Ethiopia Update
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Ethiopia Update
12 Jun 2008
Hello, we thank you so much for your continual prayers for us, Grace and the work being done here.
We have had a couple of great months, so firstly we have to give God the praise for many things.
Firstly, the Salvation of one of our mothers in the project. She was the mother that we wrote about in our last update who had recently found out she and her son had HIV. Just last month she was lead to the Lord. Now she is a child of God and she carries her Saviors blood in her veins, we continue to believe for her and her sons healing and restoration for their lives! Hers was the first Salvation so a real break through and we believe the first of many, many more. Please pray for complete health and healing for her son Haimanot as he spent the last 2 weeks in hospital with chicken pox and has lost a lot of weight.
We finally got our land finalized! This is very exciting as it has taken many, many months (as a lot of things in Ethiopia). To celebrate the day the kids and I, Marcie and her kids all headed down to OUR land to celebrate by flying kites…mind you it wasn’t only us there but about 50 other children who regularly play on that field. They had never seen kites before so it was very excited for them all. Lydia and Josh remember the afternoon as ‘wonderful!’ despite the moments of pinching from the over excited children.
I just celebrated my 30th last week, thank you Amanda and DC girls for the beautiful card, jewelery, DVD etc, it was SO unexpected and made me feel very special being so far away, so thank you again my friends, and thanks Georgie for the phone call, it was so nice to talk to you.
Thank you to the wonderful people who gave towards the startup kits in the last couple of months, we have been able to buy four kits and have given these mothers hope for their future and something more to smile about…we will send you a photo soon of the mother you helped and the difference you made. Thank you, (if you don’t get the photo, email us and remind us!)
This month we are starting our self sufficient ministry which is exciting. We have some mothers who find it hard to find work, for what ever reason, whether they are sick, have a disability or attend day school and need the extra money to get by. We are buying them some materials to start them off in their own business. For example, we have a mother who has been sick and is being shunned by the community she is in and lost her previous job because of her HIV status. We will set her up with straw and she will weave baskets, the baskets are not in high demand and will only sell at market for about 2-3birr each (30cents), so we will buy them from her for a higher price to help her be self sufficient, we will then sell them to foreigners who are visiting the centre and fund raise in Australia too, raising money for Grace. We are also doing this for a mother of 3 who has bad Elephantiasis in the feet. Also a young mother who works only part time and attends school the other half of the day, she makes beautiful handbags weaved from coloured plastic, all of the children of these mothers attend our Day Care here at Grace or are on the waiting list.
It has been so wonderful to have mum here. She had planned to stay longer but could only get a 3 month extension on her visa, so we flew to Kenya last month to renew her visa and add an extra 3 months onto her trip. We have all so loved her being here these last 5 months, she is ‘mum’ to all the girls, it has been so great to have her here with all our 4 children, she is wonderful at making bottles for all our babies, making sure we have enough clean water to drink, keeping the stock of dry nappies up, and keeping me sane J, it will be a lot harder with out her here, she has been so great. Although the work here is 7 days a week and long hours her and I are hoping to get away for a few days before she goes home when we have some Australians come for a few months from August.
Last month also saw a visit from representatives of the Attorney General’s office in Australia. They were in Ethiopia regarding the Australian-Ethiopian Adoption program and had heard of the work that we are doing here. They especially made time to visit Bahir Dar for a day specifically to see what really happens in a children’s care facility in Ethiopia. It was a great honor for us, and we praise God for this amazing opportunity.
One of the schools on the coast, St Stephens (4 students and 1 teacher) are making there 2nd trip to Ethiopia (different students and teacher- same school involved) in the last couple of years to do aid work, lead by our friend Leith, they will mostly spend their time here at Grace, they will have a few other people attending the trip including Steph who spent many months here last year volunteering in Grace and supervising our kids schooling. There are also some new friends, including a 10yr old girl for Lydia to have some ‘serious girl time’ withJ. It will be great to be reunited with our friends again and use the extra hands.
