Our Hearts are Monuments of God's Grace..

"A Heart for Ethiopia" was the name I decided to give this blog five years ago as it described me and it applied to what I would write about in this space. Little did I think about the implications of what happens when God gives you a heart for a country as big as Ethiopia. A country as RICH as Ethiopia.  A country as special as Ethiopia.  For a girl from the little islands of New Zealand, there has to be some capacity building done in the heart region to fit what Ethiopia has to offer. 

Recently I got to share at a Women's retreat in Debre Zeit and it was about what God was saying to me about our hearts. As He was expanding mine, He was teaching me something I just had to share. I hope this encourages you today...

Our hearts are fragile monuments of Gods grace. Monuments are reminders of events that have taken place.  Here in Ethiopia there are many monuments around that remind us of past battles that have been fought, victories that have been won, people who have impacted this nation.  In the same way our hearts stand as a reminder of what battles we have faced and fought, been redeemed from and restored out of, and the grace God has bestowed upon us in order for that to happen.  We are recipients of His grace.  We therefore carry His grace with us in the depths of our hearts. It is there waiting to be exposed and glorified. Freely we have received, freely we are to give it away. 

Monuments are either left uncared for and become callous and rough or they are tenderly maintained and shine through the history of a life that stood for something. Their fragility allows them to go either way pretty fast. f there is anything that reflects the events that have happened in our lives, it is our heart. It stands as a monument for SOMETHING  and that something should be God's grace. But the choice is ours...

Above all else, guard your heart,
    for everything you do flows from it. Prov 4:23

When we become callous we block our view of the blessings God has given us . The people of Israel are the monuments we are directed to as a display of grace left uncared for. Gods grace is a gift that like every other gift, we have to steward. The people of Israel had taken their grace for granted and had built up walls around their hearts. 

As our hearts become callous they also become heavy. Heavy hearts are not ours to carry. 

Cherry Friedmeyer, director of Ellilta Women at Risk once made this statement during a discussion we were having in Kenya. She said, "Our heart is made up of many pockets and God in his grace exposes what's in those pockets one at a time so it's not too overwhelming for us to bear."  

As we come into different situations or conflicts of the heart God shows us areas of our heart that need cleansing, purging or just plain filling - sometimes he just shows us that we have empty pockets that we are trying to fill with the wrong things. But He wants to fill it with His love. 

David prayed this prayer as a result of his sin being exposed by his friend Nathan. God had showed him the state of his heart at that time and in response he laid out his heart. 

Psalm 51: parts of 2-17

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

And cleanse me from my sin...

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,

And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me hear joy and gladness,

That the bones You have broken may rejoice.

Hide Your face from my sins,

And blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me...

For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;

You do not delight in burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

A broken and a contrite heart—

These, O God, You will not despise.

Sometimes we need to be bold like David and say "Take my heart God...Do as you may-break it, clean it, change it, restore it, purge it, empty it then fill it up again."

Recently I started exercising again with our intern from SBU, Beth. As we began to reawaken muscles that had lay dormant for so long, I started to complain of pain I was feeling in my thighs. Her reply was that my muscles were being broken down so that they could be built up again and made stronger. This is what happens with our hearts. He breaks it down, He builds capacity in us for us the expand the Kingdom in our hearts so that we can bring it to this earth.

Graham Cooke in his book "Uncommon Love" describes this process as a part of God working on our broken hearts as a result of non-reciprocated love.  

"How do you love when love is not returned? You discover what love really is and you give it anyway even if nothing comes back. It's not easy and it's painful and it will break your heart, but the interesting thing is that when God puts it back together, it's always bigger. You end up with a bigger heart. I don't know how God does that, I just know it's true! "

God does this so we can pray like David "Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice!" And as we experience that joy our hearts are resurrected again in new life and the pain that we entered into when we surrendered our hearts to Him, fades. 

Having a broken heart and a broken spirit does not seem like the ideal way to please God or to live the Christian life.  But more than sacrifices or burnt offerings, THIS is what pleases God. That we bring our hearts before Him and say "Here is my heart Lord, it is broken.."

In exercise, the way your muscles are going to be built up is if you keep working and exercising, pushing through the pain so your strength can be built up and in turn experiencing new levels of pain and fatigue. But we must not be afraid or give up.

