The only difference between them and us...

A family in Ethiopia makes an average of 25 American dollars per month. To put that into perspective, a new pair of pants would cost them around 12 dollars.

In Sendafa, a village of around 2,000 people, nearly 50% of the village has HIV / AIDS. Without proper medication, the adults are soon unable to work, which leaves the young teenage kids to provide for the families.

The homes are made from whatever materials that can be found. Most of them are made from corn stalk or straw and mud with only openings for doors and windows. The roofs are rusty, leaky corrugated steel or thatch.

In America, the average family makes in excess of $50,000 per year, placing them in the top 5% wealthiest people in the world. A family making $80,000 is in the top 3% wealthiest in the world.

So what is the difference between us and them? It's as simple as where we were born. That's it.

It is humbling when you think about it. The important thing to remember is Luke 12:48: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more."

In other words: He whom much is given, much is expected. Are we living up to God's expectations of us?

Packing Day

Today we had our final team meeting before D-day. (departure day) It's hard to believe that next Sunday morning we will be leaving on our 7,000 mile trip to Ethiopia!

The main purpose of the meeting was to get all of our supplies packed into bags. Since each of us is allowed two checked suitcases and a carry-on, we take only one personal bag and pack the other one with supplies we will need for the trip. Most of what we packed was vinyl for the floors of the homes we will be visiting and fabric for the walls. We also had to pack the tools we will need, food for our bag lunches, and vitamins for the kids. With a fifty pound limit, we made good use of each bag and packed each to the max. We utilized a digital scale and got most of them in the 45+ pound range. I saw several that were 49.5 and 49.7 pounds.

Out of the 17 team members from our church and 5 from another local church, at least 8 were trip veterans who have been Sendafa 4 or 5 times already, so they had a lot of good advice.

Next Sunday we will meet at 10am and load up for our trip down to Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C. Everyone is welcome to join us for a send-off prayer just prior to 11am. If you cannot attend, please be in prayer for us at that time or anytime that day.

We should arrive in Sendafa Monday evening where we will settle into our hotel and get for our week in the village. I think I can speak for all of us, when I say that we are honored and humbled to be afforded this opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus. My prayer is that the people of Ethiopia see Jesus through us and we are able to share about our Relationship with Him.

Vitamins!

Anther bit of news that we just learned about our rapidly approaching trip is that we will have the opportunity to visit some of the kids that are on our vitamin program and help distribute some of the vitamins.

Bianca is very excited about this opportunity. She cannot wait to see those smiling little faces and share some love and hugs. Can you blame her?

Chlorination!

We just heard the exciting news! After months of trying, we finally were able to get the chlorine into Sendafa for the new chlorination system.

Last year we completed drilling a fresh water well that adequately supplies the village with water, only to find out that the water contains over eight times the acceptable level of bacteria. The clinic doctors say that 80% of the illness that they treat is due to ingesting contaminated water. To solve this problem, we purchased a chlorination system, but we unable to install it due to the unavailability of chlorine in the area. In fact, we could not get any in the entire country!

A few weeks ago, we were asked to have a couple of the more mechanically-inclined members of the team on standby in case the chlorine arrived in time for us to set up the equipment. I was excited, because from what I've been told, this is the first system of it's kind in the entire country! Well, I am sure that God shared our enthusiasm, because He opened doors in customs and allowed the proper chemicals to be cleared after months of trying. I am very excited to have the privilege of helping out on a project of this magnitude.

Amazing!

12.06.10

I had such an amazing thing happen to me today that I just had to share with you all:

Yesterday during the Christmas Communion service at LWCC, I prayed and asked God to show me in some way that I was on the right track and that I was doing what He wanted me to do. This morning I had to take a service call at the Pepsi Distribution Center in Cheverly, Maryland. I greeted the maintenance supervisor and when he asked how I was, I told him I was a little sore from the immunizations that I got yesterday. He responded with “Oh yeah, for your trip to Ethiopia!”, just as his new boss was walking past. She had recently transferred from another location. She stopped abruptly and asked me where it was that I was going. Then she excitedly told me that she was born and raised in Ethiopia! As if that was not exciting enough, she grew up in Addis Adaba and knew exactly where Sendafa was!

She was very excited about our trip, and kept asking me why we were doing this. Apparently she is not a believer and could not understand why a large group of people would want to travel to the, as she described “one of the worst parts of Ethiopia”, to visit AIDS patients. She is visiting her home and family in Addis Adaba for New Years, and we will be keeping in touch.

This was so exciting for me, because I know that this was not simply a coincidence. God arranged this meeting to encourage me. It is just incredible and makes me more excited than ever to see what God will do through us on this trip.

Introduction

My wife Bianca and I have had a burden for Mission's work for quite some time now. In 2008, we moved to York, Pennsylvania, where God blessed us with an amazing church. Living Word Community Church is a place full of grace and generosity and love. We were immediately struck with the love of God in the faces around us from our first Sunday visit. It felt like home. Months later, I know that God brought us here for a reason. As we became more and more involved in the ministry, the uniqueness of this Church in sharing the love and beauty of God's Grace became more and more evident. We have met the most amazing, caring, genuine people here that I have met in my entire life.

One of the things that I that I love most about LWCC, is that this is no Sunday morning church. Living Word is the most active and generous church that I have ever been a part of. The impact that they have on the immediate community and communities all over the world is very significant. All of these things guided us towards our decision to join a Mission's trip.

We became members of LWCC in April of 2010. In August, we were sitting in a service that was dedicated to sharing the stories of a recent medical Mission's trip to Sendafa, Ethiopia. My wife and I felt as if every person who shared their story was speaking directly to us. Halfway through the presentation, Bianca and I looked at each other and both mouthed the words "We're going". Immediately, I felt a sense of calm wash over me, and I knew that God was in it, and He wanted us to go.

That same day, I filled out the applications for the trip, and within a week we were having a sit-down meeting with Andy, the Mission's Team Leader. He told us all about the trip scheduled for the last week of January. Our Church had adopted a village through a program call Project Adopt a Village, or PAAV. Andy said that we had been approved to join the group. I cannot express the excitement and anticipation we felt. The more we learned about all that our Church was doing to help those in Sendafa, the more excited we were to be a part of it all. You can read a full write up of all of the programs here.

Andy explained that we schedule three trips per year. A medical trip, a lady's trip, and a visitation trip. The January trip would be a visitation trip. We would divide the team members into groups of four or five people, each with an interpreter. We would visit people in the village of Sendafa who are inflicted with HIV/Aids. (Pastor calls Aids the modern-day Leprosy, and we all know that Jesus had a special place in His heart for those people) While we visit each home, we bring along fabric and vinyl (similar to a pool liner). We put the vinyl on the dirt floor and staple the fabric to the mud walls. From what I have heard, this is a major improvement in the quality of life for these people, and it costs us less than $20 per home. Our main purpose is to share the love and grace of God to each of these people that we visit. Our ultimate hope is that in showing God's love, we will be able to arrange a meeting with the One who has extended this same love and grace to us.

I will be providing more information in future days, and I hope you will all check back often. Bianca and I will both be keeping daily journals of our trip, which I will post here, as well as a few pictures of our trip. We leave in just 15 days on January 23rd, 2011.