With over 20 children now in our transitional and temporary care home (living with us full time) life just seems to be getting busier. Our feeding program is feeding over 40 families a day. Whether or not you have heard about the famine happening in Ethiopia, we can see the effects in the lives of the people here, price rises on food and much less work available. There is a look of desperation in peoples faces, hopelessness, a real concern in their eyes about what the future holds for them in Ethiopia. There is not a famine in Bahir Dar but it is so much harder than it used to be, soon the people may start coming from out side the city, from the country side looking for food. It used to be that providing Day Care for a mother, enabling her to work was enough to make her self sufficient, enabling her to provide for her family, now these same mothers are coming to us crying, saying it is too hard, they don’t have enough at the end of the month to feed their child. This we are finding frustrating because it feels like we are buying them the ‘fishing rod’, teaching them to fish, but then go and buy the fish for them from the market anyway, making our efforts completely useless…but in reality, there really isn’t enough and these mothers work 6 days a week, mostly hard labour doing construction work and don’t earn enough to pay rent on their house (less than $10 a month) and food (about $30 a month). What we are doing is helping, and it would be almost impossible for them if they didn’t have us, it’s just hard helping as much as we do, and still seeing so much need… the reality of living in a third world country. What a different world we live in, a different world.
We recently had a mother come with her 3 year old son. He had fallen into a fire about a year and a half ago and still had not recovered, the side of his head was badly infected, both his hands had melted skin covering his distorted fingers. Our nurse, Sr Mulunesh, immediately insisted that we take him too the pediatrician in town and he has spent more than 2 weeks there now. His mother came to us with no money, she was robbed of everything she had as she stepped off the bus when she came to town, so we are paying for all his medical costs, and we bring him food every day and will set them up in a small house in our area so he can come each day for medical treatment at our clinic. His progress in such a short time has been so wonderful. In August a hospital in opening in Addis that may be able to do corrective surgery on his hands so he will be able to hold a pencil and learn to write and go to school soon. So we are looking into that.
I know that this is becoming another long email, but before we finish, just wanted to share another couple of great stories of what has been happening. We had a baby left here by his mother a few months back, the mother promising to complete relinquishment through court. She returned months later ready to complete the process but asked that her and the father see him one last time. When I brought him out to them, they both just started balling their eyes out, the love was so very obvious for this little boy. That day they made the decision to get back together, move to our area and have the child back with them as a family! He attends our day care, is happier than ever, and Dad is the proudest dad at pick up time I have ever seen!
We are just about to start our next training session for new nannies, this is one of the tasks that Leith has come for as she is very experienced in this area and ran our last training and did such an great job. Two weeks ago we put out a notice for interested women to come and fill in an application. In the first three days we had over 500 applicants! We had originally planed to have it open for 1 week but had to quickly close off applicants after the three days! Now from the 500 we are picking 60 for the training program, half of which will go one to work for us now or in the future. Of the 33 we trained last time we have about 25 working for us now. The training is perfect timing for Grace Day Care babies separating from our transitional children.
We look forward to the next couple of months, our volunteers coming, taking on new workers, and loving on the people coming through our gates each day.
Prayer Points;
Continual protection for our family, Marcie’s family and all of our Grace Children, families and employees.
Wisdom for us in all of our decision making concerning the families and children we are dealing with daily.
Healing for Marcie as she recovers from Typhus and Tonsillitis.
Salvations, Healing and wholeness the families in our project, opportunities and openness to minister to them.
That God blesses our children and mothers spirit, soul and body and meets their every need.
Wisdom, favour and Gods timing (and patience as the need and our timing is ‘now’) concerning a new property/s to extend and separate Day Care and new clinic.
Finding the right house for our volunteer families at a good price.
Provision for all the areas of the project.
Provision and financial freedom for our family.
That God blesses our supporters and the supporters of Grace abundantly in every area of their lives…
Ok…next time we won’t leave it so long before we write again. Thanks for listening and most of all, thank you for your prayers and support, we love you.
Love and Prayer,
Dee, Andrew, Lydia, Josh, Berhani and Mekonnen.
P.S- if you write us an email and we don’t respond, email us at deanneknife@yahoo.com as we have had some trouble with emails coming through…we always respond to emails directly to us.
