I Want to Know Your God

As I write this, and am overflowing with excitement! This story is incredible! Let me slow down and tell you from the beginning...

My wife and I visited this woman when we were in Sendafa in January. She and her husband have HIV and are currently on anti-retro viral drugs that we are providing to almost 500 people in the village of Sendafa. Their two children also have HIV.

She is a stay at home Mother and her Husband has no full time job. He works wherever and whenever he can find odd jobs to do. He also rents some weaving equipment and makes beautiful cloth (she is holding some in the picture), but he cannot afford the supplies that he needs to make enough to sell in the market.

Shortly after we left, the PAAV (Project Adopt a Villeage) staff contacted the man and told him that we could help him with a small business loan in order for him to purchase the weaving equipment (rather than rent it) and get enough supplies to begin weaving full time.

He was elated and immediately began weaving full time. He and his wife now sell his fabric in the market and make enough money to support their children comfortably. He has even been able to open a small savings account in the village's new bank and is making payments on his loan already. When he talked to Dr. Frew he said that he was so proud and happy "because my children are no longer hungry". (Bianca and I wept when we heard this)

But wait! ...it get's better! When Pastor Steve Almquist was telling us this story this morning he also shared the best part: Two week ago, as Dr. Frew was leaving the clinic, this man was waiting for him outside the gate. He said that he did not have an appointment, but wished to speak to him. He then thanked Dr. Frew for all that we had done to help him, and told him "I want to know your God. I want to worship the God that you worship. Please tell me about him." As Doctor Frew told the man about our God, he accepted the Lord as his Savior on the spot! He then asked the Doctor to come talk to his brother about Jesus too. The brother has not yet accepted Christ, but with our prayers and your prayers, I have a feeling that he will soon.

This family attended Church last Sunday for the first time in their lives and they plan on attending regularly. God is so good!

It is so encouraging to hear how God is working in the hearts of these people in our village of Sendafa, even while we cannot be there. Please join us in prayer that may Ethipian's will come to experience the over-whelming grace and love of God and will invite Him into their hearts.

God bless you, and God bless Sendafa!

This previously unreleased footage was shot and edited by Clifton Kern.

(see his website here)

Please keep your heart open while watching it.

God bless Sendafa.

Ethiopia Yearning...

I was just sitting here, minding my own business, when it hit me... hard. I miss Ethiopia so badly. The sounds, the sites, the smells, the foods, the scenery, but most of all, the people... especially the kids.

It could be any number of things that make me miss it so much. The slower pace lifestyle, the way people treat each other with respect and courtesy, the way the kids smile even though they have almost nothing, the way you are treated almost as a celebrity...

I guess now would be as good a time as ever to tell all of you that: WE ARE GOING BACK NEXT YEAR!!! I can't wait! I am willing to bet that our next trip is going to be even more amazing than the first. As far as I am concerned, the time can not pass fast enough.

It is not too soon to begin praying for our trip. We want God to use us in an even bigger way this year. I would also like you to consider supporting our trip. In a few months I will be putting up a donate button for contribution.



Thanks for reading, and don't forget to pray for Ethiopia!

New Slideshow

I hope you enjoy the pictures in the slideshow below. The song is "My Own Little World" by Matthew West.

God bless you and God bless Ethiopia.

Life Without Grandparents

Imagine your life without your grandparents. They may have passed on by now, but chances are you were able to spend time with them at some point. They held you on their laps, hugged you, and spoiled you.

Many kids in Ethiopia never even get to meet their grandparents. Why? Because the average life expectancy for a man in Ethiopia is only 52 years and for a woman it is 55 years. The main reason for this is sickness and HIV AIDS.

This is why the Adopt a Village program is so important. Our church is helping raise the standard of living in Sendafa, Ethiopia one person at a time. The clinic that is made possible through this funding helps dozens of people every day with a wide range of illnesses. We now have 500 women on our drug program who are receiving Anti-retroviral at no cost. In many cases, not only do these drugs extend their lives, but it allows them to become productive members of the town again.

 My hope and prayer is that through our support and love for the people of Sendafa, we will begin to see children with grandparents in the years to come.

God bless Ethiopia, and God bless Sendafa!

Defeating a pandemic one child at a time

-TWO MILLION PEOPLE die each year from AIDS.

-TWO MILLION children under age 15 are HIV-positive.

-ONE THOUSAND children become infected each day.

-NINE OUT OF TEN children who are affected by AIDS live in Africa.

