May, 2010
Springtime in the US must be so beautiful right now! We are in heavy rains now in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, creating a climate for increasing incidence of disease and illness. Unfortunately, however, the rains are not getting to where they are most needed: in the countryside where crops are dry and thirsty for moisture. Threats of famine from past years are becoming closer and closer to reality.
Another concern which we ask you to be praying for is the upcoming national elections, which begin this next week, starting on Sunday, May 23rd. The last parliamentary elections took place in 2005, when the post-election period was marred by controversy and bloodshed. As this election time draws near, the ruling government has used intimidation to restrict opposition and control media, the public, and individuals in general. Ethiopians are unable to speak freely or even vote their true views without fear of reprisal. Public support of opposition parties and speaking out against the ruling party are dangerous gestures. For example, the ruling party has plastered the city with election posters and signs. Anyone who takes down a sign, even if it is on their own property, will be put in jail. The government is also forcing non-government organizations to help pay for advertising/campaign materials; any non-cooperation results in consequences. Travel in and out of the country by Ethiopia residents is being closely monitored as well.
The results of the election may take up to a month to finish counting. During this entire time until after the results are announced is a time to take a little more caution than usual. We want you to know that we, as a family, are taking necessary safety precautions. Of course we are staying out of anything political and doing work as usual, but with heightened awareness and contingency plans in place. We are not sending out this email to cause undue alarm, but rather to ask that you pray specifically and intentionally during this election time. We are not worried; we know God is ultimately in control. Our greatest concern is for the people of Ethiopia who are oppressed in so many ways. Coming from a country of so much freedom, it is outrageous to experience the incredible bondage and suffering here.
God says in Isaiah 51:4, “Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples.”
We believe Ethiopia and her people rightly belong to the God of the universe. We pray that His justice and truth will be the light to this people.
By His grace,
Sean and Becky,
Madison and Hannah Cox
Feb 2010 Team Cox update
Hello friends and family! We just want to give you an update on “what’s up” in Ethiopia these days (these warm and sunny days, I might add).
Sean has been busy at Bingham Academy with teaching and coaching. He also has been preparing mock exams for the students in preparation for their Cambridge exams this spring. Bingham is a busy place, for sure; there is a huge need for teachers for the following school year…at least 25 are needed. Please pray for more teachers to be recruited to the school. We hate to think of what the teacher’s workload may be like otherwise.
Madison and Hannah are doing really great; actually, they seem the most relaxed and adjusted now than they’ve been since we’ve been here. Hard to believe it’s been almost a year! Hannah B told me today she doesn’t want to live anywhere else, even though she does look forward to visiting Montana in the future. They both have made very close friends here, which has been a tremendous blessing. Also, they both enjoy school and extracurricular activities very much.
I (Becky) have two more months of Amharic language school, then I will finish. I know I will never finish learning this language, but it will be so nice to be out of the classroom. God has been doing amazing things through the small group Bible studies we started in the Kore community in September. These continue to grow and multiply. Our greatest need is for more facilitators to lead these small groups. I’m also spending time each week in a different area of the city called Chirkos. I’ve mentioned before that this is the area most heavily populated by prostitutes and all manner of darkness.
An Ethiopian friend of mine has introduced me to a family in Chirkos who we’ve been visiting weekly and getting to know. They are open to having us pray and read Scripture with them while we visit (and drink coffee, of course). This family lives in a very small, very dark shack in an area of Chirkos called DC (not yet sure why it is so named). DC is the area where most prostitution occurs. It is eerily quiet during the day; it is completely different during the evening and night; teeming with all the nightlife that goes along with this lifestyle. These homes in DC are turned into brothels, with beds being rented for 2 birr per use. Most of the actual prostitutes are from the countryside; girls who’ve come to Addis in search of work, only to find this work is primarily all that is available for uneducated girls from the country.
There are some truly evil things which occur in this area. Because most of these girls don’t have family in Addis and because so few people place any value on them, many prostitutes are kidnapped by “brokers” who sell them to tenquay (witch doctors). These witch doctors, who are both male and female, do horrible things with these young women, even to the point of human sacrifice. Not very long ago, some police found ten bodies of young prostitutes in the home of a tenquay.