When we surrender our hearts to God we must remember that we are placing our hearts into the Hands of the Creator, a loving Father, who desires nothing but the best for us. We can confidently trust that Him in this whole process. He LOVES us. He is FOR YOU! Give Him your heart today.

 I'm surrendering mine too. 

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!

Deliver Us From Evil

"This work is spiritual warfare", advised the founder and director of a large local NGO who previously had a contract with an International organization to implement a project for women in prostitution in our town. "But we don't have time for spiritual warfare", he continued so as to explain the cessation of that particular attempt at meeting the needs of the local community. His subsequent advice to me - "Pray!"

When Jesus was teaching his followers how to pray, He included some key components to successfully address all of the areas in which God is willing and able to work on our behalf.

"Our Father, who art in heaven... "

"Deliver us from evil" was one of those key components. Evil is real. It's out there on assignment ready to take captive those who are living unaware. Unaware of its schemes', its subtlety, its power. It doesn't work alone but it has legions of soldiers in it's army that are ranked and are ready to attack on any given victim, in any given region, at any given time. And if that civilian is unaware they are even under attack...they will be captured.

And Jesus concluded his prayer with "deliver us from evil. For Yours is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory Forever and Ever!"

The battle begins in the mind and it is won or lost in the spirit of the man or woman. It happens in agreement with the victim. Like Eve believed the lie of the serpent "did God really say?" So too when we believe the lie, A lie, A whisper of doubt or fear, even a subtle thought that we are not good enough, our lives are not "fun" enough, our body is not "beautiful" enough...so too do we fall into a trap. We sign the dotted line and miss the fine print.  Evil is moving in!

Over the past few years God has taken me on a journey of discovering more about the evil that we battle against.  Growing up in a home where mental illness confused and scared the living "daylights" out of me. It also welcomed the darkness of evil in. The spirit of fear took up residence for longer than I had prepared to pay for it to stay. I however, was totally unaware that it was winning this battle in my spirit and it became a part of who I was. It influenced my decisions, my relationships, and it manifested in my dreams.

It wasn't until I became a bystander of someone else's fear that I was able to face my own. It wasn't until EVIL literally came and slapped me on the face, that I was able to see it for what it really was- an enemy to be reckoned with and a resident that was overstaying in the heart and mind of the person that mattered most to the ones I loved the most.


Me.

So I cried "deliver me Lord from this evil." Well actually it was a bit more dramatic than that but we wont go there this time. It took people who knew what they were praying against and the authority they were praying with. But not every experience of deliverance is the same.


Ok so going back to the story I began with. Part of my own journey's purpose was to prepare me for what I would encounter here in Ethiopia. Every Wednesday at Zion church where I first visited on our first week in Ethiopia, people squish into the uncomfortable wooden chairs for up to six hours on end to receive a word, a healing but more often than not, a deliverance from evil. Its real and it's raw and its pretty rough.

Unlike my experience, the experience of many here; through ancestral practices or through animistic worship, evil spirits are actually welcomed in to become resident in ones body, ones home or ones family. (We think we don't do that in the west but we do - through mediums or clairvoyants, through séances or Ouija boards, through alcohol or drug abuse or very simply by just believing a lie.)

The deliverance that occur every Wednesday at Zion Church and frequently at most protestant churches around Ethiopia, are the result of a prevalent darkness that has come down through the generations as the result of curses, witchcraft, demonic worship and idol worship sometimes associated with the Orthodox beliefs that are particular to Ethiopia.

Now take that background from which most of our women come from, then add a lifestyle of sexual exploitation which often comes as a result of sexual trauma, neglect and rejection; add to the mix a hardened heart who has built up walls or strongholds against the things of Light and you can see a better picture of what we are facing.

The restoration of lives who are bound up, occupied, deceived and discouraged takes place over a period of time. A life time. So we pray "deliver US from evil" and we bring truth to undo all the lies the evil has planted to make his way IN and we seek to break down the walls that are built up around their hearts. All of us as we go into this battle together. And we see Him set THEM free as He set us free.

"Transformed lives, transform lives."

