Tomorrow I leave for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for ten days with a team of six friends. Mike Todd who is from Canada and Jamie and Sam from The Red Letters Campaign.This is a brand new country for Children’s HopeChest to begin ministry.

I’m going to blog while there and try to help you understand what’s involved in opening a new country for orphan ministry. We are visiting at least 19 orphanages, and hope to have them sponsored by the churches and people going on our Spring 2009 trip. Please download the itinerary here: Download EthiopiaVisionTrip.doc, and pray for us regularly.

I’ve posted a few articles about Ethiopia you can read by clicking on the title:
A Video explaining the vision for Ethiopia
A report on the famine.
What you can do to help.

This is very exciting for so many of us who have been waiting for this moment. Ethiopia is on the hearts of so many of my blog readers who have been to the country and adopted a beautiful son or daughter. Now we can come together to really do something to change the lives of orphans in Ethiopia and help them have a hope and future. Stay tuned to the blog for pictures and updates. I want you to be with me via the internet as I see Jesus in the eyes of the orphaned and abandoned. I’ll leave you with the words Bono of U2 wrote on his visit to Ethiopia years ago found in a song called, “Wave of Sorrow.”

“Blessed are the meek who scratch in the dirt
For they shall inherit what’s left of the earth
Blessed are the kings who’ve left their thrones
They are buried in this valley of dry bones

Blessed all of you with an empty heart
For you got nothing from which you cannot part
Blessed is the ego
It’s all we got this hour

Blessed is the voice that speaks truth to power
Blessed is the sex worker who sold her body tonight
She used what she got
To save her children’s life

Blessed are you, the deaf cannot hear a scream
Blessed are the stupid who can dream
Blessed are the tin canned cardboard slums
Blessed is the spirit that overcomes.”