(statistics from UNICEF)

Compassion's AIDS Initiative provides the following:

1. Prevention
-health and prevention education
-mother-to-child transmission prevention
-initial testing

2. Treatment
-transportation to and from clinics
aniretroviral therapy (ART) and other medicinal support
-combating opportunistic infections and diseases (TB, malaria, etc.)
-nutritional supplements to aid treatment.

3. Rehabilitative care
-direct, ongoing health monitoring
-housing/shelter assistance
-income-generation assistance

Visit Comppasion's AIDS Inititive website here and help create hope one child at a time today.

Even $5 per month can make a difference. I support this cause and I challenge you to do the same.
God Bless,
-Micah

Guest Writer - Dan Butera

 Dan Butera is a man that I met during my trip to Ethiopia. He and his wife are the hands and feet of the Lord every day as they care for the people of Ethiopia, specifically the poor women who are forced to earn a living by selling their bodies. Dan impressed me with his obvious passion for Ethiopia right away. He had a wealth of knowledge about the culture and history of the land and yes, he speaks the language. Please read about his story below, as written by him.

I live in Ethiopia. And it isn't weird for me. Though I sometimes wonder if it should be. I grew up in York, Pennsylvania and never moved outside of Pennsylvania until I moved here. Growing up in York, I didn't have any Ethiopian friends and I knew very little about Ethiopia itself. It wasn't something that I really ever thought about until one semester in college when I became friends with another student who just happened to be an Ethiopian. All throughout that semester I thought about Ethiopia and by the end of the semester it was largely dominating my thoughts. It was that following summer that I took my first trip here. I came with Living Word Church in York to work on their village adopting project. Even before I took that trip, I somehow knew that I would someday live in Ethiopia. This was only confirmed to me by the pilot's announcement when we landed in Addis Ababa. He said "For those of you who have a connecting flight, we wish you a safe rest of your journey. And for those of you who are coming home, welcome home." He didn't say anything about those of us who were just there for a trip. This may be a small and trivial thing, but I really felt like I was coming home. I clearly remember stepping out of the airport and the rest of that week. I fell in love with Ethiopia. I had found my home. 

Through the years I continued to come back to Ethiopia. Planning longer and longer trips each time. My love for Ethiopia grew more and more each time. I also fell in love with a woman over here (which made it much easier to make the move!). I met Ruth on my third trip to Ethiopia and we developed our friendship through email and the few times when I would make a trip here. We were married on November 28th, 2009 and couldn't be happier about it. Ruth has been an amazing support to me as I have dealt with all the issues that come with moving to a new country.

I was eager to find some way to help the poor and destitute. Each trip that I took to Ethiopia I stayed with my friend Dr. Frew, who also works with Living Word on their project. He has also worked on another project for a number of years called Operation Love Never Fails (OLNF). Each time I came here I learned more and more about that project and also grew closer with Frew. The OLNF offers a helping hand to women looking to get out of prostitution. The main area where the work is done is one of the worst red light districts in Addis Ababa. The women here live in such dire straits that it is incomprehensible. The get paid an average of fifteen US cents for every customer that comes by, the maximum that they will get paid is about one US dollar (and that is only when a guy decides to spend the night). Many of them have children, who are exposed to their mothers' work as they grow up - in fact, the children will often sleep on the top bunk of the bed while their mother works on the lower bunk. To make it all worse, their landlords charge them extremely high rent. We have heard of some women having to pay as much as three US dollars per day. You can do the math and figure out how many guys they need to be with each day just to pay the rent, let alone buying food and paying bills. Needless to say, these women work twenty-four hours per day and rarely ever get a break.

I had, of course, heard so many stories throughout my life about people who live in poverty and all of the problems that come with that. But I never fully understood what that looked like until I saw this red light district. I could never have imagined that a place with this much despair existed. I knew that this was the project that I wanted to help out with, quite possibly the very reason that I came to Ethiopia in the first place. I started to talk to Frew and figure out how I could best help him and support him. I quickly realized that the immediate need was financial. It is quite difficult to do fund raising in Ethiopia, so I looked to other options (such as raising money in the US). I set up a non-profit organization in the US called Fields of Hope. The sole purpose of this organization is to raise money for the Operation Love Never Fails project. We are nearly two years into this combined effort and have already seen a number of exciting things happen. 

For example, a few months ago we registered around forty children for school. This involved buying them all the necessary school supplies, buying their uniforms and paying their tuition. The coolest thing is that all of these children's mothers were previously working as prostitutes and now have other jobs. Not only that, but these children now have an opportunity in life. Far too often in that red light district the daughters of the women will start to work as prostitutes themselves, sometimes as young as seven years old! It was so amazing to see these children, with big smiles on their faces, standing next to their moms, who had a sense of relief on their faces. The children were wearing their uniforms and were so excited about their new school supplies. That is a moment that I can never forget!

