friday in Gondar

Hello, all you LOVELY people!!!  Feel love from all of us here to you. 

We had an absolutely terrific night last night!  The theater was packed & it was a wonderful time!  We had some great worship in amharic, along with Tim & Shelley Jones leading the song “open the eyes of our heart Lord”. Our Global Expeditions team did a great skit to set up the sermon & Nick from GE & myself preached a message on seeing as Jesus sees.  At the end, we gave people the opportunity to receive Jesus & had well over 30 people respond, including a muslim gentleman.  After this, our team had the privilege of praying for the sick (after they had some training from Dr Ken).  It was truly an awesome evening!

Today, has been really busy!  This morning we broke into 2 groups:  our VBS group (Isabell stayed to help with the kids) & our tree planting group to help w reforestation.  I got to help out w this a little bit & met a 15 year old girl who has 8 bros & sis.  One of her sisters wasn’t able to finish 4th grade because she didn’t have enough paper & a pencil.  That was pretty rough for me.

After this, I had the privilege of interviewing the director for the orphanage where we’re staying & had an amazing time.  He explained all of the various things they have going on here & its incredible!  I was also able to visit twin girl babies who had been left on a trash heap who are now living in the orphanage.  I can’t tell you how this impacted me.  Maybe we can post a picture later.  This rocked me.

While we were touring the campus, some friends from mom was here 25 years ago popped up.  I had the privilege of eating lunch with them – Gedarif & Ethiopia.  Very lovely women.  We also had the honor to be part of the staff chapel for the orphanage (they have more than 70 employees). 

Tonight, we’re off to have some teaching w Dr Ken about healing the sick.  I’m excited for him to share this teaching w the Ethiopians, as I think this can have a revolutionary impact in this community!  Tomorrow, we have 2 services & it looks like Dr Ken & some workers will have the opportunity to visit a village of Ethiopian Jews – so that will be quite cool!!!

Thanks LOADS for praying!!!  We feel it & I know all the prayer is making a huge difference!

Prayer points:

1 – Great healings for this weekend (services at 10a & 4p on both Sat & Sun)

2 – favor & peace with the city

3 – health & unity for the team as we work together

4 – pls pray that I sleep through the night (I’ve been having a rough time w this)

THANKS again and again for reading & praying!!!!  God is doing some great things here!

 

ministry in Gondar

Thanks so much for all of the prayers & comments!!!  They are so encouraging & I’m passing along what you’re saying to the team, so everyone says THANKS!!!!  Lots of love from everyone here to everyone there! 

Ministry last night went really well!  We had worship Ethiopian style – which is cool to watch our teams sense the Holy Spirit regardless of the language gap.  A really powerful experience.  We had a stomp routine at the beginning of our message & then I shared about how God tests us to make gold.  My translator is AWESOME!  It’s the same flow that I had w the translator I had in Cambodia – what a special grace & gift!  At the end of the message, Zach Hilbrich prayed for everyone to engage with the testing process, AJ from Global Expeditions prayed for everyone to have a stronger prayer life & we finished in praying for each other.  It was GREAT!  We had around 1000-1500 in attendance & everything went smoothly.

Today, we had a blast having our VBS outside with the kids & it was wonderful!  We were able to minister to over 100 orphans in the place where we’re staying & they are all absolutely sweet & made me TOTALLY miss my boys!!!  Isabell is doing well & when I left to come write this blog, she was organizing hopscotch w Ellie Stanchak for the orphan kids – they were having a blast!  Today, I was also able to visit another school in the city whose children are from particularly impoverished backgrounds – we were able to distribute 500 backpacks & inside there was toothpaste w a toothbrush, paper, pencil, pen, soap & hair cream.  It was a really powerful experience!

Praise Jesus – our photographer, Janice Meyer, is here & she’s great!  Tonight, we have another meeting in the Cinema downtown, so please be praying for that to go smoothly & for God’s favor.  Nick from Global Expeditions will be sharing & probably tomorrow night Dr Ken will be speaking as well.

I know that pics would be a great bonus, but it’s a little trickey to do that, so be patient & totally put up lots when we get home. 

We’ve got some cool things cooking for tomorrow, so come back in the morning! 

prayer points:

1 – ongoing favor w political & religious ldrs & general society

2 – continued unity w Ethiopians & team from America

3 – wisdom on how to use our people resources most effectively