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When Kris and Scott Roeder visited Ethiopia on a family trip in 2014, four years after adopting their daughter from the country, they met a family of poor living potters exposed to the elements with a seriously ill child. With $ 700 of friends to use to build a new family home and take the child to the hospital, the Roeders knew that they could do something about it.
But they also knew that they could do more with more people. They felt like they could have a bigger impact.
As heads of ministry at Vision Church, the couple returned and shared his experiences in Ethiopia with the congregation, sparking the idea of a second trip.
"We know that we will not solve hunger or poverty." Over there, "said Pastor Toby Newnum's vision." But at least we can come down and make a connection. "
This idea is became reality two years later when a team of 12 people traveled to Ethiopia to help families and spread the faith of the church. Inspired by their experiences, the team came back ready to make Mission Journey a Biennial Event
Now their quest for doing good continues.The Roeders and six other members of the Tucson Church are heading back to Ethiopia.
When they will arrive, they plan to work with a network of organizations formed by the adoption process of the Roeders a decade earlier.
"The problem is bigger than our family, so the solution has to be more our family, "said Kris Roeder." So we have found those organizations that do good work in the field, and we simply try to support them and provide them with funding, and when we are there, no matter what hands we can do to serve the job "
One of these organizations is Blessing the Children International, a ministry with an academy in Ethiopia. Church members will help build kitchen desks and cabinets in the academy, and Kris Roeder, a computer programmer, will teach teachers how to use Microsoft Excel and Word.
Church members will also work with the Ordinary Hero organization to deliver food to the Korah community, where more than 100,000 people live around a landfill in the Ethiopian capital. # 39; Addis Ababa.
The team will also work with Ethiopian pastor Tilahun Molla, who became a staff member of Vision last September and receives a monthly allowance from the church. Molla built churches and houses in the Ethiopian regions of Kembata Tembaro, Addis Ababa and Debre Birhan. He will guide the mission team through projects focused on local needs such as building a home for a widowed grandmother and building shade structures for a market in full swing. air.
Newnum, who participated in the last trip, said "
" You will often see an old lady trying to carry a 70-pound bag of rice and oil, "he said. "At least while we're here, we can lift it and carry it for it."
Vision members who have not made the 9,000-mile trip to Ethiopia can still help. After listening to the stories of the first church trip, church members sponsored Ethiopian children through Blessing the Children International to send them to school with children. supplies. still remains connected to Ethiopia through his sponsorship of an Ethiopian child. She visited her house and talked to her mother during the first trip.
"I know when I make a monthly donation, I know the house, I'm sitting on the bed, I was there," she said. "It's really cool to have that personal connection, to know that's where the gift goes."
For four of the trip participants, the mission offers a chance to deliver supplies to their godchildren in person
What Vision Member Jennifer Ricksecker is waiting for the most during her intervention. Ricksecker writes back and forth with his Ethiopian godson and sends his articles. Now she will finally meet her
Ricksecker will not come to Ethiopia empty-handed. In recent months, the church has raised donations, and members of the trip bring them all. Ricksecker and his daughter, Jamie, who also travel, piled all their own belongings in one suitcase just to leave three more suitcases between them, filled with vitamins, shoes, clothes and school supplies.
The trip also gives the church the opportunity to spread its faith. Because of the difference in language, the team will all wear gospel-bearing shirts written in the Ethiopian language, and Tim Osborn, a member of Molla, Newnum and Vision, will preach during the trip.
"We are not a big church, but we have this really cool connection with several churches in Ethiopia," Newnum said. "It is gratifying for us because they are so open and so hungry out there to receive the message of Christ."
Although the trip gives members an opportunity to do the same. unlike in Ethiopia, it can make a lasting impression on their home experiences, too.
"Being able to see people who are so less privileged than us but so much happier brings a kind of appreciation to life when we come back," said Kris Roeder. "You will never put water on the same one … It's just a nice appreciation that life is really a relationship."
Ava Garcia is a journalism student at the University of Arizona and trainee at Tucson Local Media
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