Good Reads

Who doesn’t love a good book recommendation?  Here are a few from our staff, all having to do with serving the poor.

God of the Empty Handed: Poverty, Power and the Kingdom of God
by Jayakumar Christian
Offers great insight into the plight of the poor from a NON-Western perspective with solutions on how we should approach those living in poverty. Jayakumar is from India and brings a unique view of the powerless poor and the kingdom of God. Fantastic book!





The Poor Will Be Glad: Joining the Revolution to Life the World Out of Poverty
by Peter Greer & Phil Smith
A compelling call to carry God’s mercy and compassion to the hurting people of the world and end the cycle of dependency the poor have come to expect. There is also a strong community development message. 



When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Suffering without Hurting the Poor
by Steve Corbett
Confronting some faulty assumptions Christians have about the causes of poverty and how they can do considerable harm.  Good principles for short-term mission programs to heed.




 
Serving With Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short Term Missions with Cultural Intelligence 
by David A. Livermore
Really great book to shape short-term missions to be sensitive and smart in their interactions with people of other cultures.




 
 
The Great Omission
by Steve Saint
Steve Saint, son of missionary martyr Nate Saint, shares dramatic stories from his experiences with the tribe who killed his father. This excellent book talks about bringing Christ to the unreached and leaving your culture at home. Steve is a great storyteller. This is a parallel book to Missions Dilemma which is the video series Adoption Ministry uses for mission team training. It highlights Steve’s experiences of what he did right and what he did wrong and what was learned from it.



Beyond Charity: The Call to Christian Community Development
by John Perkins
A powerful call to action to bring reconciliation and restoration to broken communities.







Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity (Revised & Updated)
by Ronald J. Sider
Pertinent today as when it was written. This is not a judgmental book. It highlights the needs of the poor and gives ways individuals and churches can help. A refreshing read!




 
The Hole in Our Gospel
by Richard Stearns
A great read! This book is about Richard Stearn’s personal journey and how he came to lead World Vision. It also gives insights into poverty worldwide and ways to help.




 
 
Walking With the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development
by Bryant Myers
A good book for churches who are contemplating or are already partnering with churches and ministries abroad.



 

 
Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Justby Timothy Keller
Keller challenges many preconceived beliefs about doing justice and presents the Bible as a fundamental source for promoting justice and compassion for those in need.








Now, leave a comment with your own book recommendations on this topic!

Crisis

by Joy Casey

CRISIS: (from the Greek κρίσις - krisis; plural: "crises"; adjectival form: "critical") Any event that is, or is expected to lead to, an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, community, or whole society.

Almost all definitions of crisis refer to a crucial point in an especially difficult or unstable situation that requires change or forces a turning point.

Orphan Crisis

I have been hearing about the worldwide orphan crisis for years, but I have not seen much change. Are we as world citizens becoming numb and desensitized by living in crisis mode for so long? The statistics only increase with each census:

· 140 million children orphaned worldwide
· 18 million of those children have lost both parents
· 5 million orphans just in Ethiopia

I see individuals and groups of individuals tackling the problem here and there, but I don’t see the international community as a whole doing anything substantially meaningful to bring about change.
 
The Faces of “Crisis”
Since I don’t rule the world, and, in fact, have no influence whatsoever in affecting policy change, I could throw my hands up in the air, put my head in the sand, and live a blissful, normal life… if only if it weren’t for those pesky little faces that stare at me when I close my eyes!
 

Take *Seyoum, for instance. He is an 11-year-old boy who lives in an orphanage and whose mother and father are dead . He so badly wants a family to call his own and his paperwork for adoption is ready to go… but so far no family in Ethiopia or anywhere else in the world has wanted to adopt an older kid like him.


 
Little *Ebise toddles around and her big eyes and solemn face melt my heart and when I pick her up she is like a feather. She is so beautiful and perfect. Her mother’s pregnancy was the result of rape and she relinquished Ebise at birth, but now the government doesn’t want to process relinquished children and so she sits in an orphanage with a dozen other toddlers, all adoptable, but none with paperwork because of politics.

