Like any other children they need Jesus; they need the Gospel. In this life they have no hope unless it is given by some outside means- they need a hero to rescue them from their plight here. But even more than how desperate is their current plight- which in many ways is difficult to comprehend- they have a much greater need of eternal rescue. How great it is that The Father has not only made the one Way, but He has offered it freely to all who will accept it. As foolish as it would seem for any here to refuse the gift of help from outsiders, is the foolishness of any man who refuse The Father’s gift of His salvation.
I think that in our comfortable life we can often lose track that we truly are in such a desperate situation- without hope and without God- until He rescues us. The picture of the beggar is literally everywhere you look here. We are all beggars until we are made heirs of the King. How clear the picture of Ecclesiastes seems to be here in Ethiopia. Life is hard and then you die is much more “in your face” here than it is in America. For the most part we have no idea what a hard life looks like. Our “hard life” would equate to camping and not having a microwave or missing the show we like to watch.
Separating sheep and goats is part of the daily life here; dogs that are not pets, but scavengers. The poor and the needy are truly with you everyday and in every way. Jesus’ call to bring Him the little children has a different feel to it here than it does at home. Here, the children are the poor and needy; they are the helpless, homeless and fatherless.
What a privilege to bring some help in a small way. The people here in the orphanage work hard. The nannies work in 2, 12 shifts. Currently there are 2 nannies per shift, plus a cook, a house keeper and 1 guard. The orphanage director lives pretty close by and goes home each night to his family. He is a former taxi driver who was found to be faithful and they have trained him to carry this responsibility. He loves the Lord and is a very sweet, gentle man. This is 2 Tim. 2:2 in action; as he has been faithful and now he needs to find another faithful man who will be ale to be taught and pass this on to the next.
There is so much work, so little earthly reward, yet so vital in impacting the Kingdom for Christ.
Is. 41:8 But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen
the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
9 you whom I took from the ends of the earth,
and called from its farthest corners,
saying to you, “You are my servant,
I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
10 fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
There are so many sweet and precious promises right here in these few verses. It is our delight to be His servant. He has chosen US. He calls us Friend. He brought us from the ends of the earth. He didn't bring us all this way to "cast us off". He is going to be with us; He will strengthen us and help us to do the things He has planned for us to do and He will hold us up with His righteous right hand. Think about that next time you are feeling lonely or overwhelmed.
We just had a very difficult experience; one that we had planned on having, but I had not thought it was going to be so soon.
A young, maybe 16-18 year old, mom just came to the orphanage and dropped off her little- one month old- daughter. She is working as a house keeper, the father is no where to be found, she can’t work and care for the baby and if her employer finds out she has a child they will fire her. She loves her child as much as any other mother but she has no way to provide and so this is her best option. What she really doesn’t realize is how much of a change her daughter will undergo. This little baby is absolutely beautiful; looks very healthy, well fed and responsive to movement. She smiles at the future, though she doesn’t have any clue of what her past was, and what her future could have been, she now has hope.
The baby- Yepsura, which means from God- came to the orphanage in literally rags; no diaper, just a shirt, and a couple of small shirts to wrap her in, with a make shift cloth for a blanket.
Maybe this is similar to what Jesus was born into, and yet He chose to come to earth to win us back. WOW! We have hope of the future because of a little baby. On the way to this young girls “home” I was talking to the orphanage director and the evangelist. There is no plight so grim as one who faces eternity w/o Christ, not even the future of an Ethiopian mother like this, or this little girl. Without Christ their situation is more than grim; at least in America there is some pleasure to life under the sun, but here there is no pleasure and no hope to get out.
We went shopping while waiting for some guys to come up from the orphanage in Sodo. This is an experience everyone should have at least once in their life, but for some that would certainly be enough. We bought beads, purses, an antique shield, a shepherd’s club, scarves, necklaces, a stool, spoons and some other trinkets, all of which we could live w/o, but I guess we are doing our part to support their economy.
After getting our fill of the shopping we had to go to the internet café, as the only people, here in Ethiopia with internet in their homes are the very rich. After taking 17minutes to just load the program to receive emails we gave up a few minutes into actually trying to down load them. While driving to the next station we had a flat tire. I know what to do in this situation. The irony of the entire situation is that the tire blew out and the one they put back on literally had only the liner- like an inner tube for a tubeless tire- left.
My estimate is 10-15 minutes driving before this one blew out. We drove just a few blocks and traded this cab in for another one- which also had a huge separated- ready to blow out- tire on my side. Oh well, it’s Ethiopian and no one is ever in a hurry to do anything, so you have to go with the flow.We had a nice dinner, probably the last “normal” food we will have in the next few days.
Oh the goodness of God; it’s so hard to comprehend why He would allow us to “help” Him with ministry.
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