A letter from Rachel Weller serving in Ethiopia
October 22, 2014 - CHE Training
I’m back. Back from Kenya; back from the Community Health Evangelism (CHE) Internship; back from Addis, where I stayed a couple weeks to see Michael and get my computer fixed. We are thankful that we have a house—not a guesthouse—to stay in there. It means minimal unpacking, knowing that there’s food in the cupboards and some in the freezer, and coffee ready to brew. We share the house with John and Gwen Haspels, who also live a bit of a mobile life as they come and go from southwestern Ethiopia where they have been working for the past couple of decades.
So we were shocked the day that John called Michael on the phone saying, “We’ve been shot!” That day Michael was driving through Addis traffic when his phone rang. He decided to answer it—he could just quickly tell John he’d call him back as soon as he pulled over. But with that greeting, everything changed. He stayed on the phone with John long enough to find out that John was driving, but could not see from one eye and the other had blood dripping into it. Shots had gone through Gwen’s lower face, so she held her own face while dabbing the blood from John’s eye so he could keep driving. Miraculously, neither of them ever fainted. Miraculously, they had their travel documents in hand. Miraculously, the phone system was working. And miraculously, everything fell into place as Michael called the various agencies, including our support system in the Louisville, to get them help at the closest hospital (four hours driving) and then evacuate them the next day to Addis and then South Africa, where they are now receiving excellent medical care. That’s the very short version of the story. To read more and to get updates go to https://www.presbyterianmission.org/ministries/world-mission/. To be clear, though, it was a random shooting and would-be attempted robbery if John had stopped the car! They were probably not being targeted, nor was it a political or religious act. The Haspelses immediately sent a message to the Suri people that, though they were in pain, they offered forgiveness to those who had hurt them and wished that they would know the forgiving love of Jesus. Michael and I are thankful that our friends, our mentors, lived to add one more exciting story to their autobiography and to give us one more gift of seeing God’s faithfulness and power. Gwen spends her days in the hospital, singing and praising God, so we join her from where we are.
But let me get back to the story I started to tell you. I got back to Addis the day Michael was arranging the evacuation for the Haspels to South Africa. It took me a couple weeks to get back to Gambella, where I am now.
Rev. Matthew, Rev. Stephen, Ariet (the only woman) and John—my interning companions from Gambella—all returned enthusiastic to get to work. If you read my last newsletter, you heard some of the things we learned in the first two weeks. In the next weeks we were challenged to think about the resources available in our home areas—sun, rain, fertile land, rock, sand, water—and to think about ways we could use those resources—energy, food production, building, living well, and more. We were reminded that Jesus chose a small group of relatively uneducated people to do the big work of telling his story. We were reminded that Jesus really never went very far from home to do his work; in other words, there is plenty of mission work to do right under our noses, and Jesus has called us to do that work. Lastly, we were reminded that telling the Good News of God’s love will result in communities that live healthy lives by promoting healthy practices, preventing diseases, and living abundantly in Jesus Christ. These were encouraging lessons, giving us strength and energy to return and face the challenges in the neighborhoods where we live.
In the last couple of days we gathered in our geographical groups—Eastern Kenya, Western Kenya, Southern Africa, and Ethiopia—to make a plan. We also discussed how we would monitor and evaluate our plan. The plan we wrote down involves Vision Seminars in which we will explain our vision to church leaders and invite them to join us in the work. If they join us (it's hard to imagine that they will not), they will be invited to send appropriate people (the Vision Seminar includes a session on who appropriate people are) to learn how to be trainers in their home areas. This training takes place in two phases. Following the first phase, the participants are asked to return home to do a low-cost ($10 or less) seed project in some area of health to sort of jump-start the community into thinking about healthy living. In addition, each of the participants will be required to take steps to make sure they are living in a “healthy home”—one in which the people use a clean toilet and a clean place for bathing, drink clean water, and eat a well-balanced diet. Those who can show that they have taken these steps are invited back for the second part of the training.
Upon completion of the Training of Trainers (ToT) each participant will receive a certificate identifying them as a Trainer of Community Health Evangelism. These trainers then will return home and begin training committee members and people who will work as Community Health Evangelists. The communities will be trained on how to choose the people to do this work. And then, to begin with, each Community Health Evangelist will go to four of their closest neighbors and teach what it means to have a healthy home, including having a healthy heart by living in the Way of Jesus. If all goes according to our plan, we could be planting more than 50 churches in the next three to five years!
And so we invite you to join us on this journey. First of all we ask you to join us in prayer for God’s guidance and for the fulfillment of God’s plan. Ask God to strengthen, encourage, and equip my four intern colleagues as well as those who are chosen as local community health evangelists. In addition, ask God to show you if there isn’t something similar that you could do in your own communities along the same lines. When that happens, let us know, so that we can also join you in your journey of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ in your communities.
Michael and I are thankful for all of you who support us regularly. Your prayers sustain us, your emails and communications encourage us, and your offerings keep us working.
Sincerely,
Rachel Weller
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 133
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