God has called us out of darkness into His glorious light and He gives us ROYAL status. He is more powerful. He grants us freedom and victory. He desires to deliver us from evil, just as he desires to give us our daily bread. That's why He tells us to ask Him to do it, because He knows only He can. And He too has legions of a greater population that are out for our good, to wage the war in the spiritual realm where we can not go.

Gods plans for us are for good and not for evil. To prosper us not to harm us. To give us hope and a future! Jeremiah 29:11

Please join us in this battle. Pray for our ministry in Ethiopia. Especially as we take back territory the enemy has held captive for far too long. We need more soldiers in the battle. Come join the winning team! "For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory! Forever and ever, Amen."

I've been wanting to write this story for SO long...

It’s a story of heart break and betrayal.  A story that bears the scars of an inner wound that stings as if it were freshly made, yet it had sunken so deep; buried under piles of rubble and debris of years gone past.  Rubble now named contempt, shame, dishonesty and denial. 

Who knew that a work to heal a broken heart would take so much longer than a year?  And that the revelation of the damage that was done would be discovered amidst the motion of writing…and then sharing with strangers as if dividing it apart to distribute and expose the secretly written to an open audience.  The exposure resurfaced the wound yet it allowed it to heal a new.  Like it had never been healed before.  Actually, in the resurfacing I discovered it had NEVER been healed before.

“Will you grow in tenderness towards the child that has been contaminated by harm?” Dan asks us. 

A room full of people working with people who have experienced harm.  As children and as adults yet they have never found the healing or the hope.   Yet WE offer them that hope and that healing but we were now being challenged to experience it for ourselves.

We broke up into groups of five and shared our stories out loud.  In an uncomfortable silence we awaited feedback from those around us.  Soft tender hearts were there to bear the pain.

“Redemption happens when you allow people to dwell in your heart and grieve and fight for you.”

And then in their grieving they see a perspective of MY story I never saw before.  Like discovering the key to the treasure box that held my healing.  But the healing still demanded something from me.

Again he challenges…”You have to give up a lot to write your story.  We have to give up our loyalties.  It is true that we have a great loyalty to Jesus UNTIL we are asked to give up other gods.  So where do your loyalties lie?” 

Loyalties and honor.  Both touchy subjects that were covered to bring light to the battle that raged in not only our minds but in our world views.  In my world view.  So slowly my loyalties shifted and the loyalty lay in the healing that needed to be done for me, for my family, for my ladies.  My loyalty lay in the Healer. 

So I clung to the process and endured the pain again of the sacrifice.

In the sacrifice and in the honesty that surpassed the desire to dwell with the wound any longer there was a loneliness that begged for me to search deeper to find where God was in that place of pain.

“In beauty there is brokenness.  All beauty bears brokenness… God intends to use the scars to bring Him glory.”

Last year I wrote a blog about God wanting to heal my broken heart.  It coincided with a tumultuous time for me and my family.  I felt a need to drop down, a picture of a falling flat on my face.  So I did it- literally.  Nothing changed.

As we drew near to the end of the story writing workshop I was reminded of this falling down.   At the beginning Dan challenged us with this question- “Can you enter into the stories of death in your own life?  When our lives are meant to tell the story of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.”

Entering into death is not easy.  It was exemplified in others in my group who had the courage to do so in the company of tender hearts.  Yet I did it in the quietness of my room- I finally found the falling down, the dying.. and as it caused the tears to flow again, I opened my little pink Bible and found solace in the words from the pages that have held my heart afloat for so many years. 

“For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of Adoption, whereby we cry ABBA Father.  The Spirit itself bears witness with our Spirit that WE are the children of God.  And if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer WITH Him that we may also be glorified TOGETHER.” Rom 8:15-17 (emphasis added)

So I am comforted by the fact that I am an ADOPTED child who has been chosen by LOVE (which perfectly casts out all the fear that had taken up reign in my heart) and that in turn allowed me to not suffer alone but suffer WITH Christ, so that we may be resurrected in glory together. 

A story that waited to be written for so long to bring healing to my heart was finally inked onto paper as an expression of the pain.  A pain that I had tried to physically express as a teenager by taking a craft knife to my hands; a pain I had tried to spiritually express as I found Forgiveness that caused me to “forgive” and forget, pressing on but not entering in; a pain that I had let control my emotions more than I had realized as my trying to keep my distance from it turned my face to re-enact it over and over again. 