12 Jun 2008
Hello, we thank you so much for your continual prayers for us, Grace and the work being done here.
We have had a couple of great months, so firstly we have to give God the praise for many things.
Firstly, the Salvation of one of our mothers in the project. She was the mother that we wrote about in our last update who had recently found out she and her son had HIV. Just last month she was lead to the Lord. Now she is a child of God and she carries her Saviors blood in her veins, we continue to believe for her and her sons healing and restoration for their lives! Hers was the first Salvation so a real break through and we believe the first of many, many more. Please pray for complete health and healing for her son Haimanot as he spent the last 2 weeks in hospital with chicken pox and has lost a lot of weight.
We finally got our land finalized! This is very exciting as it has taken many, many months (as a lot of things in Ethiopia). To celebrate the day the kids and I, Marcie and her kids all headed down to OUR land to celebrate by flying kites…mind you it wasn’t only us there but about 50 other children who regularly play on that field. They had never seen kites before so it was very excited for them all. Lydia and Josh remember the afternoon as ‘wonderful!’ despite the moments of pinching from the over excited children.
I just celebrated my 30th last week, thank you Amanda and DC girls for the beautiful card, jewelery, DVD etc, it was SO unexpected and made me feel very special being so far away, so thank you again my friends, and thanks Georgie for the phone call, it was so nice to talk to you.
Thank you to the wonderful people who gave towards the startup kits in the last couple of months, we have been able to buy four kits and have given these mothers hope for their future and something more to smile about…we will send you a photo soon of the mother you helped and the difference you made. Thank you, (if you don’t get the photo, email us and remind us!)
This month we are starting our self sufficient ministry which is exciting. We have some mothers who find it hard to find work, for what ever reason, whether they are sick, have a disability or attend day school and need the extra money to get by. We are buying them some materials to start them off in their own business. For example, we have a mother who has been sick and is being shunned by the community she is in and lost her previous job because of her HIV status. We will set her up with straw and she will weave baskets, the baskets are not in high demand and will only sell at market for about 2-3birr each (30cents), so we will buy them from her for a higher price to help her be self sufficient, we will then sell them to foreigners who are visiting the centre and fund raise in Australia too, raising money for Grace. We are also doing this for a mother of 3 who has bad Elephantiasis in the feet. Also a young mother who works only part time and attends school the other half of the day, she makes beautiful handbags weaved from coloured plastic, all of the children of these mothers attend our Day Care here at Grace or are on the waiting list.
It has been so wonderful to have mum here. She had planned to stay longer but could only get a 3 month extension on her visa, so we flew to Kenya last month to renew her visa and add an extra 3 months onto her trip. We have all so loved her being here these last 5 months, she is ‘mum’ to all the girls, it has been so great to have her here with all our 4 children, she is wonderful at making bottles for all our babies, making sure we have enough clean water to drink, keeping the stock of dry nappies up, and keeping me sane J, it will be a lot harder with out her here, she has been so great. Although the work here is 7 days a week and long hours her and I are hoping to get away for a few days before she goes home when we have some Australians come for a few months from August.
Last month also saw a visit from representatives of the Attorney General’s office in Australia. They were in Ethiopia regarding the Australian-Ethiopian Adoption program and had heard of the work that we are doing here. They especially made time to visit Bahir Dar for a day specifically to see what really happens in a children’s care facility in Ethiopia. It was a great honor for us, and we praise God for this amazing opportunity.
One of the schools on the coast, St Stephens (4 students and 1 teacher) are making there 2nd trip to Ethiopia (different students and teacher- same school involved) in the last couple of years to do aid work, lead by our friend Leith, they will mostly spend their time here at Grace, they will have a few other people attending the trip including Steph who spent many months here last year volunteering in Grace and supervising our kids schooling. There are also some new friends, including a 10yr old girl for Lydia to have some ‘serious girl time’ withJ. It will be great to be reunited with our friends again and use the extra hands.
