Project Ethiopia Benevolence: April 2012

Friday, April 27, 2012

Sunglasses and Tippy Taps

While we were in that same village of Mino Geltie giving Uree the wheelchair, we had another fun thing happen. I had brought along some sunglasses donated by our friends Adele and Francois (Thanks, Atlas in Africa) I offered a pair to a Hamer women who looked at them suspiciously, then let me put them on her face. A big smile lit up her face! Then, ALL the women wanted a pair! It was so much fun, and I’m sure you will agree that these are some pretty ‘hip’ Hamer women now!

Last October, our two visitors from America (Jen and Lauren) came with us to Turmi and conducted a Health and Sanitation training session for about 30 Hamer women in Mino Geltie. They taught some basic sanitation ideas like hand washing with soap and water.

They also built a Tippy Tap to demonstrate how they can sparingly use their precious water and still wash hands properly. If you don’t know what a Tippy Tap is, go to our website and check it out. www.projectethiopia.net

Anyway, while on this last trip to bring out the wheelchair, I checked up the women to see if any of them had followed through on the previous training. I was happy to see that 5 of them had already built their own Tippy Taps next to their houses. They proudly showed them off to me and told me that their families now used them regularly, but unfortunately, now there is no soap available in the market. So they are using wood ash and water. Next time I am bringing several boxes of soap for them!

Wheelchair for Uree

Last year I put out a request on FB asking if someone could buy a wheelchair for a boy named Uree. He lives in a very remote Hamer village called Mino Geltie. This boy uses his arms to drag himself through the dirt to get to where he wants to go. He is also mildly retarded. No one cares for this boy so the evangelist Cheneke and his family take care of him. After posting my request on FB within hours someone offered to buy the chair. (Thanks, Andreason family!) The chair was purchased from Tanzania- a rugged, rural designed chair especially for the bush. However, when it came time to ship it to Ethiopia, we found out that the shipping cost was misquoted and was actually $400USD . So I again put out a call for help and my friend Jana and her sunday school class (Thanks, Flint Baptist Church) responded with the shipping costs. The chair was then flown to Addis Ababa where it sat in the customs office for one month due to a clerical error. My friends in Addis, Bob and Betty, were to pick the chair up from customs and hold it for me until I could make the 9 hr. journey up to Addis. Unfortunately, Ethiopia does not recognize nicknames and since my friends names are actually Robert and Bethel, they would not release the chair. Betty made numerous trips to them trying to get the chair released, standing in lines for hours each time, making phone calls-to no avail. Finally, I was able to come to Addis and Betty and I went to do battle with Ethiopian bureaucracy! Eight hours later and several ‘interventions from God’ we had the chair! It really was a miracle that we got it at all. We ‘just happened’ to bump into a customs employee who suggested we try another way. We found the offices closed but one light was still on, so we barged in and found the head of customs still in his office. He listened to our plight (and my tears!) and wrote us a letter to release the chair! After paying for ‘storage’ of the chair for that month, we loaded up the precious chair and were on our way!

So last sunday we drove the 9 hours down to Turmi for the Big Event- Uree gets his chair!

We pulled into the remote village where he lives and Uree came dragging himself out to greet us. I wish I could describe the smile on his face when he saw that chair! He just beamed!! The villagers all gathered around and were curious and also genuinely happy that he had this wonderful new chair. It had taken almost 6 months to get this chair to Uree, but it was worth every minute of frustration and aggravation as we watched him roll himself around the yard, smiling all the while.

What a great day that was- I am putting some video and photos on FB and this blog so you can see for yourself the good things that can happen when people care enough to try and help each other. I hope you feel the joy-because you are partners with us in all this-Tom and I are only the hands and the feet- we are your representatives over here in the bush.

You all made this happen! God bless you all........

Monday, April 16, 2012

Nomadic Conference April 1-4 2012

Recently I had the privilege to attend a conference at Lake Babagoya in northern Ethiopia. I say ‘privilege’ because Dr. Malcolm Hunter was the conference leader and spending several days with this guy truly is a privilege. Dr. Hunter has devoted his life to the nomadic peoples of the world- the lost and forgotten ones of this planet. ‘Settled people’ or those who live in villages or towns, are the first and sometimes only people who receive the gospel message. The same goes for financial aid- whether from foreign governments or their own. But nobody goes after the poorest of the poor-those who travel with their animals in search of grazing land-the nomadic pastoralists.