Yet it was a pain that desired to be entered into like a tomb with a stone that had rolled away, calling out to reveal the light of the resurrection that could only happen upon the entering in- the falling down into the grave that needed to happen for real resurrection and ascension to occur.   And in that ascended place, I am able to reach down again and help to pull those who are still fighting the death. 

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,- Jesus Christ (Luke 4:18)

I used to hate Valentines Day, but now I love it and this is why...

Habakkuk 1:15

Look at the nations and watch-- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.

I am sitting there, in my early twenties with a baby at home who challenged me every day to be a better person and a husband at work who worked hard to make ends meet for our family and yet I had a dream in my heart that had been silenced by the circumstances around me and the doubt that took residence right on top of my dream.  Yet this widowed lady from America who had come to visit our church passed me a piece of paper with this verse on it FOR me. As if it were a love letter from God.  A message sent from El Roi…the God who sees me.

That dream was to do something significant in Ethiopia- to feed hundreds of starving people, to care for orphaned children, to help in some way to end the extreme poverty that existed in that land.  This piece of paper in my hand made me wonder if that dream would, COULD possibly…ONE DAY come true.

Fast forward 15 or so years.  Here I am, sitting in this house we have just secured a two year rental agreement for.  We (our two friends from Women at Risk and our two potential staff from Zion Church) are strategizing how we can shift six specific women who had made it through the months of trials we had put them through and STILL decided they truly wanted to start a new life.  How we could allow them to move off the street and out of their work as prostitutes and into this home within a five day span.  This beautiful peaceful home is sitting there empty yet full of so much potential- like the women we will work with.  It’s surrounded by rooms that will house the six women who are desperately desiring to get OUT! 

We draw up a list of things we need.  We have applied for funding from three groups for set up costs and running costs yet none are certain and we don’t know if or when any money will come.  So Cherry (co-founder and Director of Women at Risk) halts the meeting and starts to pray.  We ask God to give us a strategy so these women don’t have to wait any longer.  We start to tally up what we ourselves can contribute; looked at our current available resources and we decide that it’s going to happen whether the funding comes in or not.

Excitement fills the once empty house and my friend Abrehet does her happy dance in joyous elation on the empty lounge room floor.  I had met her in 2009 in Nazaret at the Women at Risk site where she was the Co-ordinator of this one of three Women at Risk sites.  She was young and passionate about the work she was doing and she totally won me over.  We had kept in contact over the years and never would have thought that we would be working together to bring about this new project site. The arrival of the women and the beginning of this new adventure felt so close we could almost touch it.

We hear from one potential funder and we sit in the Canadian Ambassador’s Residence in front of a myriad of represented nations.  Cherry tells the story of Women at Risk and everyone in the room is captivated.   The plight of these women echo through the stories and the strategies that this organization now has in place all lined up with the issues that surface because of their histories. 

Serawit (Cherry) Friedmeyer and I in the Canadian Ambassadors Residence

So we await for funding and in faith we plan for the women to come and join us in the house the day we call Valentines.  The day of Love.  How appropriate I think.  I remember the week before we left New Zealand, I stood on the edge of Lake Rotorua.  I was talking to the One who sent us here.  He reminded me of the love story that took one man (Tutanekai) many years before across the lake and cultural boundaries to meet his beloved (Hinemoa) on the island that sat within.  He did this for love.  A voice whispered in the depths of my soul that THIS is what our journey across this great ocean was about.  That He was calling us out over THIS ocean as messengers of His Love. 

His GREAT love that changed my life. 

That rescued me. 

That continues to do so.

And I hear the whispers of the haters.  The enemies.  THE enemy...The one they call the accuser of the brethren.

“Why is that Michelle and Asaua trying to go all the way over there for? I know what THEY’RE like.  They can’t be useful.  They need to help themselves first.  Their own family first. Their own community first.  Their OWN.”

Well somehow we go and we believe and then it comes to Valentines Day 2014 and five ladies drive through the gate of their new home into the shade of the Hibiscus trees.  They are all dressed up with their hair done.  One runs late because she is in the hair salon.  They look like they are going on a date.  “A Valentine’s Date with Jesus.” I say to another.  They look beautiful.  Like they just found Freedom. 

