Ethiopian Worship Center – Walls & Roof up; More Work Ahead

One year ago one-tenth of the Fall Festival proceeds were designated for the building of a house of worship for a congregation in Ethiopia.  A month ago, in August, our church received a letter from Petros in Ethiopia summing up the progress thus far on the building program.

1.       Walls erected, roofing and putting on iron sheets done.

2.       Two wooden doors (main and side), eight windows (wooden) and two sitting benches made and in use.

3.       Inside part of the walls plastered with mud

4.       Foundation concrete work done.

5.       Floor and stage concrete work not yet finished.  More rock, sand and cement needed.

Petros also pointed out some problems.  An unsatisfactory contractor had to be replaced.  Unfinished work still requires construction materials and funds for materials and labor.

It is possible our congregation will hear more on-the-scene reports of the building project.  The Rev. Drs. John and Anne Wheeler-Waddell are scheduled to come to our church on November 2 to share the accounts of their mission work in Ethiopia.

Wheeler-Waddells are Home - Theology Teaching in Ethiopia comes to an End

This summer John and Anne Wheeler-Waddell concluded their last period of service as mission co-workers in Ethiopia.  Excerpted here are passages from their last letter.

Dear Church Friends,

Greetings to you on this, our last, Sunday in Ethiopia for a while. In looking back over what we asked you to pray for several months ago, we are full of thanksgiving for many things.

ERMIAS MAMO has returned to Ethiopia with his family.  We met with him a couple of weeks ago to talk about the Missiology program and what resources he’ll find in the office.  He has gone to southern Ethiopia to his home area to visit with family.

WE COMPLETED the 2-week intensive course in Cross-cultural Communication taught by Dr. Roberta King from Fuller Seminary.  It was a very good class with lots of participation from the students.  Roberta taught not only by the content but modeling by the way she taught.  Also, being an ethnomusicologist, there was much music throughout the 2 weeks in several languages.

LILA BALISKY’S course in ethnomusicology, “Song in the Transmission of the Christian Message,” had more auditors than credit students but was very well received.  New attitudes and approaches to indigenous music were ‘caught’ by the students.  There has been a long tradition in Ethiopia of a strict separation of church music and worldly music, with traditional music patterns and styles.

We are in our final days here, for now.  As we are packing up the house, we find we are storing some things with friends in the strong hope that a year from now we will be back here in some capacity.  God knows.  In Kenya a farewell from friends and “Good bye, until we meet each other again” in the expectation that even if we don’t know exactly when, we shall indeed meet.  That is our farewell from friends and colleagues here in Addis Ababa.

Thank you for your prayers.  We look forward to being able to see many if not most of you in person over the coming months.  It will be wonderful to share with teach other our stories of what God is doing.

Blessings, Anne & John Wheeler-Waddell

PCUSA Mission Co-workers

Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology

Note: (The Wheeler-Waddells are on the go in the USA, so until the end of the year it is best to communicate with them by their e-mail address: annejohnet@earthlink.net.

A Minute for Mission - Filmmaking is his Ministry

Christian ministry can take a number of ways of fulfillment.  Take David Barnhart for an example of a creative way. A 2005 graduate of McCormick Theological Seminary, he works as a filmmaker and has worked with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to lift up stories of people affected by disasters, including the Indonesian tsunami. 

He calls his ministry “a synthesis of community organizing, self-development, and documentary film, and emphasizes story-telling.  In the development of “Reclaiming Hope, Reclaiming Life,” which screened at the Carter Center in May, 2007, he met with tsunami victims at nine-month intervals to watch interviews that the had recorded earlier, discuss how their stories evolved, and explore ways to continue toward rehabilitation. 

Mission Yearbook 2008 

A Minute for Mission - School for Girls 

Christian mission began in Japan in the 1870’s. The first Presbyterians entered Japan in 1859, before Christian mission work was permitted. They learned the language and translated Christian materials into Japanese. When the law that prohibited Japanese citizens from becoming Christians was changed in 1873, Christians soon began to assemble. 

In Nagasaki, several mission schools were opened. One of them Kwassui Gakin (“Living Water”) was founded as a college for women, and mission co-worker Dr. Barbara Easton has taught English and Bible studies there since 1983. 

Kwassui Women’s College began its ministry on Dec 1, 1879, when a young woman asked two Methodist missionaries to teach her English and the Bible. Gradually younger girls began to come to the new school. At that time, there were no public facilities to educate girls in Japan, and even boys rarely proceeded beyond basic literacy. Since then Japanese education has advanced greatly. Nevertheless, institutions with Christian origins continue to reach out to the spiritual needs of individual students. 