I don’t need to tell you how burdened we are for these girls. A friend of mine who also has a heart for the prostitutes here told me of one girl who he approached to share the love of Jesus with her. She told him, “I am nothing. I look beautiful on the outside, but inside there is nothing. I am treated as worthless; I have no value; I am only used. There is nothing for my future; nothing to live for. Why should I live?”
Ethiopian women are incredible and I have utmost respect for them. Many women live with intense discrimination and violence. On March 6th, I will be running in the Ethiopian Women’s 5k Race, which is specifically for awareness of violence against women in Africa. 9,000 women are expected to run in this race; to be a voice, somehow, for those who have none. Female circumcision, child-brides, high maternal/infant mortality, sexual slavery, and physical abuse are all too common here.
Please pray as we are beginning to build relationships in the Chirkos/DC community, especially beginning with this one family. I’m certain at least one of the girls is involved in prostitution. Pray for wisdom and guidance in the future, especially in sharing the love of Jesus in this very sensitive situation. We’d like to see some small groups form here in the near future. Pray for the Light of life to pierce this darkness and bring hope to the hopeless. Pray that the power of the Holy Spirit will equip us for this work. There is no other way; we are incapable of anything in and of ourselves.
Lastly, we thank you for all your prayers and continued support of our family. It is a powerful and at the same time, humbling. We’re so very grateful. God bless you!
By His grace,
Sean and Becky Cox
Madison and Hannah
February 5, 2010
From:
Linda Brock
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2010 4:28 PM
To:
Subject: 50 beans
Dear friends,
We spent much of January back in Africa. We started out in Kenya working with some of the Church members from the Community Christian Church of Kenya (the name of the churches that CMF started). These fine young men and one woman are strong committed Christians. They are a part of a new church plant that is near to the Nairobi slum of Kibera. The church is slowly growing and their commitment to serving the Lord is inspiring to see. Their recent vision is to begin another church actually inside the slum. It is a community where some of the church members live.
They want to go into the community using CHE (Community Health Evangelism) to reach out holistically to their neighbors. They understand the need for people to feel the love of Christ physically as well as spiritually. We spent 5 days training this new training team that will lead out in this new community. Judy Fish (another CMF missionary) and I really enjoyed our time with these dear brothers and sister. We ended with a good time of prayer for the new area and for the team that is leading this work. What a blessing to again be working with Maasai and other tribes who have a vision to start churches. GOD IS MOVING IN NAIROBI.
From Kenya we flew to Ethiopia for a training for the newly formed Urban Poor team in Addis Ababa. God has been preparing this team to come together from different places. This training was the first time some of them had met each other. We managed to fit 15 days of training, team building, writing of a team vision statement, mission statement, covenant, and objective setting for the team and each team member all into 9 days!! The team was so focused and ready we really covered a lot in a short time.
The team for Addis Ababa is so needed. There are so many people in the city that are suffering due to poverty and oppression. This all came home to me on our last day in the city. We had done some surveying and prayer walking around the city, we had talked about the issues people faced, and we know the situation is dire. However, on that last day as we were driving past a small bus stop I saw a young boy I thought was going to be run over by one of the mini vans. He was down on his hands and knees in the street where the busses stop. He was scraping something up and I said, “that little kid is going to get himself killed”. What was so important he would risk his life for it? He had spilled some chick peas in the road. He was furiously scraping up the peas from the dusty roadway. I could see risking life and limb if he had spilled a big gunny sack of beans. He was scraping up about 50 beans. Life or 50 beans for dinner was his choice.
It struck me how important the work there in Addis is. God’s children need to know that he loves them, and he wants them to have a better life here and for eternity. I said a small prayer for the lost in Addis Ababa and also for our team that has such a calling to bring light into the darkness of the city. The Lord said the poor would always be with us, but that does not relieve us from ministering to bring light to those in the darkness, poor or rich.