 
I watch beautiful *Hana playing and laughing. She has been in the orphanage since she was 9 months old. There was a family who desperately wanted to adopt her, but then her mother moved to an Arab country to work and there was no way to contact her to finish Hana’s paperwork so… Hana will grow up in an institution. She has biological family in the town - a grandmother and uncle - but neither can take her. She is a resilient little girl and I hope the best for her future.
 
*Contact our office if you are interested in adopting an older child. These pictures are not actual photos of the children named.
 
What can you and I do?
 

• Provide care for children being raised in an orphanage

Because international adoptions have dramatically dropped, orphanages struggle to provide the basic necessities for children. As we all know, babies do a lot of eating and growing, and in order for their brains and bones to develop optimally they need formula. You can donate formula through our gift catalog… and we thank you very much! We also need partners to help with the monthly budget of an orphanage so the older kiddos can eat and go to school. Orphanage general support can also be supported via our gift catalog, or you can become a premier monthly partner.
Contact Joy (joy@adoptionministry.net ) if you are eager to help in this way.
 

• Adopt or help someone in Ethiopia to adopt

Adoption Ministry is caring for orphans in Ethiopia and advocating permanency for each child. We put on adoption seminars in Ethiopian churches to instill the vision for stable middle-class families to adopt the orphans in their community. We are having success! So far, 6 children have been adopted and 4 more are pending. This is a trend we want to see grow. Each seminar costs about $2,000, and donations make them possible. As the government will allow, we also facilitate adoptions to families in the U.S. Currently, there are several older children who are paper ready and need families.
 

• Make sure a child does not become an orphan

Adoption Ministry 1:27 is designed to stabilize at-risk families so the children do not become an orphan statistic. You can help one family regain their strength by “adopting” them at $50 a month.



 
 
 
 
 

• Take a short-term mission trip to Ethiopia to see for yourself

There is nothing like seeing to emblazon in your heart that there really is an orphan crisis. It is a financial sacrifice to go and see, and we would hope you would go with the underlying impetus to come back to the U.S. with a plan as to how you or your church or business can become involved in a long-term solution.


 
 

• Pray!

We have a dynamic prayer team comprised of people from all over the United States. This prayer thrust is headed by Tara Dunn and she would love to include you on the email list for specific prayer, primarily about situations in Ethiopia. Contact Tara: taradunn@gmail.com.
 
Yes! We can!
Children are orphaned for a wide range of reasons, including war, poverty, death and abandonment. They live halfway across the world and they live just down the street*. If these children formed one country, it would be the tenth largest country in the world – an entire nation of vulnerable children, left to fend for themselves.
 
You and I may not be able to move the hearts of governments, but we can help manage some crisis situations. I am encouraged and energized by Adoption Ministry’s work in Africa as well as our work with vulnerable birthmothers and children here in the U.S. We can’t help all 5 million children in Ethiopia, but we certainly can assist those God puts in our path. It is hard work, demanding, and immensely rewarding. I invite you to join with us and become part of the solution, a catalyst for change.
 
*The U.S. has the 4^th largest orphan population in the world after Asia, Africa and Latin America. Our orphanage system is called Foster Care, and there are many children that need forever homes.

Join Our ER Team!

We are recruiting a team of caring folks who stand ready to help us meet the urgent needs of our AM 1:27 sponsored families - either by helping financially themselves or by rallying the support of friends and family.  This is our Emergency Response Team! 
 
What kinds of needs arise? 
Families in Ethiopia can face medical or housing emergencies or have needs related to man-made or natural disasters that they are simply unable to pay for… so the ER Team embraces these women and children by providing the essentials with their financial gifts.
 
How will the team be alerted? 

Follow us on Twitter:  @YWAMEthiopia127

Like us on Facebook:  Adoption Ministry of YWAM Ethiopia

 

If you prefer you can give us your email or your cell phone number and we will text or email you.

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Here is our first ER Team notification…

We just received word from our case manager in Dembidollo that a tragedy has hit Gezworke, a single mother of two girls.  She was cooking dinner in her home over a charcoal fire when something ignited and within minutes her entire house was burned to the ground.  It's not hard to understand how this could easily happen as her house is made of sticks and the roof is made of thatch (straw). 


