The “open door” to Ethiopia

This is a photo of the bridge into the Langano Mission Station – made out of a shipping container.

It stands for “God wrote this story… let God write your story, too.” A friend of mine here at MTI (missions training) told me that Steve Saint has autographed his father’s biography for her with GWTS… LGWYST. It really hit home for us because we were still in the midst of figuring our how we would fit into what SIM is doing in Zambia at Mukinge. We were so sure that Zambia was where we were supposed to be. After all, we have been involved there for several years, our sweet Moses is adopted from there, and we have tons of connections there. It made perfect sense to us!

Mukinge was not going to have housing available for us until January, so we offered to SIM to go where there was a need. We quickly got several excited emails from the field in Ethiopia welcoming us to their team. Honestly, we read the emails and felt terrible because we didn’t think we would actually serve there. But… God had other plans and started working in our hearts. That’s where the GWTS… LGWYST comes in. It just completely hit us – we may think that Zambia makes sense, but God is wanting us to let Him write our story!

In a multitude of ways, God made it abundantly clear over that weekend that He was moving us to Ethiopia. We were both sad and excited at the same time. There just wasn’t a clear fit for us as a family at Mukinge in Zambia. In contrast, our skills and giftings fit perfectly with the needs they have at Langano in Ethiopia. Langano is also a much better environment for our whole family. Shane and I took the weekend to pray and beg God for clarity. By the end of the weekend, we both felt confirmed that we were to call SIM headquarters and tell them we felt like we should pursue going to Ethiopia. Shane called them Monday morning and just after he told them, while Shane was on the phone with them, they received an email from the Zambia director saying Mukinge didn’t have a spot for us after all. So… there was our closed door AND our confirmation that we are to be in Ethiopia! We had been praying that God would leave only one option available for us.
*A little prayer request – we already had our stuff shipped to Zambia, so we need to figure out a way to get it to Ethiopia now which is kind of stressful.

So… to find out a little about Ethiopia and where we will be:
click HERE to go to Allyson’s blog entry from her trip to Ethiopia in the spring… YES… it’s the same place! You can also go to our PHOTOS section to see an album from Allyson’s trip.

We are really excited about serving in Ethiopia. We will be stationed at Langano Mission Station which is on Lake Langano, about 4 hours from Addis. We will be joining three families and two singles who are already living at the Langano. Two of the families are empty nesters and one of the families has four children the same age as ours! The team there has been incredibly welcoming. What a privilege to work alongside such a wonderful group of people! It is so great to be able to picture where we are going and to know some of the people there. In fact, the Wetzels who are there on the station are the family that Allyson spent her first mission trip with in Bolivia when she was 16! God is so creative. Who would have ever thought we would on the mission field with them someday? Dan and Kim Scheel are the couple that have been there the longest – over 20 years! Kim is also a nurse practitioner and she graduated from the same program at Baylor that Allyson went to. Allyson will be working with Kim in the clinic.

We will head home from MTI on Friday and we will leave for training at SIM headquarters in NC on Thursday the 23rd. We will be there for 2 1/2 weeks and will return home on November 8th. We don’t have specific dates yet, but it looks like we will leave around the 17th or 18th of November. We should know more within the next week. The Scheels leave for the states in December and they will be gone about 6 weeks. Allyson will be overseeing the clinic in their absence, so it is important that we have some overlap time before they leave.

As more of the details get sorted out, we will post another blog as to our specific roles at Langano.

Many of you have been asking about supporting us and we have put you on hold until we got our new support account opened up. It’s opened up now! Your donation, as always, is tax deductible.

You can donate online at:
www.simusa.org/SIMGift.php
*be sure to enter our name and associate number (30327)

Or you can send your donation in to:
SIM USA
Attn: STA SUPPORT
P.O. Box 7900
Charlotte, NC 28241-7900
*please include our name and associate number (30327)on your check

For those of you who were supporting us monthly with FLMI, someone will be calling you this week to help you transition your support to our new account. All previous donations to FLMI are being transferred to SIM. Thank you so much!

We have been so encouraged by all of you…

A few photos of our time at MTI…