Visiting and Loving Orphans from head to toe

I’m so excited to have special guest blogger, Sumer who just came back from a 14 day mission trip with Visiting Orphans in Uganda and Ethiopia.  We only have 1 more spot open for my crazy team of 25.  Please take time today to pray and ask- are you the 1?

Sumer’s Testimony:  When looking over the itinerary for my upcoming Visiting Orphans trip to Uganda and Ethiopia, I knew that it was going to be difficult emotionally.  Although, I was beyond excited to go and to get to be the hands and feet of Jesus, I had read pretty much the complete catalog of Katie Davis blog posts, and I knew that this work was not glamorous in the earthly sense.  But it was pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God – it was glamorous in His eyes.

And of all the places I was to visit on my trip, there was only one that I dreaded…the trash dump.  How do you walk away from a child so destitute and deprived that they live and eat in piles of garbage?  At least at first, I had envisioned them as just little piles of garbage.  I later found out that it is actually mountains of trash as far as the eye can see.  And yet, what could I do for them in my one day?  Their plight seemed hopeless.

The night before we were to visit these children, I had the privilege of hearing Sammy’s story.  Sammy grew up in Korah, a community next to the landfill that began as a leper colony and is now made up of close to 80,000 societal outcasts.  The people of Korah are considered untouchable by most, and thousands of them eat from the trash dump daily.  Sammy spent his childhood collecting food from the landfill.  He acknowledges that it is only by God’s grace that he was able to eventually go to school and get a job.  He spends his free time ministering to the orphan children who still live there.   Sammy reminded me that our God is hope for the hopeless.

The next day was Christmas Day in Ethiopia and standing in that horrendous place that I had dreaded so much, I knew I was right where God wanted me to be.  We served the children a traditional Ethiopian dinner, passed out clothes, and candy, and party hats, and listened to them sing Happy Birthday to Jesus in their beautifully broken English.  Later, another team member said she was glad that she went, but she would never go back.  I thought to myself I will go back everyday until every child that lays their head down to sleep in that landfill has a home and the hope that only a relationship with Jesus Christ can bring.

There are over 100 orphans who live in the city landfill of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  These children have very little hope of a better life.   Amazingly, through my time in Africa, God called my family to spend the summer with these children.  For the next few months we will work on getting all of them sponsored to go to boarding school in the fall, and then we will spend the summer teaching them English and getting them ready to go to school for the first time.

I will be excited to meet all the members of the Visiting Orphans teams coming this summer, and I will be praying for you as God prepares you hearts for the amazing blessing that meeting the children Ethiopia and Uganda will bring!

Thank you Sumer!!

More Links to read:

• http://sumerwithonem.blogspot.com/2010/01/begin-with-end.html
• http://sumerwithonem.blogspot.com/2010/01/helen.html
• http://sumerwithonem.blogspot.com/2010/01/korah.html
• http://sumerwithonem.blogspot.com/2010/01/just-another-day-at-office.html
• www.thejordansdna.blogspot.com