Flailing

Take out the first L and you get failing. That is what it feels like for us right now. We are at the end of our ropes.

The boys are struggling. The team is struggling. We don’t feel like we have enough resources or support to manage the difficult issues. It is so mentally exhausting that asks so much from us.

The ups and downs do more then turn the stomach. Our boys emotional curve balls are hard to handle when they show willingness to throw everything away because of their inability to understand their emotions.

We have four boys on the brink of throwing away all that has happened over the last 2 years. Others consistently fight for power, showing their desperate state of needing to feel like they are in control of their lives. A need we understand, but lack the expertise on how best to handle. When we have so many lives under our care, the power game is a lose lose situation.

I can’t even write clearly, but want to be real about our struggles.

Just pray I guess..

Relief

My team and I all have mental relief now because we were able to discover that the theft in our house was not our boys.

This is a huge praise. We talked and prayed about this issue SO much. Finally with God’s clear help, we took steps to squash the issue. I set up a miniature sting operation and caught the person stealing from our ministry. I can’t express what that feels like. First, I feel like I finally took care of my manly responsibility in protecting this house, my team and these boys. Second, the torment of suspecting and wondering about our boys is over!!

There are so many examples of this type of theft happening all around us. It is scary, depressing, and infuriating. For a person to sink to those depths, especially considering the people in our ministry and our purpose, is just sad.

On another note, our team has one of our most important meetings on Saturday. In sum, it is a meeting to encourage the Beza congregation to adopt a revolutionary form of long term “foster care” for our boys. This meeting’s outcome will determine our entire ministries direction, our boys lives directions, and the direction of each person’s life that is involved with our beloved boys. We are expecting great things to happen as the will of God continues to shine through our ministry.

On Saturday I talked to the boys about our duties as men, to stand up for justice, protect women and children, and not fear the consequences of chasing what is right. The lack of loving and Godly strength, commitment, dependability, and courage I see through out so many groups of men plagues my mind and soul daily. I pray my anger turns into wisdom able to encourage and convict my gender. I pray our boys represent a different group that can stand tall as strong men following the example of Christ. Now that would relieve my soul!

Sinking Stupidity

Yeah, this defines me well. I am amazed sometimes how stupid I am and how often I revert back to my trusty ol’ stupidity.

I was reminded by Pastor Sahle that in one of the best miracles ever, Peter ASKED to walk on water. It wasn’t Jesus who asked Him. So first he asked, then he sank. That is stupid if you ask me. That is what we all do so often, especially me and the boys. For years I prayed for God’s will to be clear in my life and now when it is so crystal clear I find myself sinking in frustration, doubt, insecurities, and a general “who-es-me” mentality. How dumb. God is so good though, that He stays with me even though I am so simply stupid. Sometimes I revel in the ability to be so stupid, because it glorifies what God is doing even more.

I am an older model of our boys, teenagers. Political corrected-ness aside some of our boys are just stupid. Yeah I know better than most what the trauma, neglect, past circumstances create in them, but our wonderful boys are really forgetting that they prayed hard and hoped forever for the opportunities they have now. Their immaturity prevents their actions from showing they get that on a daily basis. I praise God for the boys that do get that, but how frustrating some of the other ones are with their behavior.

Our team spent 8 hours on Saturday and countless other hours these past two weeks on figuring out how to remind our boys of the contrast between their past and now. I preached to them about focus and consequences last Saturday. We also played detectives to find the major transgressors. I hope it sunk in just a tiny bit.

We appreciate all the prayers for these great boys! We also need people in a big way, people that help define what God wants us to do next and long term. The ideas are like an exciting avalanche, just need clear direction.
My favorite quote:
“I am not a smart man, but I do know what love is”

Grit

I just dropped my fiancé, Sunshine Marion, off at the Addis Ababa airport. What a whirlwind month together it was.. Now we need to just show grit to get through the next five months of not seeing each other.

We had an amazing month being together! We now have had a total of two intense months actually face to face. We get along better then I even knew was possible, we enjoy so much together, we are so silly in love it seems laughable. I miss her already.

On top of just plain missing Sunshine, a lot of our boys are struggling. Its messing up my heart and mind and challenging the whole team. There are at least five boys that are reverting to some scary behavior after 1.5 yrs in the house. Personally I am hitting a wall with what to do besides pray. Am I missing something? Have I made too many mistakes? And more questions like this circle my mind.

The next five months include preparing the boys to move on with their “life paths, helping Sunshine plan a wedding, and preparing a relatively comfortable, safe home environment for my new bride, and seemingly a million other challenging things. Clearly, there is only room for God to do great things because I can’t do half of it, let alone all of it.

Always in need of prayer. Little Yohannes, Girum, Freakash, Metasabia, and Jamal are on the top of the list for those prayers. Ill be hitting my knees with anyone willing. Please pray for me to have grit and for Sunshine also!

Engaged

I have not blogged in so long, yet my life is drastically different. I wanted to take this time out from blogging about the boys to announce my engagement to Sunshine Marion. It feels wonderfully insane(she has to be) to write those words on public space. As of March 23rd, 2012 I started planning the rest of my life with an amazing woman.

