Heart for Ethiopia

2008 was great!!!

2009-01-04T07:34:00.002-07:00

A lot happened during 2008 in Ethiopia. The Addis Kidan Baptist Church bought property on the west edge of Addis Ababa and constructed a small temporary office building. Now they can use the money they would have paid for rent to save toward a permanent building. They are hoping others will help them so that they can build fairly soon. The office is the hub for their work with 70 churches and 23 preaching points all over Ethiopia.

They have now drilled 21 wells in rural villages. People have said that it is "holy water" because they don't get sick any more. Their flat injera bread has turned from brown to white due to the absence of mud in it. With the help of Baptist World Alliance and Cooperative Baptists they got a new double cab pickup with cover on the back to use for the project. Before they only had one vehicle and could only go out when the car was not in use. That should mean that a lot more wells will be drilled in 2009.

The two guest houses are serving many people and the proceeds are helping support development work throughout the country. We went to Ethiopia three times this year and we always enjoy meeting the people who are staying there. Some are adopting children, some are on mission trips, and some are coming as tourists.

In October Ermias, the general secretary of Addis Kidan for 5 years, and his wife Mulu emigrated to the U.S. with their two children. He is studying nursing at Hardin Simmons University in Abilene. That is 3 hours from Desoto so we have seen them several times.

The new director Kifle, a high school teacher for 20 years, became the general secretary in Ermias' place. We have enjoyed getting to know him and his family and helping him get acquainted with the denomination.

We are happy to report that Gary and Becky Threatt are in Ethiopia working with Addis Kidan Church for a year. Becky grew up in Ethiopia with our children and her father John Cheyne helped start Baptist mission work there. She is a nurse and her husband is a pastor. They spent a term as missionaries in Menz with their 3 children and then returned to the states. We invited them to a 2 week meeting at 5 places in Menz last May. They had such a great experience that they decided to ask their church for a sabbatical leave so that they could help Addis Kidan for a year.

Anthony Mathenia also comes out to train 72 evangelists 3 times a year. When the training is complete they will go in pairs to plant churches in 36 new areas.

Our village children sponsorship program has helped 250 children in 5 villages. We have provided food for the families and clothing and shoes for the children. A number of churches have provided kindergarten for children who haven't yet started school in order to teach them the basics. Some of the children are as old as 10. Many are orphan vulnerable as their parents have the AIDS virus. They hope to start more kindergartens this year.

So you can see that it has been a fruitful year. We are excited to see what the Lord will do in the coming year.

Two Guesthouses as of March 2008

2008-03-28T06:53:00.001-07:00

There are now two guest houses across the street from each other in order to accomodate more guests. The guest house email is akguesthouse@yahoo.com . The guest house telephone is 01137124338 and the mobile phone is 0911648567. (Those are the incountry numbers. You need the number to dial out of the U.S. plus the country code in front of those) Alayu is the guest house manager and he speaks English. His mobile phone is 0912037409. He is willing to meet people at the airport and take them to the guest house in a rented taxi. We are in Ethiopia part of the time at the guest house and can be reached at rayandlauralee@gmail.com if you have questions. We welcome you and your adopted children in our guest house. Lauralee Lindholm

2008-01-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

We have gotten great news! God has answered our prayers. Heart for Ethiopia is a finalist in the Ebay Giving Works contest. It is for Ebay buyers and sellers who donate some or all of their profits to charity. We had to make a 60 second video clip which was quite a task but Uli did a great job. Three winners will receive $5000 for their charity. Winners will be chosen by vote of the Ebay members. You can vote every day from January 11 to 28. In case you don't recognize me, our clip is the second of 4 in the non-profit organization line. Please vote often and email your friends to vote. You can see the clips at http://ebay.promotionexpert.com/givingworks/vote/index.html.

Another praise is that the well drilling is going forward. Ermias wrote that two wells were drilled the first week of January."This week was a week of digging. The second water well which we dug at Awash Belo in Ato Sorsa's compound has attracted the attention of the community. All the communtiy are using only that well for drinking. The chairman of the kebele (commune) has called me so many times and begged us to go and asked us excuse them for their first misinterest."