Gezworke and her girls are safe and sound but have lost everything but the clothes on their backs.  We want to help her rebuild her shelter, provide beds and bedding, cooking pots, clothes & shoes. 

Click here if you would like to help meet Gezworke's immediate needs...
Rent for a year is $300.
Rebuilding a house is ~$1000.
Cooking pots and washing pans are $50.
Three beds and bedding cost $450.
Food supplies for a month are $50.
New clothes (including school uniforms) and shoes cost $200.
It will take between $1050 and $1750 to get this little family back on their feet.

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Please consider becoming a part of this vital support team!   Will you let us know you’re on board by sending us an email with the following info?

• Your first and last name
• The method you’ll use to receive alerts:
  * Twitter
  * Facebook
  * Email (include the email address you’ll use)
  * Text (include your cell #)

Send us an email telling us you want to join the ER Team!
support@ywamethiopia.com

We are so encouraged to know you stand ready to help!!

Why Missions?

Why We Need Young People in Missions
by Tanya Lyons
@risecampaign.com
I was shocked and delighted when I discovered missions wasn’t about me trying to make the world better on my own, but was about joining God in his mission of restoration and change. 

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Plan to join us on a mission trip! 
Visit our Missions webpage for more information!

An Incredible Church – A Stellar Team

Two years ago a church in Washington adopted a church in Ethiopia, and through a partnership with Adoption Ministry has infused the outreach in this area. Recently, a team from Lake City Church traveled to Ethiopia to meet the church leadership, the evangelists, the kindergarten children, and some of the 50 families who have been helped through Adoption Ministry 1:27.
 

Reaching the Unreached
The town that Lake City Church has adopted is a good-sized place with 35,000 residents, and most people have never heard the good news of Jesus Christ. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the population has been taught that the symbol of Christianity is evil and to be avoided at all costs. But through the financial strengthening that Lake City has given to seven dedicated evangelists, 111 people are now following Christ and there has been a new church plant in a nearby village that has never seen a church before. Converts face intense resistance from their community and local government, but the numbers are growing and the support from the Ethiopian Meseret Kristos church is strong.
 
Bringing Hope
Fifty families have been adopted by members of Lake City Church through Adoption Ministry 1:27. The overwhelming majority of these families are single mothers who have lost their husbands through death or abandonment or are grandmothers raising their grandchildren. All are extremely poor, have little to no education, and are utterly destitute.
 

Through the ministrations of the case manager and the pastoral staff of the church, these families are getting on their feet. They receive monthly food staples, their children are enrolled in school, and the widows are starting to look to their futures with optimism. Once a family is stabilized and if the mother/grandmother is healthy, the next step will be to lift them out of dependence through the establishment of a viable business. But the best news is that seven single moms have put their faith in Jesus Christ and are now being discipled and strengthened through the church community!
 
 

Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and … Jesus
Classrooms have been built, teachers hired, a playground installed, and 60 eager kindergarteners have the chance for an incredible start to their education. In Ethiopia, the average kindergarten class has 50 students, but the Mana Gammachuu kindergarten (Mana Gammachuu means joyful place) has three classes of 20 children each. They are learning Amharic (their native language is Orominya), English, and numbers along with Bible stories and Christian character traits such as kindness and honesty. The children are individually sponsored by people attending Lake City Church.
 
 

Faith encouraged on two continents
It is amazing and extremely rewarding to witness the partnership that has blossomed between the Meseret Kristos Church in Ethiopia and Lake City Church in Washington. On both sides of the world congregations have been encouraged and blessed. Pastor Jim Kennington of Lake City Church had the privilege of preaching in his congregations’ sister church, team members got to meet the family (or families) they support, murals were painted on classroom walls in the kindergarten, children were tickled and hugged, evangelists were inspired.
 
The team and pastoral staff of Lake City Church came away with a deeper understanding of the hardships the Christians of this area face and renewed steadfastness to remain faithful in prayer for the spiritual battles that are raging. The vibrancy of the faith of the Ethiopian Christians and their determination to persevere no matter what the cost significantly impacted the thirteen people who visited their church’s ministry area. There is no doubt that they will bring renewed energy back to their home church and they most definitely left a deposit in their sister church in Ethiopia!