PRAY FOR ADDIS ABABA AND NAIROBI AS THESE 2 TEAMS REACH OUT WITH THE LOVE OF GOD TO THE POOR IN THEIR CITIES.
Thank you.
Garry & Linda Brock
January 8th, 2010
It is the day after Ethiopian Christmas now. Ethiopian holidays are really big celebrations which involve slaughtering of sheep or chickens to feed family and friends for the days surrounding a major holiday. Most Ethiopians, however, cannot afford to buy a sheep or a chicken, no matter how important it is for holiday celebration.
Thanks to Eli Hinebauch’s challenge to raise money to feed Ethiopian families and to the Fifth Avenue congregation catching the vision and giving so generously, we were able to buy 75 sheep for Christmas. These sheep were delivered Wednesday afternoon and kept under guard. The following morning, people who had been contacted ahead of time came to get their sheep, along with oil to cook it in and beriberi, our traditional Ethiopian spice.
We have been so thrilled with the symbolism of slaughtering sheep; the Christmas message given to these people before they left with their sheep was all about Jesus, the Lamb who was slain for each one of them. There is no more powerful a message than this. The women who left with the sheep to prepare them for their families were so very grateful to have a sheep to slaughter to fill hungry stomachs, but we also pray they will want to know more of Jesus, in whose Name these sheep were given.
We saved back three sheep which we slaughtered, skinned, and removed all the meat from. After much sharpening of knives, we cut up all the meat into small pieces and prepared “beg tibs” with injera, a traditional Ethiopian meal. This meal was then served to 30 teenage boys who live on the streets of Addis Ababa.
These sheep fed hundreds of families. God certainly multiplied that which was given and we’re grateful to give Him all the glory for this Ethiopian Christmas gift. Thanks so much to all of you who gave so generously to impact the least of these in a very real and tangible way. It is also really amazing and awesome to have Heidi and Emily here with us sharing in the whole experience. Our family is so grateful to have them here during this time.
By His grace,
Sean and Becky
Madison and Hannah Cox
November 15th, 2009
We would like to share with you a few thoughts and ask for your prayers for people who are truly blinded by the lies of the enemy.
I visited the home of a newly married couple this past Tuesday. They both live with leprosy in this HIV/leprosy community. Both are missing parts of their hands and feet and the husband missing areas of his face from this terrible disease. They live in a tiny mud and stick shack; she used to do embroidery work with her hands, but is no longer able to because of the disfigurement. Her husband has been a clothing tailor, also with increasing difficulty because of his missing digits. He tries to sell these clothes in the huge market area, but often gets run off by police because he doesn’t have his own little stand or shop to sell from. He has recently opened himself to the truth of Jesus Christ, but his wife is quite a hardened follower of animistic and Orthodox tradition; her father is an Orthodox priest who forced lies and witchcraft onto her as a child. While we visited and prayed and read the Bible together, I closely watched her face for any sign of response. Her face remained impassive, hard like a rock.
I often feel this same thing during my small group time on Monday afternoons. The women are very welcoming and enjoy visiting about families and life, enjoy drinking tea and coffee together, but when we read the Word of God and ask questions, there is usually very little response; often just silence, closed expressions and body language. Generations of Islamic and Ethiopian Orthodox influence are deeply rooted, as are the deceptions and bondage of generational poverty. How does one penetrate these combined forces of darkness? The only answer I have is to constantly rely on the truth and promises in God’s Word and to know, beyond a doubt, the power that exists in that truth. We thank Jesus that he alone is the Light that penetrates this present darkness. Also mindful of what the Lord has said in Isaiah 55:11, “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it”.
How humbling to be a broken vessel, frustrated with our own weakness and failings, yet always depending on HIS greatness and sufficiency to be the force which will soften hearts, transform lives, and bring glory to his name. It is only for Jesus and all about…Jesus.