I don’t have the articulation to describe how God stepped in and did something well beyond my dreams. I will say though that God putting Sunshine in my life has been as miraculous as Lilly showing me the sewer he lived in back in 2009.. Both events drastically life changing and now interconnected.

This blog ain’t big enough to describe the feeling of finding this kind of person and having such clear covenantal love for her. It has been a roller coaster romance, but so clearly divine. We now look forward to being a team and a testimony to all God has done in our lives.

After a surprise trip to America, a surprise proposal, Sunshine and I flew back to Ethiopia together on her planned visit with me as her surprise seat mate. I sit in my room, the boys playing outside and Sunshine watching over my shoulder as I write, giving me loving kisses.

We will be married on October 27th, 2012 and she will then begin her own adventure in Addis Ababa, side by side with me and the boys.
Sunshine leaves me side on Saturday, as we stay strong through five months of being apart. I guess this means I can get back to blogging more diligently, but now you all might have to hear more than you expected about SUNSHINE! You can see more about her here sunshinemarion.wordpress.com

I look forward to sharing more about the boys and now my engagement in the future!

Seasons

Ethiopia surely doesn’t have seasons like we do on the east coast of America. There is a 3-4 intense rainy season then the rest of the year is the same, very dry and sunny. They claim 13 months of sunshine, which is because their calendar has 13 months, but also because somewhere in the country is sunny all the time. I have a bone to pick with this statement, but I am very sure there will be 13 months of Sunshine next year.
The seasons change often in our lives with the boys. If not daily, weekly, monthly, it seems every three months is VERY different. After a few months of feeling major favor and blessing, there was a season of intense prayer, and now we seem to just be getting through each day. We live in anticipation for the future of our boys, their graduation in September. Day by day, we just manage, get what needs to be done, and stay faithful!
The most fun thing of late, was one of our boys dancing in a performance at his school. They trained for a month or two. It was good, well done. Our other poor boy got so sick that he couldn’t perform after all the hard work. He handled it with such a good attitude though, amazing young man. We also celebrated some birthdays in February.

OOPS

It was 3 years ago today in which I boarded a flight to visit Ethiopia for the very first time with about 20 other people from my church. I knew zero about the country I have now lived in for 2.5 years. These 3 years have added more to my life than the previous 30.
Apparently it started with a prayer. It is amazing how often that happens. In my journal on March 6th, 2009 I wrote “ God use me for whatever your mighty purpose might be. Help me keep my false self out of the way of your will”. One word…. OOPS! My faith was fledgling and growing at the time, but there is no way I expected God to act in such an amazing way. The chances are if I really believed in what God could/would do I probably would have toned down that prayer. To have me quit my Aetna Job, move to Ethiopia, move in with a great group of former street boys, and be engrained in a culture so opposite my own.
There isn’t a more important prayer in my life to this day. I can’t even explain my gratitude for what God has used this inept, incapable vessel for! Today, I have a different hunger then I could have ever had in my old life. A hunger to be a strong man of God, a loving leader, a kingdom representing rock, a passionate action oriented vessel rooted in His word and His grace.
The Boys: More theft. It’s hard to stomach the current rash of theft in our house. Its like a slap in the face, a punch in the heart. Our team doesn’t know what to do, so all I do is surrender it in prayer, trying to avoid my tempting anger.
Good note. We have not received report cards for the first semester, but we know most of the results. It’s the miracles we were expecting. We only had about 3 of our 16 boys finish lower then 10th in their classes. The best news was that our 3 private school boys finished 4th,5th,and 6th in their class. That is the testimony to the potential these kids have, if they only get the love and chance to prove them.
As my brain plans, dreams, and hopes for the future, it always comes back to a love for these boys who were embarrassing testimonies of our broken world, broken families, weak men, and the lack of Christ centered people. But now they act as testimonies to what Christ can do in lives, through lives, for lives.

The Way Forward

Life is just awesome right now! We are in a complex but fun season as a ministry and team. Our boys are doing really well, but struggling at the same time. We as a team have fears, but live with holy expectation that feels like an adrenaline high sometimes. We are desperate for God to open doors and show us the way forward.
We continue to make moves on getting Foster Care started. We are meeting, reading, discussing, learning, planning, and mostly praying. We are hoping that at least 6 of our boys have a chance for long term placement in a family, that can help them continue with school, or just support them while they work and attend night school.
We also are chasing a dream of a vocational training/business model.
Both ideas seem impossible! We need so many experts, human resources, finances, and opened doors. It is an honor for all of us to even be dreaming these impossible dreams. I am so confident in what God is going to do, that I am even prematurely putting these dreams out there. We have already witnessed doors open and some amazing things happen to make us believe we are in the right direction. I personally have had an amazing season of prayer and time with God. Finally we had our first team “get away”. 11 of us including some volunteers, went out of Addis for two days. We prayed, shared, grew as a team, brain stormed, planned, laughed, had fun, and worked. It was an awesome trip. We all felt impacted and excited to move forward.
It is really hard sometimes not to get overwhelmed by what lies ahead and by the 16 major responsibilities we have. These sixteen wonderful boys are our priority and we can’t forget one of them. Each boy requires a unique life plan and so much attention.
Finally, let me share my bubbling excitement. It’s also premature. But our three private school boys, learning everything in English, learning French and just at a much more difficult school, finished ranked 4th,5th, and 6th in their grade. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! Wow. We can’t even put words to how proud we are. 1 year and a few months removed from brain rotting street life and these boys are excelling in a very challenging school environment. Miracle.
WAHOO!!! We are desperate for GOD! We are desperate for His will to be done and for His continued guidance and miracles. We are having so much fun living in Holy expectation!

