We started the day today visiting the YZM project in Holeta. It was a stunning drive outside of the capital Addis Ababa! We saw beautiful fields, lush green mountains, and plenty of near misses of animals in the road.
Their welcome was completely overwhelming and unexpected. They lined the path to the office with roses in the hands of the children and sang and clapped as we walked in. It was thrilling and incredibly uncomfortable all at the same time. It was a hero's welcome for people who are absolutely not hero's! We got to watch as they distributed school uniforms and school supplies. They had amazing statistics showing their firm grasp on the situation there. One of the charts showed the break down of families in their program. There are two families with 12 members and wages of ~150 birr per month. That is less than $10!
These women shared their stories of how Parkview's gift blessed them by allowing them to develop businesses. One of these women specifically touched me. She has four children and was almost ready to abandon one of them due to lack of resources. Due to the intervention of YZM, she now has hope and all of her children remain with her. I love to see one more child who does not change status to "orphan."
Later we got to see the beautiful shop that the government gave to the "women's self help group." They plan to use this space to further their business. Burtikan has been an inspiration to them and the YZM staff has helped them progress through each step. We all contributed to their business (~$12 each) which added up to almost 1600 Birr. This spurned a celebratory prayer by Burtikan. Words cannot describe the passion and depth of faith with which she prays. We were all deeply moved.
After visiting the offices in Holeta we visited a couple homes. The first was the beneficiary of hens and cages. This women has already purchased a male chicken and her business will be up and running very soon. The first house was a very nice structure and we commented on how much better it looked than some of the houses we saw in Sobeta. That caused the Holeta director Makonen to lead us to the second house. The picture on the right was shows a more typical dwelling for many of the beneficiaries in Holeta. It was too dark inside to fully capture the feeling, but the dirt floor had turned to pure mud. Of her 3 rooms, one of the room was completely unusable because of the mud. Everyone we met on these dirt streets had feet coated in mud.
A couple of us got to meet/visit with our sponsor children. More team members plan to sponsor children which we will meet tomorrow at Sobeta. We are planning to designate Sobeta as the target project for all sponsors from Parkview Church
I trained some of the YZM staff how to operate the water purification equipment. It was wonderful to see them getting excited about all of the potentials for these two units!!
This means lives will be saved as water-born diseases are killed by chlorine.
We finished the night with a "camp fire" cook out at the Addis office. It was such an enjoyable evening! We talked with YZM staff, played with children from the group home and Burtikan and Nesibu's kids, ate fresh lamb cooked over the fire, and worshipped together. Singing Amharic praise songs in the open air of Addis Ababa with amazing Ethiopian friends, beautiful children around a campfire....it is impossible to communicate what this feels like. We sang some American praise songs for them and we were struck at the contrast of the intensity of worship. It was clear that there is a lot we can learn from these people about worshipping our great creator!!
I will leave you with some pictures that do not need words. The faces of these beautiful children who daily experience things that many of us cannot imagine hold a message that needs no words.
Thank you for your prayers. Everyone is healthy and doing a fantastic job at processing all of the amazing things we are experiencing. We have had wonderful UNITY which was a major prayer request. I am amazed at God's faithfullness. Please keep praying!
No comments:
Post a Comment