive abundant blessings for the rich faith that they display.  We are now discovering how much we have to learn from our Ethiopian brothers and sisters.  They have rich faith and gratefulness to God like we have not yet experienced.  

Power!

On our way to Ethiopia, we stopped in Melbourne and dropped into the Ethiopian ambassador to apply for our children’s Visas.  Here I opened a book about Ethiopia and read how the Nile River that runs through Ethiopia has the greatest potential for power source than any other country in Africa.  How bizarre, I thought, as they are not utilizing this potential.  When I was last in Ethiopia, power outages were a common thing because of the drought.  Factories had closed down because they had no sustainable energy to keep them functioning.  People were missing out on great opportunities because they lacked this basic commodity that we have taken for granted in New Zealand.  Generators had been put in place in different hotels and businesses but this was not a long-term solution. 

Yesterday, as we sat around the foster home for New Years day lunch, we watched the Ethiopian Celebration in Addis on ETV (Ethiopia TV that is, not Equippers TV – just in case you get confused).  It was a concert that had different acts and singers on.  There came a conglomerate of items that were a display of the nine regions and cultures that exist in Ethiopia.  Goldy, one of the social workers here, explained to me that Ethiopia has 80+ languages and with each of these there are different cultures. After each region/culture did their performance, a pair from each group got their flag and put it on a board which seemed a bit like a jigsaw puzzle.  There were some amazing displays of colour and dance, song and happiness.  Each dance signified their culture and were easily identified by Goldy before their region was named or flag displayed.  She shared with me different aspects of each region that were known to her and also told me where each region was situated in relevance to Debre Zeit. 

At the end of the last dance, the last flag was placed on the board with all the other flags.  It was then turned around and it displayed a picture of a water dam that had a river flowing through it.  I asked Goldy what this was about.  She explained that Ethiopia are going to build a dam in the Nile River.  This is what the concert was for, to raise money for this dam.  It has taken this long, she explained, because Egypt has always claimed ownership of the Nile River.  The Ethiopian people have never had authority to access the River that runs right through their country because the Egyptians do not want anyone else to affect the benefits that they receive from the Nile.  How crazy!! The whole time Ethiopia has existed they have not been able to access the power source that is within their own country!  It has been taken away from them for so long and their economy has suffered as a result. 

Fortunately, however, the UN has gotten involved and they have drawn up an agreement so that Egypt, Sudan and Uganda all can access their part of the Nile River.  Egypt, apparently has not signed this agreement as they are still afraid that they will suffer at the expense of this release of authority to the other countries.  The UN has still allowed the Ethiopian government to now take control of the Nile River now and so plans are on the way for this dam to be built.  What an exciting time that we live in where the lives of Ethiopian’s are looking up!

This also has an application for our lives.  We all have a Power Source that is available to us.  Like the Egyptians have taken away the ability Ethiopia has to access this source, we are robbed of this source of Power by the Enemy who exists under the same power source.  He does not want us to access the River that can flow freely through us.  If the enemy allows us to have access this Power Source, he knows that it will jeopardize the plans that he has for us.  He doesn’t want us to prosper in life or to have greater access to this Power because this Power, in the hands of a person that realises it’s potential, can potentially destroy him.  We have the greatest potential for source than any other created being.  Why? Because we were created in the image of this Power Source.  This Power is the Power of Holy Spirit.  I have seen and experienced His power in my life and in the life of others. This power is Supernatural and able to do things that human understanding cannot explain.  You should check it out!

Our new normal

As the dogs bark outside late this first Saturday night in Ethiopia, I must say they do not phase me at all.  The kids are fast asleep (other than Jamal who’s reminding me of childhood stories), the husband soundly snoring and the mosquitos are busy at work, trying to get a kiwi feed.  We are going to sleep contented at the fact that today was a good day.  We prayed last night from Dubai that this morning’s transition into Ethiopia would go smoothly.  We had trouble getting on the plane in Malaysia with all our luggage and just getting on by the skin of our teeth.  At each stop on our trip the check in people seemed to be getting meaner.  Surely this last leg of our trip was going to be the worst as the plane was smaller and both Asaua and I had trouble in getting through immigration in Ethiopia on previous trips.  So we prayed.

We woke up to a cooler than the previous 42 degrees day in Dubai and packed our bags for our 6:30am check in.  The airport is huge in Dubai but the good thing is that with Emirates you have more options for check in counters.  Once we had discovered that we could check in at any Economy class desk, we proceeded to one where we were waved over by a young Caucasian man.  Turns out this young man likes rugby.  He immediately wanted to chat to Asaua, was impressed that we were REAL Kiwis and he turned a blind eye to the extra 6kgs of check in luggage and 2 extra carry on bags.  Even on the flight, everyone was so nice.  Jamal got the extra croissant that he requested, the girls got extra attention and the kids got their movies and music.  The flight was also an hour shorter than it was scheduled on our itinerary. 