With over 20 children now in our transitional and temporary care home (living with us full time) life just seems to be getting busier. Our feeding program is feeding over 40 families a day. Whether or not you have heard about the famine happening in Ethiopia, we can see the effects in the lives of the people here, price rises on food and much less work available. There is a look of desperation in peoples faces, hopelessness, a real concern in their eyes about what the future holds for them in Ethiopia. There is not a famine in Bahir Dar but it is so much harder than it used to be, soon the people may start coming from out side the city, from the country side looking for food. It used to be that providing Day Care for a mother, enabling her to work was enough to make her self sufficient, enabling her to provide for her family, now these same mothers are coming to us crying, saying it is too hard, they don’t have enough at the end of the month to feed their child. This we are finding frustrating because it feels like we are buying them the ‘fishing rod’, teaching them to fish, but then go and buy the fish for them from the market anyway, making our efforts completely useless…but in reality, there really isn’t enough and these mothers work 6 days a week, mostly hard labour doing construction work and don’t earn enough to pay rent on their house (less than $10 a month) and food (about $30 a month). What we are doing is helping, and it would be almost impossible for them if they didn’t have us, it’s just hard helping as much as we do, and still seeing so much need… the reality of living in a third world country. What a different world we live in, a different world.
We recently had a mother come with her 3 year old son. He had fallen into a fire about a year and a half ago and still had not recovered, the side of his head was badly infected, both his hands had melted skin covering his distorted fingers. Our nurse, Sr Mulunesh, immediately insisted that we take him too the pediatrician in town and he has spent more than 2 weeks there now. His mother came to us with no money, she was robbed of everything she had as she stepped off the bus when she came to town, so we are paying for all his medical costs, and we bring him food every day and will set them up in a small house in our area so he can come each day for medical treatment at our clinic. His progress in such a short time has been so wonderful. In August a hospital in opening in Addis that may be able to do corrective surgery on his hands so he will be able to hold a pencil and learn to write and go to school soon. So we are looking into that.
I know that this is becoming another long email, but before we finish, just wanted to share another couple of great stories of what has been happening. We had a baby left here by his mother a few months back, the mother promising to complete relinquishment through court. She returned months later ready to complete the process but asked that her and the father see him one last time. When I brought him out to them, they both just started balling their eyes out, the love was so very obvious for this little boy. That day they made the decision to get back together, move to our area and have the child back with them as a family! He attends our day care, is happier than ever, and Dad is the proudest dad at pick up time I have ever seen!
We are just about to start our next training session for new nannies, this is one of the tasks that Leith has come for as she is very experienced in this area and ran our last training and did such an great job. Two weeks ago we put out a notice for interested women to come and fill in an application. In the first three days we had over 500 applicants! We had originally planed to have it open for 1 week but had to quickly close off applicants after the three days! Now from the 500 we are picking 60 for the training program, half of which will go one to work for us now or in the future. Of the 33 we trained last time we have about 25 working for us now. The training is perfect timing for Grace Day Care babies separating from our transitional children.
We look forward to the next couple of months, our volunteers coming, taking on new workers, and loving on the people coming through our gates each day.
Prayer Points;
Continual protection for our family, Marcie’s family and all of our Grace Children, families and employees.
Wisdom for us in all of our decision making concerning the families and children we are dealing with daily.
Healing for Marcie as she recovers from Typhus and Tonsillitis.
Salvations, Healing and wholeness the families in our project, opportunities and openness to minister to them.
That God blesses our children and mothers spirit, soul and body and meets their every need.
Wisdom, favour and Gods timing (and patience as the need and our timing is ‘now’) concerning a new property/s to extend and separate Day Care and new clinic.
Finding the right house for our volunteer families at a good price.
Provision for all the areas of the project.
Provision and financial freedom for our family.
That God blesses our supporters and the supporters of Grace abundantly in every area of their lives…
Ok…next time we won’t leave it so long before we write again. Thanks for listening and most of all, thank you for your prayers and support, we love you.
Love and Prayer,
Dee, Andrew, Lydia, Josh, Berhani and Mekonnen.
P.S- if you write us an email and we don’t respond, email us at deanneknife@yahoo.com as we have had some trouble with emails coming through…we always respond to emails directly to us.
2008 Jul 12