Join us on June 28th from 4-6 pm in the old auditorium to hear testimonies from the Zeway Vision Team. We'll also treat you to some tastes of Ethiopia: food, coffee, cultural knick-knacks, and a children's choir!

We'd love to share more with you on how God is moving at Grace and in Zeway!

Amazing Opportunity

Reflecting on this trip to Zeway. . . What an amazing opportunity. An opportunity to be part of this ministry. An opportunity to be a part of a sending church. An opportunity to go to Zeway, Ethiopia, to work alongside Food for the Hungry. An opportunity to serve child headed households.

This amazing opportunity has changed.

After being there, seeing the needs, holding children, talking to Muslim and Christian leaders alike about orphans, hearing children request basic needs, seeing children do more in their households than an adult would do . . . this opportunity has turned into a responsibility.

Not one to hold as a heavy burden, but one to praise God for his allowing us to be involved and to share with others and to have others share the blessing.

A responsibility given by the Lord is a blessing.

Meeting Ibsa

May 26th, 2009
Zeway, Ethiopia

Joanna, Tom, Jake, Drew, and I drove only a short distance from the FH (food for the hungry) compound to meet Ibsa.

Upon meeting Ibsa, I first noticed his bright white shirt, clean jeans, and leather shoes. He took us into his little room. There javascript:void(0)was a twin-sized foam pad in his room with about 2 feet of floor space in front of the pad and about 8 inches of floor space on one side. Maybe a few books by his bedside.

Ibsa had received this new mattress and new clothes through money from the Show Me Zeway project.

I took a quick glance of the courtyard behind me before entering the tiny room. There were several surrounding buildings including one 2-story building. It seems like it was all made of concrete. This multi-structure compound with center courtyard use to be Ibsa's family's house until his parents died. He now rents out the small room for $5 a month (one of the highest rents we heard of)

Ibsa invited us in and we all crammed in. I stood next to him. We started with some questions and had them translated by his social worker. There were a lot of awkward pauses. It was all astounding to take in. Here was the boy from the other side of the world who I had prayed for for over 9 months. He was one of the several from the pictures we received that pulled my heartstrings extra hard. It was his prayer request that got me: "Pray that someone would be my family."

He was timid and he answered questions as quietly and quickly as possible. Undoubtedly a very intimidating situation. I felt like we crammed him into a little room and snapped interrogation lights on.

We shared with him the pictures of the people of Grace in their Zeway t-shirts. This seemed to lighten things up a bit as we all started speaking a little more naturally.

I saw on his wall, written in English, "The Lord is my shepherd" I asked Ibsa who wrote this and he said he did. I asked him what it meant to him and he said, "The Lord is my shepherd. He watches over me."

I responded, " Me too. The Lord is my shepherd too. In some way we are both sheep in the same flock and we have the same shepherd watching over us."

He smiled. But not particularly moved.

I walked away not being overly emotional. I'm not sure why except I may have still been in a daze asking the question to myself, "Where am I?"

I did walk away a little concerned that we hadn't connected with Ibsa. Not knowing if it was circumstances ( a bunch of white adults staring at a teenager) or due to Ibsa's life circumstances, perhaps he had trouble connecting with people. Just couldn't read the situation.

But the emotion did come finally. It brought me great joy and hope to see Ibsa come meandering down the street to the FH compound where we were all hanging out. With his new clothes on, a smirk on his face and his nonchalant walk, he could have been any other teenage boy. A green screen behind him, and he could have been transported to the campus of Grace.

He sidled up to Tom and let Tom put his arm around him for at least 30 minutes. I think Tom dared not move as to lose the moment with this orphaned boy from Zeway. I hoped Tom wouldn't move either as I enjoyed watching the quiet affection between them.

-A Journal Excerpt

How Did You Not Bring One Home?

This is a question we have gotten many times since our return from Ethiopia:
"How did you not bring one of those orphans home with you?" And frankly, it
was a question we asked ourselves before going to Zeway.

Certainly there is the fact that a person can't just decide to adopt any
child, even an orphaned child. There is a legal process, inter-country
agreements, immigration details, country laws and regulations-all of which
guarded our hearts somewhat of falling in love with a particular child.

But there is more to it than that as to why we didn't walk away only wanting
to adopt children. God gave us a bigger vision than just our own personal
family growth. He led us down a path of seeing a bigger solution than just
the rescue and adoption of one child. He led us to desire community with
the people of Zeway to grow their hearts and means to be guardians of these
children. We are not sure what this looks like yet. Rarely does God give a
person or team the entire blueprint of his plan. Often He unfolds it slowly
over time. We are not sure exactly what this looks like, but what we do
know is that we don't feel like that was the last trip the people of Grace
are to take to Zeway.

Forgive Us For Not Posting More

We have lots of excuses as to why we did not post more during our trip.

The Ethiopian infrastructure can hardly handle 24 hour electricity. It would often go out at least once a day. Water was the same way-- even in the capital city of Addis Ababa.

So you can imagine that internet connections were occasional at best.

Another excuse we have for not posting more was time. Our schedules were packed from 7 am until 9 pm. We had full days.

But probably our best excuse is that describing our experiences with words is difficult. Many of the team members had intentions of journaling daily, and most of us had days in which we stared at our pens poised at paper unable to begin processing our thoughts to words. Our typical vernacular seemed weak and inaccurate to describe the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings we were surrounded by each day.

So forgive us for our delayed postings on the blogsite. Even days after we return we are still processing all that we learned and experienced.

I often remembered the verse from Mark 9:37 when we were visiting the children. In Mark, Jesus says "whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me. . . " So in a way we had 2-3 appointments with Jesus each day we were in Zeway. This type of experience does leave one speechless.

We will fill in the spaces and tell more of our trip so please keep checking our blog. We'll also be telling more and sharing with you Ethiopian food, entertainment, and their culture on June 28th from 4-6 pm in the old worship center at Grace. Mark your calendars for this!

We're Home!

The Zeway Team is home and well. After 24 hours of travel from Ethiopia, we are all tired, ready for a shower, and needing some catch-up sleep. Our flights went smoothly, and God was clearly watching over us. More pictures and updates to come after we decompress a little . Please continue to pray for a couple of members who are battling some mild illness, and please also pray for protection and guidance over the next few days of re-adjusting and working through our emotions and the trip’s impact on our team.

 

This picture is of one of the orphan-headed household families we visited.

 

Matt and the Zeway Team

Zeway team is headed home! All is well. Can't wait to share everything. Please pray for safe travels the next 24 hours...

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