We arrived in Ethiopia to a beautiful 16degrees Celsius.  It is rainy season in Ethiopia and as for this part of the country, the rain has clearly been falling.  All we see is green through the windows of our plane seats.  It feels like home.  We disembark for our final time a bit anxious about whether or not all our luggage will leave the airport with us.  But sure enough, as we go downstairs to immigration, fill out our forms and make our way to the counter behind a group from another African country, we are let through immigration very easily-even without the address of where we were staying (which I had thrown out somewhere on the journey).  Asaua was able to collect our luggage – ALL 13 check in bags and ALL of them went through the scanner with NO hassles at all. 

We were greeted with a white girl holding a sign reading “BLESSING THE CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL’.  Past her, we were reunited with our old friend Samson who I had met on my first trip to Ethiopia and who had guided Asaua on his trip by himself.  Our reunion was cut short with Samson and then Tadios (another former translator and friend) as it looked like rain might fall on our luggage that was stacked upon the BCI academy bus.  So we drove out into the abyss that is Ethiopia.  Streets full of diesel excreting trucks, footpaths pathed with mud and people walking EVERYWHERE.  It all seemed familiar now, not as it had been two years ago.  It all seemed okay to the kids too.  They didn’t seemed to shocked by it and quietly watched out their windows and soon fell asleep.

We arrived at our destination to a house that was unlike the guest house I had seen in the pictures.  The BCI management team had been working hard and had found us a house of their own as they wanted us to have our own privacy.  They had furnished the house with new lounge furniture, dining table and fridge as well as bunk beds for the younger kids, a double bed for ourselves and a single bed for Jamal.  Everyone seemed to be happy with our new home.  Yes OUR new HOME!! 

We went out for lunch at the local restaurant and then headed back home before we joined Mulgeta (the Principal of BCI and one of our close neighbours) and his family for their daily Coffee ceremony.  The coffee ceremony is a traditional Ethiopian ritual that helps to welcome and bring together people over freshly roasted coffee beans, popcorn and usually some bread.  For the first time, the children drank coffee.  They loved it.  It was topped with heated milk fresh from the cow.  We sat and talked about Mulugeta’s recent trip to Canada and the culture shock he experienced. 

Mulugeta is the Principal of BCI Academy.  He is very kind and friendly being very attentive to the children’s names and needs.  He also has twins only one month older than ours.  He said to me that “life is a classroom” assuring me that although it may seem to be sacrificing good education for my children, that this experience in itself was going to educate them like no classroom setting could. 

He spoke of Canada and his surprise at how old people would be detached from their family and put in a “Care Centre” when they can no longer look after themselves.  He compared that experience to Ethiopia here the children would take in their parents when they are old and feed and look after them till they die.  He also spoke of a man who he met that was in his early 60’s and had all this medicine that he was taking in front of him.  He asked the man why does he need all those medicines? He said to him “don’t you know that Jesus can heal you?” but he didn’t get a very good response. as the man was a French speaking Canadian doctor. I was reminded of the recent health gathering we had at church where the CEO of World Vision came and said that EVERY NZer over the age of 60 has at least one medication that they take daily- more often than not, more.  I told him of this and also of our high incidence of Cancer. Here, he said, the only person he knows who had cancer was one lady who had breast cancer.  She had a dream that her cancer was done and declared that to her doctor at her next check up.  When they went to find her cancerous tumour, it was gone. 

Mulugeta helped our son Wesley home by carrying him on his back and I carried Matthias on my back.  He told me of an Ethiopian saying that says  “a horn is not too heavy for a cow to carry.”  This is why you see so many mothers and children carrying around younger children.  It is not too heavy to carry when they are a part of you.

Day 5  

Today we were invited to attend a church service at Zion Church.  Our family couldn’t all go as the only available transport was a bajuj so Jamal, Kiara, Wesley and I all squeezed in the back and turned up to the service 2 hours late for what was meant to be a 4 hour service.  We were happily sitting outside in the back when we were called in to the very front of a very packed “house.”  By house I mean this picture below, FULL of people inside and out.  They have a church of 800 but fill it three times a day.  Rows of six people on each bench.