And it’s honeymoon stages and there’s definitely some scepticism and doubts going on.  But within a couple of hours of eating together and coming to an agreement of boundaries about this new space, facilitated by the amazing team from Women at Risk, the hope starts to form.  Repeatedly we hear, “I had no hope.” 

Ellilita Women at Risk is their full name.  Ellilita is the name given to the noise that the women make when they cry out in praise.  Their Vision statement is simply, “Renewing Hope”.  I paint it on the wall so they know. 

We have a vision at the church too.  It includes meeting the needs of the community.  So we collide as, what we call, a Love Triangle.  I am one edge of that triangle to join the two together.  So we begin this new journey, a partnership between E-WAR and Zion (Tsion) Church that will run for the next 18 months.  One man says “a drop in the ocean” BUT drops make ripples and who knows where those ripples will end.  Hopefully this splash will ripple for years to come.

Yes, me.  And yet it’s not me.  People SHOULD look at this and say…that CAN’T be Michelle...or that CAN’T be Asaua.  It MUST be God.  And yes IT IS.  And I remember the verse that starts this blog and I think…If someone would have told me, I would not have believed that I could have been a part of this.  But I am so happy that we can get to be a part of what God was already doing here and help bring together the people from both corners to serve these women and their children. 

Me and my beautiful friend Abrehet at Ellilta Products

Selam, one of the girls in the group.  A girl who’s been through the wars and out again..who has a vision to reunite with her family she was snatched away from.  She grabs my hand and takes me to her new room to show me her new bed and how she has made it all pretty.   A bed that demands nothing from her but rest.  A bed that has no history but is waiting for hers to be written.  A story of Love.  This is what Love is all about.  So now Valentines Love has taken on a whole new meaning. I love it.

Project: Rescue

It’s been a long time coming.  Four years to be exact, since this dream, this vision; this need was identified and planted in my heart.  Four years ago since I woke to the sound of the Muslim Call to Prayer at 5am and called out to MY God in silent prayer.  Silent because I lay a metre away from another girl on a mission.  Called out because this girl on a mission (me) was being missioned herself.  The mission that went on outside of me reflected the mission that God was trying to accomplish inside of me and that July morning in Nazaret, Ethiopia, the mission was accomplished.

The childhood pain, the adulthood shame; all culminated into a place of purpose.  Unforgiveness I held against my father, my foes, myself; at that point seemed futile.  It paled in comparison to the stories I had just heard. Here I was trying to piece together my story to share.  In trying to figure out what parts I should expose, I navigated through my dirt and my perceptions and reflected them back off the lives of these women.  Nothing that I had ever experienced seemed wasted.  I thanked God for carrying me through.  For “what you [they] meant to harm me, God meant for my good.” But not just my good, the good of others. 

For the time my father told me he would pay me $2 when I ended up on the street.

For the women who had taken away the security of my relationships.

For the friends who turned against me when I needed them the most.

I finally saw the purpose in my pain.

These women I had encountered in Nazaret, their stories broke the floodgates of my tear ducts.  Their testimonies penetrated the defense walls of my heart.  Their children tore down the ideologies I upheld in my mind of what life should look like.  My life was at the mercy of their pain.

Fast forward three years and I find myself walking to church through a hallway of brothels.  This street lined with women and children in the same situation as the women I had met in Nazaret.  Except they lived on the opposite side of the wall of hope.  Hope was not in sight for these women as it was in the Women in Nazaret who were on their way to recovery. 

But one woman found it.  Her redemption had come.  Her grace had been found or GRACE had found her.  I helped to move her off the street and into a new place and received the blessings from onlookers that I didn’t deserve.  I was just a straggler in a bajaj who just happened to be in the right place at the right time to help this woman make the best move she had ever made.  The move first began in her heart though. 

I had been a part of this ministry of Hope in Nazaret and knew that there was more that this woman needed than a conversion and relocation.  She needed rehabilitation. 

Not long after another woman died.  A woman who had cried out for help but failed to receive it before her lifestyle took this mother from her children.  From HIV to alcoholism to prostitution; the legacy she left behind was not one worthy of any accolades. 