"Yesterday I was there to dig the second well in this week. I saw a lady was taking water from a hand dug well. I went to her and I saw the well. It fell in on all sides but in the middle it had water. I saw the water and it was not clean. I asked her what they are using it for. She replied that they use it for cooking. When I asked about drinking she said, 'There is one water pipe in our community. We use that for drinking.' The water she speaks about was the one we dug before. Ato Sorsa's wife also said 'It is holy water. Since the time we got this water all our family has become healthy. We are grateful for your helping us to have this water.'

We have lots to be thankful for. Thursday January 17, we go to Ethiopia. Please pray for us and go and vote.

In His Hands, Lauralee and Ray

2007-11-29T04:23:00.000-07:00

Christmas 2007

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We wish you Christmas blessings of love and joy and hope for the New Year.

This has been a year of passages for us. Twice we crossed the world to visit our beloved Ethiopia. We are so blessed to be able to watch what God is doing there and to have a hand in it. Our non-profit Heart for Ethiopia is growing steadily. It is providing funds for development, well drilling, and village children sponsorships. All of the development is done through the rural churches and they are growing and people are coming into the kingdom.

Our online Ebay and Amazon bookstore fills our house and our time. Lauralee organizes, lists and prints shipping labels and Ray manages storage and packs for shipment. It is still fun and we get lots of donations. It is always exciting to come across a treasure. Best book so far was a history of Ellis County signed by 4 authors for $140.

In August my step-dad died at age 91 in Hemet, CA. I have made 4 trips out since July to move him to a full care facility and then to settle his affairs. I need to return once more after the court approves the trust.
In September we celebrated 50 years of marriage. We had a wonderful celebration with family from far-flung places like Yemen and Hawaii. We went to Fossil Rim game park and spent a night in their elegant lodge.

In November my dad died at age 91. He was upbeat right to the end and we miss him in our home. He was here for 2 years. We know he is now singing in the heavenly choir.

We plan to return to Ethiopia for another visit in January. You can keep up with us at www.heart-for-ethiopia.blogspot.com. If you would like to get our emails and pictures from Ethiopia, email us at rayandlauralee@gmail.com.

In His Hands, Ray and Lauralee

What is happening at Holle Sire

2007-04-29T13:08:00.000-07:00

Holle Sire is located in the Western part of Ethiopia 130 miles from Addis Ababa, the capital. The regional government considers it as the remotest part of the region. All the community in the area are farmers.

In the area there is one wizard. He is worshiped by most of the people. He almost rules the area. He has 12 wives and one of them is his own sister. He has more than one hundred children. Currently such witch doctor activity is viewed as an Oromo traditional religion and is authorized by the Oromia regional government, by calling it waqa feta. It is considered as one of the religions like Christianity and Islam.

The wizard, by having political support, economical power and religious followers in the area, has become like a king of the area. Two months ago I was there to visit churches. We have six churches in that area. One of them was facing persecution at that time. They received land from the local government and started building a church. While they were in the middle of building, the government officials came to them and commanded them to stop work. They even ordered them to dismantle what they had already built. When they asked why, the officials told them that it is the territory of the wizard. Fortunately I was able to speak to the district officials in the village. They had a big meeting with the village leaders. I had a good discussion with them. After that they allowed them to continue building the church and stopped the wizard from bothering Christians in the area. But actually he continued his bad activity against church plantings.

Three years ago God opened the door wide to planting churches in the middle of this situation and to winning people for Christ. God has used people of the area for the evangelization of the community. One person came to Addis Ababa to seek a better life. He was hired as a guard in one of our local churches, Mekanisa Addis Kidan Baptist Church. Our Lord Jesus Christ touched his life and he became converted. God also burdened him to evangelize his community. He decided to spend his off times from his work with his village people. While doing that on several trips the community observed his life change and he got their attention. He preached the gospel and won energetic passionate leaders of the community. Currently there are six churches around the area with a total membership of 700 baptized, 1500 children, as well as many non-baptized people.

