Fields of Hope February Newsletter

 The newsletter below of from Dan Butera, who works in Ethiopia with Fields of Hope, an organization that helps prostitutes find new jobs and new lifestyles. It has been published here with Dan Butera's permission, and can be viewed in it's original form here.

I wish I could send some warmth along with this newsletter, I'm sure many of you could use some of the famous Ethiopian sun to warm your day. We're well into the dry season and the sun is starting to get pretty warm during the days, but still not above 85 or 90 degrees. The weather here is very comfortable year round, but in an odd way I actually miss the seasons in Pennsylvania. Though, I guess I should count my blessings to be able to sit here typing this newsletter in shorts and a t-shirt!


We were very happy to see some of our friends a few weeks ago. A team came here from Living Word Church in York, PA (and some from Bethany UMC in Red Lion, even a few people from Romania came along!) to work in a village called Sendafa. I knew a few of the people on the team already and the rest quickly became my friends. Ruth and I were even lucky enough to host two of our friends, Dawn and Rena, for an extra week. It was reat to be able to show them a bit of what it is like to live in Ethiopia. It's not without
frustrations, but it is a pretty great life anyway.

It has been very amazing recently to see the progress that is happening in the project. Many of the ladies that we have set up doing small jobs have really been working hard and have been quite successful. We even helped some of the women open bank accounts so that they can save money each month! There's is always a lot more work to be done, but it is so encouraging to see success stories.

No matter how many times I see the area where we work, it never stops breaking my heart. We just recently drove through some of that area during the day time and again at night. It is an area full of such desperate struggle – it is extremely difficult to comprehend. Seeing that area again really made it clear to me exactly why we are doing this work and just how important it is to help these women.

We are continually coming up with new ways to offer a helping hand to anyone looking to stop working as a prostitute. Our current focus is to set people up doing small jobs. Current examples of this would be giving some of the ladies a small amount of money to buy fruits and vegetables, they then sell these by the side of the road for a profit. They have been doing a good job at it and are on their way to being self sufficient. We are
also looking into options such as butter churning and soap making.

We are also going to continue the current ways that we support these ladies. For some of them, we give them basic supplies (wheat, cooking oil, soap, etc). For others, we pay for everything associated with sending their children to school. Sometimes it means just visiting them in their houses and listening to their stories. Other times it means providing them with medicine. In all cases, our main goal is to show them love, to let them know that people care about them and to give them a new chance in life.

Let me tell you about Haregewoign, one of the women who has been helped by our project. When we found her, she was working as a prostitute in one of the worst areas of the city. She would get paid around 15 US cents per customer that came through her door. Her chances of having HIV are very
high, though we are still waiting for the results to come back. She is a single mother to her seven year old son, Ermias. It is very difficult to raise a child in
those conditions, but she had no other choice. This story could very easily have an extremely sad ending, like so many other stories about ladies who are working as prostitutes in this area. Thankfully
this story does not. Operation Love Never Fails, which is a project of the local nonprofit that we are working with, started helping Haregewoign about a year and a half ago. The biggest thing that we have been able to do for her is to help her and ten other women start a small business, a small trash collecting service.

Since there are no big doortodoor trash collection companies here, most people hire someone to take the trash from their house to the larger central collection areas. So, we helped these ladies by buying them such things as uniforms, gloves, shovels and big wheelbarrows. With these things, they travel around on foot to each of the houses or businesses which have hired them.

Though these women have only been doing this for a year and a half, they are lready self sufficient and no longer require our support. It is such an amazing thing to see someone go from such a difficult like into such a fulfilling life. While she still doesn't have very much, she is completely free from such a despairing life. She is now able to support herself and her family without the need for any additional help. Whenever you see her she has the biggest smile on her face. You can see that she is relieved and proud that she is successful at her new job.

We have also helped her son, Ermias, to get into school. At the start of the school year we bought him his uniform and school supplies and
also paid his tuition. I remember meeting him the day we gave them his school supplies. He seemed so happy and very interested in his new backpack. His mom was also thrilled that day, had a huge smile on her face the whole time and came up to me with that big smile and said “thank you very much”.





To learn more about Fields of Hope or subscribe to the newsletter, please visit their website www.fieldsofhope.net