Women on the street witnessed two events that MUST have shaken their worlds.  They saw Life and Death pass before them.  Life given and life taken as a result of choices made.  SURELY, I thought, this must have made them question their own decisions to be where they are and doing what they were doing. 

Now that I have seen, I am responsible… There goes that line again..

So I find myself again this year receiving GRACE = undeserved, unwarranted, unexplainable, outlandish UNMERITED FAVOUR.  By this grace, I overcame the temptations that faced me again.  And the Bible says that we are more than conquerors.  I heard it once said that we are MORE than CONQUERORS when WE ourselves CONQUER and then HELP OTHERS to do so!!

So in His time, and by His Grace I set out to connect with these women who God had placed on my heart. 

Last Sunday night my friend and I went out to meet these women where they are at- in their workplace. 

We walked into one house, bar, brothel- whatever you like to call it.  It’s getting dark and the kids are still playing outside.  They take us in to see their families. There’s coffee being poured and a customer is waiting on the bed in the room adjacent to the room we enter.  We sit on one bed which takes up more than half the space in the room.   I can’t help but think of the activity that has taken place on this bed.  My heart revolts.  The nerves soon dissipate into the coffee cup that is always accompanied by conversation; otherwise a spurring on of one is instigated. 

So we talk, play, break the ice with introductions and exchanging of names and glances that signify peace.  Selam new.  It is peaceful on this bed of desperation.  I ask how work is and the young pregnant one says it is good.  The other disagrees and says, No, it’s not good.  "It’s bad." 

She has just been deported back into the country because she had been found illegally working in Dubai.  She was desperate for a way out and we had come with a large signpost showing her which way to go.  So we leave them with a decision and a time and place to let us know what they decide.

Four days later, the word had spread and 18 women come to sign up for the program that was about to take place the next day.  Unsure of whether or not they would all come, we welcome them with open arms and big smiles and sign up their names on a piece of paper.

So Thursday comes and the lunch is prepared by two amazing ladies who, at the last minute had prepared for the unexpected response.  We are waiting for the call and it comes.  First one woman and her baby and then seventeen more and three more babies.  All boys.  All fatherless and yet full of smiles when given a simple toy to play with.

Trust was displayed as they shared their stories.  Short versions to break the ice and to make them reflect, as I did when asked to share my story, about whether or not they were ready to change their lives.  Tears were shed and defences were lowered as they made the first step into the journey that could possibly set them free. 

We heard stories of slavery and bravery...stories of abandonment and desperation...stories of love lost and dead ends that led them to this place they would never have chosen before. Two hours later and we had names to the faces I had walked past so many times before.  Hope made an appearance and ultimatums were given. 

Their stories were familiar yet again so heart breaking.  I have heard them before and I can understand their dilemma in a society where streams of income are not readily available to the uneducated and rejected. 

So we have job to do.  The relationships we have built with people working in the same field will hopefully make it easier for us to do so. This is them...

Yesterday on my way to church, I walked past these women again.  I am no longer a stranger to them nor they to me and they ask if we will meet again this week and I say YES!  They are all planning to come again this week.  Even without promises of money or an allowance or even a description of what our rehabilitation journey will look like.  They come in faith and in hope to receive Love; and the greatest of thing we can show them right now is Love.  Love will Rescue these women.  It’s the only Thing that can.

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Cor 13:1-7;13

This song has been ringing in my ear this week  It’s a song that was written by an amazing girl who came here last year in January with a team from SBU in Missouri.  The lyrics go like this:

Because she wakes up every morning, walks down to the corner, turning every head as she goes; she makes a living with her body, let’s somebody own her, coz that’s the only life that she knows. She doesn’t know what Love is…

So we will sing about ...

(Song by Madi Walker)

LOVE is something worth sharing.  

Break my heart for what breaks Yours

There's a line in the song at the end of this blog that says, Break my heart for what breaks Yours.  I've known this song for a few years, but recently it has been the song of my heart.

When we get close to the heart of God, we hear his heartbeat for people.  We can hear His heart break as we come into contact with people who need His care most – who need that extended touch of love that they have neglected to receive; who have not known the grace and mercy that only a Father can give, and who look to only God as their source of supply and provision.  