The choir sang songs of redemption and praise as it was the last service of this year and it was all about giving God thanks for things that He had done this year.  People were then invited up to give testimonies of what God had done in their lives.  Amazing testimonies of women who were trying to have babies but were diagnosed with tumours in their wombs.  One woman told God that if He would heal her then she would do something great for the House of God.  She was completely healed and was now pregnant with her second child.  Another woman was a muslim and stood up to testify her brother who was against Christianity when she became a Christian.  He ended up in a bad way and left school, started smoking drugs and ended up going “crazy”.  He ended up moving in with her and he ended up confessing that Jesus Christ was the One True God.  We heard testimony after testimony about how people were healed of their former lives in Witchcraft, Demonic possession, sickness, barrenness and this last one I am about to share just took the cup.

This one lady stood up who was so excited.  They were all just emphatic about how GREAT God is! Screams of Hallelujah, Tears of Joy.  She spoke about how she was raised believing in Witchcraft.  She was brought out of witchcraft at Zion Church and witnessed the power of healing. 
After she had her first son, he got very sick when he was 1 years old.  He went to the Hospital in Addis and ended up getting so sick that he died.  She took her son back to Debre Zeit and brought him to church, the whole way crying out to Jesus to help her.  She took him into church and felt heat and steam coming from his body.  All of a sudden, he was brought back to life!  He is now 6 years old.  She has two younger sons now and talked about how she prayed to God to help give her food. She knew God could perform miracles but her cupboards were empty and her children were asking for food.  Because of her children, she says, she now has food.  Nigest, the Social Worker and Pastors wife that was translating all of this for me, explained that this ladies children were part of BCI. 

What an amazing impact Blessing the children are having on the lives of people in Ethiopia.  They are able to help many families like this lady but there is so much more room for more.  Many people in Debre Zeit are asking God to supply for their families and God is wanting to use people like you.  Today I saw the potential in Zion Church and in Debre Zeit.  There are amazing things are happening here.  We know about so many other churches and organizations out there doing great things for God, but there are so many, like Zion Church in Debre Zeit who go unseen.  Today they meet in a building that is falling apart.  They have sticks to hold up aluminium roof slates.  They are praying and believing for a bigger building and a more stable one.  What an opportunity to do something awesome in the lives of people.  People are being set free here every week.  Do you want to be a part of it?

Letting Go

“The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.” Gen 12:1

When God commanded Abraham to Go, there were some prerequisites- leaving his country, his people and his fathers household. He doesn’t just say Go, but he says leave – and leaving implies letting go, releasing. Saying goodbye. This I am beginning to learn.

I have been thinking about Abraham a lot lately. Not that I think that our calling is anywhere near like his. But as the first man ever for God to ask this of, I wonder how hard it would have been. We have people who have gone before us and succeeded, so in some way, we have insurance that what we are doing is possible. But Abraham had none of that. Now I understand why he is called the Father of Faith. His faith was based on what he could not see – or had ever seen. His faith was born out of obedience.

And obedience is something that I thought I was good at. But now I am being reminded of my sinful nature and my actual rebelliousness that I have to fight against almost every day.

For if it were just about Going, it would seem adventurous, exciting, something I’ve been waiting to do for the last 27 years. ..but it’s now actually about LEAVING!!

It’s about letting go of everything that has been familiar to us. Letting go of our securities and insecurities. Saying goodbye to my dream home. Saying goodbye to our school system that seems so reliable right now. Letting go of any dreams we had in New Zealand and leaving our homeland.

No longer is it the excitement that is keeping me up at night – although I am still very excited. But it is the realisation that life here in New Zealand is getting shorter every day.

Letting go is never an easy thing. I am writing this in Rotorua and remembering our move here 7 years ago. This was our first mission field away from our homeland. Moving here felt so hard back then yet now it seems so easy.

We learnt a lot in Rotorua. We learnt that Auckland isn’t the greatest place on the planet. We learnt that we could survive without our family and often actually did really good without them. That “better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off.”

We learnt that life is not all about being busy – but about enjoying our kids while we can. We learnt that people appreciate you more when you leave your homeland to benefit theirs. We also learnt that when you leave all the things that brought you security, that God becomes your security.

We left our home to rent out while we were in Auckland and in that year it increased in value by one hundred thousand dollars. We learnt that God blesses your obedience.

One day, this letting go experience will have a different shadow that will fall from it. A new light will expose it’s inferiority compared to the greatness that will be done on the other side. I’m looking forward to that day!

“Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham…So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” Gal 3:7,9.

A visit to 2009

I just went back to my blog I started 2 years ago when I was venturing off to Ethiopia on my own. This was so exciting for me. It was a time in my life where I was still struggling and still unaware of so much that I know now after deciding to go to Bible College at the end of 2009.

This was a trip that I thought would tick the box for me and help me to move on with life in New Zealand. Little did I know then what God would do while I was away...

Anyway, here is what I called, "How it all began" on michellegoestoethiopia.blogspot.com:

http://michellegoestoethiopia.blogspot.com