I admit, I never gave them a second thought before coming to ethiopia-I don’t even think I knew they really existed anymore. But they do- and there are millions of them- in Africa, Mongolia, Pakistan, and many other places in the world.

And they are all people just like us- with families and a social organization, with dreams and ambitions and a sense of humor--in short, they are people, too!

So here are some things I learned about this important and mainly forgotten people group:

Nomads have no land security. They do not have a paper title to any land. Therefore, they are constantly being challenged as to where they graze. If a rival tribe attacks them they will try and flee to escape having their animals taken from them. So they are always on the move- with no permanent dwelling places. Nomads do not make their wealth from planting crops.Their wealth is ‘on the hoof’ - derived from their animals, only.

There are 3 types of nomads:

nomadic pastoralists- they herd their animals, follow the rainfall
hunter-gatherers- live in forests, eat berries,honey and wildlife
service nomads- move around offering their skill as blacksmiths,tanners, ferriers, etc..

Nomads are resourceful and flexible- they will do whatever is necessary to survive. When the rains are sparse, some of the nomads will go live in towns so as not to strain their meager water source that they have for the animals and people. Then, when the rains return or increase, they will go back to their people and be reunited with families.

So there is a continual ‘urban ebb and flow’ to areas. ‘Range management’ is another term I learned. The wise old men of the tribe make the decision as to how long this particular source of water will last. When must they begin to move the herd to another source of water? This is a matter of experience gained over generations--they know what time of year a particular spring of water will surface and where. Malcolm told a poignant story of a year that was particularly dry. He happened to be at the Weyto river (in the southern omo region of ethiopia) one day, when many herds of desperately thirsty cattle and men started arriving. They had traveled for days with no water- desperate to reach the Weyto and quench their thirst. But the river was dry! Malcolm said he will never forget the looks of despair on the mens faces when he saw their hope disappear. Death was now certain for all their cattle-all their wealth- even some of the people as well. I had never given rain much thought when I lived in the US. Rain was always more of an inconvenience to my plans than anything else. But that was before I moved to Ethiopia. Now I know that for many people, their very survival depends on rain. Funny how a change in my location can have such a change in my outlook on things. Now when the rain comes, I say along with my ethiopian friends, “Thank you Jesus!”.

Hospitality is a major part of their lifestyle. Anyone wandering through is welcomed into their homes for food and rest. If a mans’ herd is decimated by disaster or disease, the other nomads will each give from their own herds to re-stock him. Nomads share and care for each other- this is their own particular brand of social security as well. They know they will be taken care of by the tribe.

Malcolm made the comment that Jesus was a nomad! I never really thought about it like that- but Jesus was always on the move. He never had a home to settle down into. He went from place to place talking to people. Jesus was all about relationships. He took the time to live and eat and tell stories among the people where He was. He developed friendships with them. We should learn from His example. Jesus didn’t say “come to my church- we have a really big building” or “Come to my Bible study group- we have coffee and donuts too!” He said, simply, “Follow Me”. Another way to look at it is that when Jesus said follow me, that implies that He is always on the move ahead of us. He is leading- we are following- at least thats the way it SHOULD be! (sometimes, well....actually many times, WE tend to lead......!) But wherever we go, or whatever we are involved in-Jesus has already been there ahead of us. Nothing that happens to us is out of His knowledge or care. We should take great comfort in that truth--and get up and get moving!

We also discussed ways that we can be sensitive to the different way that nomads will begin to build their church. As one nomad told Malcolm-” we nomads will not be interested in your church unless we can take it on the back of our camels”. So it is senseless to build a permanent stone type of building for these people. They must be allowed to develop their church based on relationships rather than real estate. So a humble and sensitive heart is what is necessary for future nomadic missionaries. They must let the nomads themselves define their church and gently walk alongside them and help.

A word about these pictures from Babagoya. The early missionaries built this place. It was their own little shangri-la--an escape from the harshness of the lands in which they ministered. In those days, travel was prohibitive and they could not afford to take a ship back to England or Australia or wherever they came from for furlough. And yet they needed some rest from their labors.....we all do from time to time. So they built this place on the shores of Lake Babagoya. Planting many trees and flowers, building little cabins and pathways...bit by bit they transformed it into the lush little hideaway it now is.