Spirituality

I consistently feel led to be completely transparent, all the time. Lots of people argue against that; even using versus from scripture to prove we must be guarded. I don’t buy it and won’t in my lifetime. I would rather face Jesus and ask for forgiveness then be less than transparent with everyone. It grates my nerves when people are not transparent, or un-intimate and use the Bible as their reasoning. Maybe I am too transparent, well I err on the side of Christ. He makes caution unnecessary at times. I also know He promises to protect me so that I don’t need to waste my energy on that.
I work for Beza International Ministries in Addis Ababa. I am committed to Beza Church. Beza took me under their wing and allowed me to work on the Change for Change Project. It was Pastor Z’s sermon that brought me to Ethiopia in the first place, it was Ben Piper’s sermon, Dr. Beta’s testimony, and the general feel/hospitality of Beza that encouraged me to sell all I have and move to Ethiopia to work with street boys.
Beza like every church I have ever heard of does things that I don’t understand. I don’t need to; I am not called to understand everything under the sun. In fact, the less I understand, the greater God is. The more childlike my faith is, the more trust I need to have only in God. I have learned/grown at Beza and I respect their church model and vision. I 100% believe that building up street children is a huge piece, underrated piece, of “Redeeming Nations In Righteousness”. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be with Beza or in Africa.
My spirituality has been unbelievably tested in Ethiopia. The consistent struggles of not understanding a different style of spirituality, a different culture, and a different style of relationships have grown me closer to God more than I could have imagined. I’m overjoyed to know these experiences have built my capacity for loving others to amazing heights.
I also must say NCC is my spiritual family. I am committed to NCC. They are where I found church, God, serving others, was baptized, went on my first mission trip, and much more. Most of my support, growth, and friends are from NCC. It is their support and encouragement that has gotten me through some tough times.
The serving children or poor piece of living in Africa, or the mission’s field is the EASIEST part. You never can imagine what other battles come your way. I expected the streets and the boys to be my struggle, but they have been my joy, my encouragement, my ability to quickly access the grace and wonderment of God.
So.. To be completely transparent. It is a major struggle to adapt to different cultures, different spiritualities. So many people are thwarted by the differences or strife, which leads to a lack of unity among those who claim Christ as our savior. That’s not ok. I am thankful for Beza, NCC, Ethiopia and all the challenges that God is using to build me into a better man then I could have ever studied, worked, or served my way to!! That isn’t because its all rose petals, or because I am even good at handling all the differences. Im only thankful because of God’s willingness to use human idiocy to grow us into His servants.

A bit preachy this morning, I know “boring, show me pics of those awesome boys of yours”. Well ok, but you are spoiled.I yearn for people to critique/audit/analyze me and my work and my words.. Please feel free!

Memories

It sounds funny now, but as a kid I loved the soundtrack to the broadway show “Cats”. The song “Memories” was a particular favorite. How fortunate am I to have such warming, loving, family memories from childhood.
It hurts my heart to ponder what kind of memories my boys most have from their youth. It angers me to now there are millions of children developing horrific childhood memories because we adults, fathers, families, Christians, Churches are failing miserably. On different occasions I have almost tried to force new memories into our 16 Ethiopian young men’s heads. A couple of those memories I know have stuck and it surprises me sometimes all they can remember since the first day Birukti met them till now. Times like our first New Years, after being kicked out of our first house, or early days of me teaching them baseball, and so forth.
This past Ethiopian Christmas or Gena was another chance to make indelible impressions on our boys. We had a ton of fun. First, our boys acted as volunteers that served about 80 kids during a Gena celebration at our sister org. The Entoto Mountain Project. They served food, organized the kids, MC’d some, and were a HUGE part of keeping the chaos limited. They are amazing with young children.
Second, we had a creative fun day at our house. We had three stations of fun, creative type of play. It was a competition in which we divided them into 3 teams. We had a station that used an airplane kit to make paper airplanes. It was hilariouos, these planes were no joke, I couldn’t figure most of them out. Another station were 3D puzzles or wood models. These were hard too, but our boys did them very well. Finally, we had an art station where they were encouraged to draw, or create anything that was representative of Christmas for them.
It was a great holiday of memory making. I am so thankful for these memories for myself, but also pray God uses these good times to encourage, grow, and help our boys in the future and the rest of their lives.