Abebe Lechisa, the chair person of the village, was one of the first converted people. He has taken the lead in the evangelization of the area. He is not only the leader of the community, but he is also a man who is in a good economic situation. He has a grain grinding mill which works by diesel. Since the day of his conversion he has given all his life for Christ. The church started gathering in his house. Whenever guests went to that community he is the one who hosts the guests in a good way. He travels in the neighborhood and tells the gospel to his people, encourages new believers, and protects the churches from any attack. In my observation he is a key person for that area work.

Satan is working currently to paralyze the work of Holle Sire. As a strategy he targets brother Abebe to discourage him. Ten days ago they had a spiritual conference and a wedding in a neighboring church of Holle Sire. All believers of the six local churches gathered in that church. They invited all the non-believing community and all attended the program. They even showed the Jesus film by TV and a DVD player with the use of a generator. Not only the believers, but also all the non-believing community members were so excited about the conference. Many people accepted Jesus as their personal savior. All the community came, even the main people of the wizard. Abebe was the leader of all this activity. On the last day, last Thursday, they all went to their houses. Abebe arrived at 9:00 pm. He was tired so he was quickly in a deep sleep.

Abebe heard loud shouts around 3:00 am. Since he was tired he felt as if he was in a dream. The shouting increased. He heard a big knock on his door. He woke up and jumped up from his bed. His father called him and informed him that something was burning around their grinding mill. When they arrived there, they found all the community trying to stop the fire. Everything was almost burned up by the fire by that time. They tried with all their effort to stop it but they couldn’t do it since there is no source of water in the village. The fire burned the grinding mill and the property. They lost everything in a few hours. The machine, the house and other properties are worth about 65,000 Ethiopian Birr which is $7,500. They are farmers so it is a huge amount of money for them.

I was there yesterday to visit and encourage them and all the believers in the area. Both Abebe and his father said, “It is not the property we feel sad about but why the people do this while we are doing good for them.”

All the community gathered together and discussed it. All of them were weeping and were saying, “It is not only Abebe and his father’s property. It is ours. People who did this are our enemies.”

We encouraged them with the word of God to be strong in the Lord while they are in such a hard situation. We also encouraged them that God could return what they lost in his own ways. Their plan now is to reinstall another machine if God provides a way and continue their commitment for the Lord. Abebe suspects the wizard did it by hiring another person.

I asked them to make a brief survey about the price to reinstall the machine. The total price needed is 30,000 Ethiopian Birr which is $3500.

Encouraging Abebe is encouraging Holle Sire area work, hastening the evangelization of that area, and delivering all that area from the bondage of the devil. Pray for him, tell other people about him, and do whatever God shows you to encourage him.

Ermias Zenebe
General Secretary, Ethiopian Addis Kidan Baptist Church.

2007-01-16T20:33:00.000-07:00

Mission Trip Report of 5 Addis Kidan leaders

Dates December 19-25, 2006

We left Addis Ababa early Tuesday morning and arrived at Durame around 5:00 pm. Two of the team members were left at Durame to encourage the work we started last year. The other three team members went on to Welayita Sodo. We have land and a building for the church in that town. We assigned an evangelist to evangelize the community. But the work is big and we always face a struggle. The evangelist had problems and we talked and prayed with him about them.

Wednesday we started the engine at 5:30 am and arrived at Durame around 7:00 am. We met with the two team members, had breakfast together and went to Mudula. At Mudula all the zonal leaders and four local church leaders were waiting for us. As soon as we arrived, we started training. We taught them about servant leadership, leaders and prayer, leaders and reading, the cost of leadership, the importance of leaders as examples in giving, and the responsibilities of leaders. In addition to this we had discussions on different issues such as the proper use of spiritual gifts. After completing the training, Ermias, Alem, and Elias went to Orcha which is about 25 miles west of Mudula. It is a place where lions have eaten many people. We showed the Jesus film to about 1500 people. We spent the night in the church building and they fed us.

Thursday we came back to the Zeldema zone. Zonal leaders and leaders from 10 local churches were waiting for us. We gave them the same training. They chose Gomisa to show the Jesus film. All the area is countryside. Gomisa is a 45 minute walk from Zeldema and the topography of the area is ups and downs. They carried all the important equipment for the Jesus film on their shoulders. The generator weighs about 100 lbs. We showed the film to about 500 people.

