MAKING GOD'S LOVE TANGIBLE

A couple of weeks ago, we had been greeted by a sweet young man, nearly 20 years old, who is blind. He was living at the school for the blind and he was being forced to leave, as he has “aged-out”, much like children do in the U.S. from the foster care system. Because of his blindness, and because he is still in school, grade 8, he will receive 120 birr per month to help him survive from the government. This equals about $15.00 US. He was saying his rent would be nearly 60 birr and he was asking if we would consider helping. We contacted our friend Gebre who volunteers at the school for the blind, and we asked him if this was a legitimate request. He confirmed that the need was legitimate and encouraged us to pray and consider what we could do to help not only this young man, but the 5 other young men and two women who were also having to move out of the boarding school that week. The goal was to pitch our monies together and be able to help supplement these blind young people’s income each month as they learn to survive in this difficult environment, where there is no social security benefit, no SSI, no special education resources, etc. Being blind is always difficult, but we have learned to offer assistance in the U.S. with services they aren’t even close to being able to provide here in Ethiopia. We committed a small amount of money to the pool, then received an invitation to join another foreign worker today to go to the blind school and visit the children. All 8 of the individuals were asked to be there, as well as the other 86 children who receive housing and education at the government-owned facility. As we pulled in, we were greeted immediately by the 8 individuals, one of whom was “Kaleya”, the young man who had visited our home. He had visited us a second time when we introduced him to our children and told him we would give through Gebre for all of them to share. He greeted me by name and by simply holding each of my children’s hands, he could identify which child they were and would smile especially when holding Lydia’s tiny hand saying, “Lydia…yes, Lydia!” He told us he is top of his class in the 8th grade and we have no doubts he is a bright young man. We all went into a small room where the other worker shared our plan to meet with these 8 individuals every month so we could check on them, and also to provide an additional 100 birr to each of them each month to help them live. Upon hearing this, they all immediately began to clap in excitement and smiled from ear to ear. My eyes stopped being dry at that point and stayed moist through most of the rest of our visit. These sweet young people, most of them having no family in the area, if any at all, were so grateful to have someone care about their plight. They were each given a new set of sheets, a mattress and mattress cover for their room they have rented, and a pillowcase. Then the worker shared with them from the Bible in Romans 8:28-39 how God has a plan for each of their lives, to work their difficulties and challenges into good for them. She shared how God did not even spare his own Son on their behalf, and He desires to give them good things. Then she reminded them that nothing could separate them from the love of God…not having to live on the outside all alone, not disease, not famine…nothing. Some of them wiped tears from their eyes upon hearing this. One young man stood up and said, “When we left this place, we were given nothing…we spent 3 days with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Then you came and gave us mattresses and now you give us sheets and money. But even though you are bringing it, we do not thank you or Miss Pam, we give thanks to God.” It was then that I realized how inseparable the two arms of God’s love (one meeting physical needs and one meeting spiritual needs) are to these dear people. If we had simply come and shared our message from Romans about the love of God without offering to help with their tangible physical needs, how shallow this message would have seemed. But by coming with sheets and with money, they were able to clearly see how REAL the love of God for them was. They began to sing a song for us in English, mostly for my children’s benefit, as everyone else spoke Amharic or Tigrinya. The words were simple…”Thank you Jesus, Thank you Jesus, Thank you Jesus.” We will be back next month to meet with these 8 and to share again with them. Much of the amount promised them was a “faith promise”, as the other worker is simply trusting God to provide the sponsorship funds through other sources. (As an aside, if you think your family or someone else might like to sponsor a young blind person in Ethiopia, please email us and we can tell you more.) Just 100 birr each month (about 12 Us dollars) for these kids means the difference in living on the streets begging, and being able to rent a small room and buy food so they can stay in school. After our time with them, we went to the second grade classroom where about 35 blind students greeted us. Our kids were able to shake all their little hands and sing “Jesus Loves the Little Children” for them. When asked if they wanted to sing a song for us, one little boy Curtis’ age named “Daniel” raised his hand high then began singing in English…“Good morning, good morning, How are you today?“ with this angelic little voice while others joined in. It was a fun time for our kids and for me, as we got to see God at work in the faces of these little ones. Please continue to pray for us as God puts these people in our path. Pray for wisdom to know when to respond with a gift, how to respond, and how to show God’s love in the midst of all that we do. We are learning that even though the needs are huge and seem insurmountable, we can make a big difference one life at a time. This will have to be enough for now.
“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:17-18