The few members of the Young Women’s Christian Association at Kwassui Women’s College are catching a vision of the grater body of Christ. In the annual school festival, they promoted fair trade goods, not only to help people who earn little but also to educate other students as consumers in global market place. They are finding God at work among them in the world. 

Mission Yearbook 2008 

Minute for Mission - Medicine is a Mission - Just a Mosquito Net Controls Malaria

According to the World Health Organization, ONE MILLION PEOPLE, most of them children, will die from malaria this year.  Malaria is an infection that is carried from person to person by a seemingly harmless mosquito bite.  The people who contract malaria are often among the Earth’s poorest.  In addition to causing death, repeated bouts of malaria weaken individuals to the point where they are unable to work and provide for their families.

There is, however, a simple yet effective preventive for malaria - the mosquito net. The Medical Benevolence Foundation (MBF) and the Presbyterian Church (USA) joined with overseas partner churches to provide affordable, insecticide-treated mosquito nets to the most vulnerable populations.

These nets are distributed by community-based health workers who teach their neighbors how to prevent malaria. 

A single net will provide nightly protection for an entire family

In collaboration with the PC (USA), the Medical Benevolence Foundation provides education to congregations about international health, raises financial support for health programs of our partner church, solicits, and ships gifts of medical supplies and equipment, and recruits short-term volunteers for service in overseas medical institutions. 

These gifts from American Presbyterians strengthen the ministry of our overseas partners who are the hands and feet of Christ to those in need.  

Dr. Maria Zack, Board President

Medical Benevolence Foundation 

A Minute for Mission - A Touching Story Comes from Kenya 

(This account of mission work takes place in Kenya, the home country of the Rev. Dr. Johnson Kimuhu, who served as an Elder in our church and spoke here January 6.) 

Many children in Kenya grow up in poverty.  One such child was Muthoni.  Her mother ran away from her rural home to the city.  Muthoni was the fourth of seven children that her mother brought back to her grandmother to raise.  Eventually Muthoni’s mother died of AIDS. 

Muthoni was determined her life would be different.  Overcoming many obstacles, she applied herself diligently to school and graduated from the Public University in Nairobi. 

She was invited to a ministry intern at a church where she was mentored by PC (USA) mission co-worker Marta Bennett.  During her internship, Muthoni and a friend envisioned a ministry working with teenaged girls - like her own mother - whose flight from rural areas often led them into city slums. 

Today, more than 60 teenaged girls have passed through the ministry that Muthoni and her friend envisioned.  Ten girls at a time are selected through churches for one year of live-in discipleship, life-skills training, vocational training, and academic tutoring after which they reenter school. 

The ministry makes efforts to reconnect each girl with her extended family and to support families who need assistance in their development of  "Micro-Enterprise" projects. 

The vision continues to expand to other slums.  In 2005, Muthoni received a scholarship to attend Daystar University while still directing the ministry.  Two years later, she graduated with a master’s degree in Christian ministries.  

 PRAYER 

Our loving Lord, you often call the unlikely ones to follow you.  We pray for Muthoni and the many like her in Kenya who come from difficult backgrounds.  Thank you for calling them to help transform lives.  Strengthen, guide, and provide for them, we ask in you holy name. 

A Minute for Mission - Mission Worker sees Christians serve in North Korea                                         “Korea (South) has been blessed with many gifts from God, “writes mission co-worker the Rev. Sook Hee Bae.  Korea celebrated the 100^th anniversary of the Pyongyang Great Revival Movement in 2007 during which small groups began praying and expecting God to bring revival to Korea. This was the background for the large Pyongyang meetings in which people cried out to God and stood to confess their sings before more than one thousand in attendance.                                                                                                                      The Presbyterian Church of Korea proclaims 2007 as a Year of Prayer to bring spiritual renewal and Christian unity to the Korean peninsula.  “We are aware North Korea is in a time for deep suffering,” continues the Rev. Bae.  “We are deeply concerned for the people’s welfare.”                                                                               Once in a large Korean American church in the United States and again in a church in South Korea, mission co-worker the Rev. Art Kinsler spoke of how the Pyongyang Revival highlighted the powerful impact of prayer, confession, and repentance.  He was also part of a group that visited Pyongyang, his birthplace, to see Christians feeding thousands of children and remodeling a building for a center for the disabled.                               Writes Art, “Our group of seven felt that Jesus was with us in North Korea when we shared meaningful discussions with our guides and those we met.  There too we say bread broken and the bread and soy milk given to children.”