By His grace alone,
Sean and Becky
Madison and Hannah Cox
9-21-2009
Team Cox September 2009 update
Melkum Addis Amet! Happy New Year from Ethiopia! It has ushered in more sunshine and decreasing rains. Ethiopian New Year begins on September 1st by Ethiopian calendar, which is actually September 11th by Gregorian calendar. Ethiopian calendar has thirteen months, the last of which is called Paugmay and is only five days long. New Year is a big holiday in Ethiopia with thousands of goats, sheep, and chickens slaughtered for celebration feasts. Even though most Ethiopians cannot afford to celebrate in this fashion, they still make every effort to do so. The beautiful thing we’ve witnessed is the close family ties which exist here and are even more closely bound during holidays and celebrations. Family and close friends travel great distance to be with their loved ones during celebrations and during “lekso”, the period of time surrounding a death. Mourning time is also taken very seriously in Ethiopian culture. Since there is so much death and dying, lekso is a major component of Ethiopian lifestyle.
I believe I previously mentioned our young friend Dawit (David, in English), who has really become like a son to us. Dawit has been an orphan for many years and spends his days shining shoes down on the corner. His life has been far from easy. We have been blessed to recognize the hand of God in Dawit’s life; he has a tremendous desire to “make something worthwhile” of his life and has persevered in learning as much English as he can from any source he can find. Dawit has learned more English from spending time with our family over the past several months and has also been a great Amharic tutor and translator for us. The really exciting thing to witness is how much God is opening his heart and mind to the Truth of His Word. Dawit never read a Bible until we gave him an Amharic Bible of his own. Now he and Sean spend time getting into the Word and exploring Truth. We are thrilled by all the deep questions this draws out of him and pray he will see more and more that he has vital a role in God’s amazing story. One way we believe God is working upstream in Dawit’s life is through his recent acceptance into a local nursing college. We had prayed about this together during the month prior to his acceptance and Dawit is truly in awe of how God answered this prayer. Dawit and I spent some time at this school, interviewing the director and investigating the program. Sean and I feel confident this is a wide open doorway for Dawit’s future and have committed to walk through this process with him. It will be a big challenge for him to study and apply himself this hard for three years while balancing school with basic survival. We believe he has what it takes and eagerly watch as God continues to transform his life.
Sean has been back to teaching now for one month. He is very popular with his students, including his eldest daughter, who is in his 7th grade math class. The diversity of students in Bingham Academy is amazing and truly orchestrated by God. Students are from dozens of different countries around the world, including a Muslim youth from Pakistan. There was a student who recently graduated from Bingham whose father is now president of another country in Africa. Talk about serious influence by these teachers and fellow classmates! Madison and Hannah have classmates from Korea, Switzerland, Ethiopia, the Netherlands, Australia…as well as many other European, African, and Middle Eastern nations. It’s so exciting to think of the many tribes, tongues, and nations gathered together in one place…one school. We’re thrilled by the ministry Sean and the girls have every day because of this.
Sean has also been very popular for his mechanic skills. Not only has he spent quite a lot of time working on our vehicle, but also on other missionaries’ vehicles, motorcycles, and generators. His skill is so very hard to come by here and greatly appreciated…I’m sure he will be in very high demand the more people find out about his talent!
I (Becky) have less than four months remaining in Amharic language school. I pray that by that time I will be able to effectively communicate on a deep level with the people I work among in the HIV/AIDS/leprosy community. Very shortly I will be co-leading a group of 13 teenage girls from this community; I will do this with an Ethiopian woman who also has a passion for these orphans, street children, and kids who are the caretakers for their sick and dying parents. I continue to visit homes in this community as well, with a vision to expand this ministry to a wider circle women, children, and families who have no one reaching out to them in love, no one offering them the only HOPE they will ever have in Jesus Christ, no one helping to ease their physical suffering. Only God is all-sufficient for this overwhelming task…we praise him that he alone is the great I AM in all situations.