On Friday all of the team members went to where they were assigned. Ermias and Alem went to the Tunto zone. At Tunto the zonal leaders and the leaders from six local churches were waiting for us. Ermias visited one of the local churches which had a problem with one of the zonal leaders. Then Ermias went to Hadiya to continue the same work in the Otoro zone and the Gimbichu zone. Alem was to teach two local churches on Sunday in Kembata. For that reason Alem stayed at Tunto and trained the leaders on that day while Ermias went to Hadiya.

The Kembata team could not work on Saturday because of the big market at Hadero. Everyone in the Kembata area went to that market. But the Hadiya team worked all that day. They went to the local churches they had been assigned and taught the members about giving based on 1 Cor. 8:9 and other relevant Bible passages. Ermias started for Otoro to do leadership training and show the Jesus film. On the way the vehicle faced a problem. The gear shift worked but the car did not move according to the gear position. He tried many solutions but none worked. Finally he decided to continue on foot to show the Jesus film to the community. He hired one person to guard the vehicle for the night and all the equipment was carried by the passengers on their shoulders. We walked about 1 1/2 hours to get to Otoro. We have one local church there. That day was market day. We set our screen up in the middle of the market place during the day. It became an advertisement. Approximately 5,000 people saw the Jesus film. The Jesus film was new in all the places we showed it. Altogether 7000 people saw the film.

Sunday was the last day of the mission trip. All of the team members at Hadiya and Kembata went to the local churches they had been assigned and taught the members about giving. Ermias was focused on the vehicle maintenance. The final solution was to load the vehicle on an Isuzu truck and take it to Nyala Motors, the dealer in Addis. We walked about 40 miles to get the truck.

Challenges
Because of the vehicle problem Ermias could not do the leaders training at Otoro and Gimbichu zones in Hadiya.
Alem was sick at Hadero. Because of that he could not teach at the two local churches where he was supposed to teach.

2006-12-13T07:40:00.000-07:00

Report of Shakisso area visit by 3 Addis Kidan Baptist Church leaders

November 23, 2006

Purposes of the trip
Encourage local churches to reach their own community
Encourage the three new preaching points and new believers
Assist in solving a problem in Kibre Mengist

We started driving at 6:00 am from Addis Ababa. When we arrived at the church, the congregation was worshiping God. There were about 60 people. They told us that in addition to the Sunday worship they have a worship service every Wednesday. After the worship service we greeted all the members and had a meeting with the leaders. They told us that they have won ten miners for Christ in the past few months. Then we drove to Reji, where we started new work and evangelist Getu is assigned.

At Reji we met with Getu and his new disciple named Tagesse. He renewed his relationship with Christ a few months ago with the help of Evangelist Getu. His home area is at Hadiya about 250 miles from Shakisso. The reason he came to Reji was for mining work. He said “I used to worship God when I was at my home area. But when I came here I lost everything in relation to God. I used to drink a lot. But Getu told me about the saving work of Jesus Christ and I decided to come back to the Lord’s house. When I made that decision my life style changed. In addition to his spiritual ministry Getu is helping me manage the money I get from mining.” We had a good discussion time about strengthening the work started in that area.

The next morning we woke up early and had a meeting with Shakisso church leaders and some of the new converts. We heard the testimonies of four of the new converts.

One of the purposes of the trip was to encourage the new preaching points. On Thursday morning we went to Zenbaba and spent two hours with the believers. Eleven new coverts were baptized after completing five months of discipleship class. Now 10 new converts are attending the discipleship class. What impressed us highly in Zenbaba was that after the Sunday morning worship service the believers regularly go on foot for 1 1/2 hours to evangelize the community. Two families have come to Christ through this ministry. Now the total membership is 46 including children.

At 4:30 we returned to Kebre Mengist and spent two hours resolving a little conflict between the leaders related to the new mission site. The new mission site has demanded the evangelist’s time and finances and hurt the Kebre Mengist work a little. Finally we advised them not to stretch beyond their capacity and to use their resources wisely.