When I came to Ethiopia in 2009, I wrote a poem as a therapy for what I had seen and what I was still trying to process.  It was called “New Flower” and you can read it here.  I read it out at church when I got back to New Zealand as my Powerpoint presentation failed to come together in time.  Instead I struggled my way through this poem and then totally choked up on these lines:

The Street boys in Ambo so dirty and torn

Not just their clothes but the families in which they were born

No dad or mum to kiss them goodnight

No house to call home, no hope in sight

So broken and hungry but kings of the street

Orphaned and lonely no shoes on their feet

Feeding the street boys in Ambo 2009

This was the heart breaking God did for me when I was here and then when Asaua came to Ethiopia  a year later.  Our heart was for the street kid and the orphaned.  I went back home and struggled with the fact that we had spare room in our home and in our communities, but these boys lacked the basic necessities of life.  This is the reason why we joined in the work at Blessing the children- because they were reaching out to orphaned children. 

This past week, God has once again broken our heart for the orphans in Ethiopia.  Even though we work with orphaned children, our hearts had become desensitized to their plight in some ways because we hear their stories every day and we feel like we’re doing something about it.

We attended a conference about the orphan crises in Ethiopia these past two days and I told one lady how we have 145 children in our programme, to which she replied “wow, that is so many!” But the response in my words and on my heart is that we are hardly scratching the surface.  There are around 5 million orphaned children in Ethiopia – that’s more than the population of New Zealand!  Orphaned children who either have no parents or just one, and the vast majority of them are orphaned because of HIV. 

Testimonies were shared at this conference and scriptures were given to endorse the reality of our mandate as Christians to care for the orphans and widows.  Some of these scriptures were as follows:

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Matthew 25:31-40 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you.  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Isaiah 1:17  Learn to do right; seek justice.  Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

Ephesians 1:3-6  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

1 John 4:7-11 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

The theme that ran through these verses is that adoption was God’s idea- He, out of His love for us, adopted US!  The heart of the gospel is adoption.  He desires that we take up the cause of the fatherless, that we are used by Him, because He first loved us, to show His love to others – the least of these, those who need to be fed, loved, clothed, given shelter and when we do this, we do it for Him.  There is Jesus in each child we care for.  His heart beat is as close to them as it could ever be.   God’s sheep should do it instinctively because their heartbeat is that close to His.

A few days ago, some children who walk around our streets, and who often say hello to me were all together as I walked past.  These children are often seen climbing up on the rubbish dump trying to get some food.  They have no shoes and have obviously not been washed in a long time.  I like these kids because they don’t often ask me for anything, which compels me to give to them.  I didn’t know what their story was, but I have become more curious.  I tried talking to one girl the other day but she couldn’t give me any responses and I found out that she doesn’t speak Amharic. 

As I walked past them the other day, with my daughter Lydia, one boy said to me “Money” (in English), to which I replied “No” (I hate it when kids say money to me.) Then he said in amharic “Caramella yellum?” (You don’t have lollies/candy?) To which I replied “Caramella Yellengium” (I don’t have any lollies/candy)…so he asked one final question in Amharic – “What do you have?” and as I thought about what to reply, as I literally had nothing on me at that time, I said “Fikir, Bizu Fikir” (Love, much Love).  He said in amharic “Bonet? Bizu fikir Alish?” (Really, you have a lot of love?) Which I replied in Amharic “Yes, I have a lot of Love”. This is all I have to give - the love of Jesus.

And this is what these kids are hungry for, more than anything else.  As me and Lydia walked around to the guest house last night, we heard the children talking in an empty building they currently call home.  They look after themselves, but like the street boys in Ambo, they have no one to call mum or dad, or to tuck them in to bed at night, or to send them off to school with a packed lunch in the morning.  They are the kings and queens of the street.  We are compelled to help these children, if even temporarily.  There is something that needs to be done and as a representative of Christ, we can’t turn a blind eye. 

Our hearts are broken, as we pray and sing, break our hearts God, we must be ready to action the brokenness He shows us for His people..  Who will these children be?  What is their potential in Christ and how can we help them to realize it?  What can YOU do to help?  We’ll let you know.