I would really like to see this project expand. Actually, Frew and I have often talked of how amazing it would be if we could one day help every woman in that red light district and then close the place down. Right now, because of financial constraints, we are mainly focusing on helping the women in smaller ways. These ways include finding them some small jobs, providing them micro-loans, getting their children in school and various other ways that we can currently support them. It is our dream, however, to be able to open a number of social businesses with the sole intent of providing these women with fair wages so that they can fully support themselves and their families. One idea is to open a coffee shop/bakery. In Ethiopia, coffee shops are very much a part of the culture and people may even go to coffee shops a few times each day. It would be a very profitable business, which would allow the women to receive very fair salaries. It would also help to boost the confidence of these women, as they would have a well paying job that isn't so destructive as what they did before.

One other thing that I always try to do when I talk to people about Ethiopia is to break the stereotype about this country. Before I came here, I didn't know what to expect. I knew little more about Ethiopia than the famines and poverty. What I have come to learn since moving here is that it is such an amazing country. The nature is vast and incredible. There is a ton of water, in fact a large part of the Nile Basin is in Ethiopia. There are waterfalls and lakes. There are mountains. There are cold areas and hot (in Addis, where I live, the year round temperatures range between 45-90 degrees). It is an amazingly beautiful country right with history. A place definitely worth visiting in your life!

If you are interested in reading more about what we do or to stay up to date with the work that we are doing, please check out our website www.FieldsofHope.net

Thank you for your time,

Dan Butera

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 

The Children of Sendafa

 Another day in Nigeria the children beg for bread
The crops failed, the well ran dry
When they lost the watershed
A baby dies, its mother cries the children gather 'round

They're wondering what the day will bring
Will they be the next one found
Do you dare to look into their hollow eyes
In the crowded sheds the children lay their heads
To escape the Haitian heat

The hunger pains drive them to the street
Wondering if today they'll eat
Some found food in the refuse heap
Others find disease

Some find it harder just to live
When they can die with ease
Do you dare to look into their hollow eyes

The least of these is hungry
The least of these is sick
The least of these needs clothing
The least of these needs drink

The least of these knows sorrow
The least of these knows grief
The least of these suffers pain

Lyrics from "Hollow Eyes" by Petra - describing the life of children in third world countries and challenging us to do something about it.



Click here to hear the song on Youtube.

Day 5- Completing Projects and Sharing a Bond

Ethiopian Praise

This morning Mike Parthree invited a group of young people from Ethiopian Outreach Ministries (EOM) to lead worship for us at our morning devotions. They sang two traditional Ethiopian praise songs, and then we all joined in on the last song in English. It was so powerful to be on the 7th floor of the hotel, viewing the entire city, and the sun came up, and praising God with these brothers and sisters from halfway around the world. I could almost imagine God looking down and smiling and nodding His head. (I bet He was tapping His foot too)

I felt privileged to work with these men.

Back in the village, we headed back to the water tank to wrap up the structure. The concrete was cured, and the mason had cemented in the main support poles for each corner. A few minutes after we arrived, the mason arrived with a crew of two men and a woman (the same woman who helped him with the cement a couple days ago)

No girlie-men here!

We got right to work putting up the rest of the frame and cutting everything to length. None of the workers spoke English, but it was fun communicating with them non-verbally. We all had a common purpose in mind, and by the time the project was complete, we had a sort of bond between us.

The completed structure atop the water tank.

We finished putting the last piece of steel up just after noon or so. It felt so good to have completed the project. Even though we would not be installing the actual chlorinating system on this trip, we were so much closer to accomplishing that goal than we were five days ago. As I looked around at the Ethiopian workers, I knew that they had the same sense of pride and accomplishment in a job well done as we did. I didn't need to speak their language to see that. We said our goodbyes to the construction crew after giving them all of the snacks and water that we had with us, and headed back to the Sendafa Hotel to meet the rest of the team for lunch.

Dr. Frew had left in his truck to bring out team leader to a meeting, so we walked back. It was about a half mile walk, and we really enjoyed it. Walking down a dusty road under the bright sun, sharing smiles and waves with kids as we pass by... there's nothing like it.

Dr. Frew Tangene and I

Later that night at dinner with Dr. Frew and his staff, I had to opportunity to learn a lot more about his program that ministers to prostitutes in the red light district of Addis Ababa. He helps them with vocational training so that they can get new jobs, and helps with tuition so that their children can get a good education and not have to resort back to that way of living. I will tell you more about the ministry in another blog. Dr. Frew is a good man, and I enjoyed getting to know him this week.

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?