The work is growing. Shakisso was the first but now the other four areas have been added. So we had to organize a committee to follow up on the work closely. We discussed with them the importance of having one committee who will encourage, correct and organize the overall miners’ evangelization of that area. They all agreed and have chosen four leaders.

At noon we began the long journey over the difficult road to Haremfama. We drove 100 miles toward Awassa and turned right and drove 75 more miles to Haremfama. It got dark. The road was new for us and was under construction. It was not easy to drive. At 8:00 P.M. we arrived at a small city and spent the night after accepting the advice we got there not to go to Haremfama at night for our safety. We were extremely tired. Early the next morning at 6:00 a.m. we began driving to Haremfama. After driving three miles we found two trucks stuck in the mud. We stopped there for an hour to assist them. Then we continued on our way over bad muddy roads for 19 more miles. After crossing five bridges made of logs we arrived at our destination at 11 a.m. After a short lunch break we went to the government office to tell them about our vision and to request land for a church building. They welcomed us and agreed with us on our vision. In the afternoon we spent time with the church members. We prayed together, shared God’s word, and encouraged them to stand firm in their faith and to evangelize their community.

At night we showed the Jesus film to the whole community. More than 1500 people attended the film program in their local language, Oromipha. About 50 people decided to accept Jesus as their personal savior.

The next morning 19 new converts got baptized. About 40 were ready for water baptism but we were in hurry to leave Haremfama before the rain came. Evangelist Fikru and the leader of Kibre Mengist baptized them the next day.

In our opinion, in spite of the difficult road, our trip was very important to encourage evangelism and church planting. God’s kingdom is growing fast, beyond our expectation.

By Alem Kidane Evangelism and Church Planting Coordinator and Ermias Zenebe General Secretary of Addis Kidan Baptist Church

2006-11-07T05:18:00.000-07:00

We have chosen a new way to communicate in this wonderful technological Alice in Wonderland world. Amazing!!! Now we can post letters and pictures from Ethiopia and anyone can view them, even if they have slow or small email capabilites. In fact, they don't even need email. I will just drop you a note when new blogs are posted.

God has really been at work since we came home 3 weeks ago. Our non-profit Heart for Ethiopia was approved by the U.S. government as a 501(c)(3) organization. That means that all donations are tax deductible. This was the result of the work of a wonderful board of 8 volunteers who worked hard to formulate a constitution, by-laws, fill out paperwork, etc.

A major focus of Heart for Ethiopia is child sponsorships. In October Ray and I took pictures of 50 children in each of 5 remote mountain towns north of Addis Abeba. Churches were begun in each of these towns at the time of Southern Baptist famine relief work. The believers are strong but the churches have remained small as these areas are almost entirely Orthodox or Moslem. The church members chose the 50 neediest children they could find in their communities. The average income of a rural family is $10 per month. Because of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Ethiopia there are many orphans or orphan vulnerable children who have a parent who is HIV positive. Most orphans live with some relative but this often puts a big strain on the family--especially if the relative is an elderly grandparent.

Child sponsorship helps children go to school and get medical care. It helps feed and educate families. Sponsorship is implemented through the churches. They receive the money each month and buy uniforms, notebooks, clothes, shoes, medical care for the child, and provide grain and other basic food for the family. They also give regular classes to the parents on health, sanitation, child care, and much more. Most of all they show Christian love in a very practical way. Typically about half of the children and their families become believers and contributing church members. For $27 a month you can save the life of a child.

Also my bookstore on Ebay has been certified by Mission Fish Giving Works as a nonprofit organization. All of the proceeds go to Heart for Ethiopia. Our house has bookcases on nearly every wall and business is good. Many people have donated books and those I buy are very cheap. God is blessing the business. Listing and shipping keeps both of us busy. One side of the garage is full of books ready to be listed. That is a good project for cold winter months when there are no garage sales.

Ethiopian Addis Kidan Baptist Church has a web page too. Links to all of these web sites are at the right. Soon I will post previous emails and pictures.