When Jesus takes you somewhere, like a real Gentleman, He opens the doors.

I posted on FB, "When God tells you to go somewhere..." but actually, the statement should have been, "When God takes you somewhere..." because when God tells you to go, He goes with you! It's a Divine date between you and He and He's with you all the way, holding your hand, opening the doors and paying for your bill.

Yes, I have been on "missions" before where I thought that it was Divinely led-and may have ended up feeling "stood up" because I had initiated it myself and He wasn't in it AT ALL. But never before have I known like I know now, that He is the one who initiated this "date" and that He is going to be the Gentleman that He is and is going to do all these things-not just for me, but for my whole family.

So, just our date so far and what it has looked like. I talked about the 5am wake up call. This was the "initiation" - the asking of the date. He asked us all to GO OUT (out of our country, out of our comfort zone and out of our family home) - through my husband - and we respond like an excited teenage girl, being asked out by the best looking guy in school, and excitedly give a big "YES" reply!

The next thing God does (again, so gentleman-like) is let our dad (well Asaua's dad, that is) know that He is going to take us out. He does this through a dream that Asaua's dad has the night before Asaua warns him that he has some news. I love it when I hear of men who ask their girlfriends father's for their daughters hand in marriage. It's so romantic and it gives that sense of security to the father, that his daughter is going to be well looked after. It also makes it easier for the daughter to let her parents know that she will be "leaving" them and "cleaving" to her new husband. In the same way, this dream that Asaua's dad had, made it a whole lot easier for us to tell him that WE are not only going, but that we are taking his grandchildren across the other side of the world.

A true gentleman takes a girl out, giving her no obligation to pay the bill - at all. We too have that promise. He's told us to come with Him and to not worry about paying for us. As soon as we said "yes", we have found out a way that we can be supported in the internship that we are going to do for the first year. We also know that after the first year, the organisation that we are going to work with, are able to support us through funds raised in the States. We never would have known this if we had not said yes - IMMEDIATELY.

Just this past Sunday, Ps David McCracken, talked about Faith at our evening service. He said that beyond "incredible" faith, there is "another level of obedience-living in a realm where we don't have the circumstances to manipulate or rearrange-it's called UNREASONABLE FAITH!
Where we don't have a clue how it's going to happen but we know we have a WORD from GOD."

He said that "God is a CREATOR! He creates everything out of nothing! It's not our faith that creates anything but GOD spoke it, so He created it. (What a sense of relief!) But when we BELIEVE it and OBEY it, it draws it (whatever He has spoken into life) into the realm of our reality." Wow!

So, there we were- on Sunday night, thinking of how we are going to be having this big CLEAN UP and Working Bee at our house this Saturday (today as I write this actually) and how we need to put our house on the Market on Monday. I remember as I lie in bed, how originally. perhaps "heard from God," that we should sell our house for $350k. But last year when we had put our house on the market, I was told - after a failed attempt because I was trying to initiate this date- that we would be lucky to get what we paid for it 5 years ago - $310k. So, I thought, maybe we could settle for $325k, sell it privately and not have to pay anyone commission. (Just writing that word "settle", makes me cringe. Settling for the mediocre, is not the way of the Gentleman who asked us out on this date." My faith needed to be a bit more UNREASONABLE than that.

When you go out on a date with Jesus, He really does give you GRACE. Even without MY unreasonable faith, He still comes through...

Thursday afternoon, we get a phone call from our Real Estate Agent from last year. She wonders if perhaps we were interested in putting our house on the Market again. She has a buyer who are with a Government agency. "They have heaps of money", she says on the answer machine, and are needing to buy four bedroom houses in our area and only have a week to use up their budget. They are wanting to come around on MONDAY and want to settle by the end of JUNE (perfect timing for our departure in August.) Best of all, she says we should put the house on at $349k because they're not looking to undercut people, but want to pay the best price.

So we are just riding now, on this conveyabelt of Love. He says to "learn the unforced rhythms of His Grace" and so that is what He is teaching me- or us. He's overlooked our past mistakes. He's saying, come with me and watch how much I ACTUALLY love you. You look beautiful to me. You are my bride to be, and I am going to show You what I have in store for you - if you just TRUST me.

That's a Real Gentleman.