We’re grateful beyond words for those of you who have surrounded us with your prayers. We believe more strongly in this than ever; we know that any opportunities we have are the result of so many prayers lifted up, filling up to overflowing and raining down from above. THANK YOU so much! We ask you to please continue to pray about all these things we’ve shared in this newsletter. We are confident that the Kingdom of God will advance through prayer and by God’s grace poured out upon his church. We pray that you may be encouraged as well by this truth,
“God is still on his throne, we are still on his footstool, and there’s only a knee’s distance between them…My Father knows best, and I’m confident that he has placed us here; our task is to labor until the pillar-cloud removes and leads further, working out God’s purposes in God’s time”. Jim Elliot
By His grace,
Sean and Becky
Madison and Hannah Cox
8/20/09
Good morning Fifth Ave. Christian Church! We have been overwhelmed with the generous gifts you sent to Ethiopia with Christi Bradbury. It will be so wonderful to be able to share all the terrific school supplies with children in the Kore HIV/AIDS community. We are looking forward to this; also, being able to tell them where these gifts came from is a privilege for us. Once again, we are honored to be a part of a church body that cares so much for the least of these, not just in word, but in action.
Thank you very much for all the notebooks, paper, pencils and pens, crayons, glue, markers, etc. for these children.
Thank you also for the supplies which will be used for medical purposes; for the bottles of ibuprofen, cold and cough medicine, and the bandage supplies from those who work at NMH. It will be really great to have this supply to offer to help relieve pain and the symptoms of illness when I am in the HIV/AIDS community.
Our family is very blessed by the personal gifts you sent as well. Thank you for thinking of the small things which will last us a very long time. We’re grateful for your thoughtfulness and generosity.
We want you to know we truly mean it when we say that FACC is a vital part of ministry to Ethiopia. God bless you!
Thankful to be a small part of His amazing story,
Sean, Becky, Madison, and Hannah Cox
July 2009, Cox family update from Ethiopia
Good day to you from rainy Ethiopia! We are well into rainy season now and learning to adjust to this new climate. It truly is a good thing we brought warm clothes and mud boots because rainy season (kremt) is a cold, wet, and muddy time. We’ve even purchased more blankets for sleeping at night. The rains have been most welcome since Ethiopia has been experiencing drought and extremely dry weather conditions; a major concern for local farmers and all of us who depend upon their crops. We are told the rains have come too late for many farmers who had already planted their fields in anticipation of the rains.
We are simply grateful to live in a solid house which keeps the water out. Walking through the HIV/AIDS village is even more dismal in this weather than when it’s dry. The slimy mud mixed with human and animal waste clings to everything and everyone who walks in it and is quite slippery. Swirling pools of rainwater mixed with garbage and sewage create a pervasive odor throughout. Beggars on the “streets” huddle under tattered clothing, unable to stay dry or warm. The shacks which house sick women and children in this area are unable to keep the cold rain out. It is a miserable place.
The cold and rainy season also creates more illnesses or exacerbates already existing diseases. In one home I entered this week, an 18 month old little girl was squatting on the dirt floor, urinating into the already growing mud-puddle in the middle of the “house”. She looked unwell and when I asked her mother about it, she said the child had been ill ever since the cold began. I heard coughing in every home I visited. Another home was that of a blind beggar woman named Tiengish. She has two daughters the same ages as ours who go out with her every day to help her beg for money to buy their food. Their living space is the size of a closet; very cold and dirty.
Sometimes I feel the despair of this community threatening to oppress my own heart and mind. It brings to mind the words of one author who told God, “I can’t do this; not poverty, slums, hunger, disease, dying children, grieving mothers; not into so much pain and suffering and despair”. But looking into the eyes of these people, I can sense the tremendous love and compassion our Heavenly Father has for the least of these. It was Mother Theresa who said, “In the faces of these poor, I see Christ, in His most distressing disguise”. Yes, He is visible in this place; in the midst of the oppression and despair.
As for our family, we are all together in language school Monday-Friday. Madison and Hannah started 3 weeks ago and are picking up Amharic pretty quickly. We, Sean and Becky, feel we are now able to hold basic conversations in Amharic. Still a long way from where we hope to be one day, but we are beginning to feel more comfortable with this language. The girls have been getting an eyeful everyday on the way home from school as we drive over a river which is a major local “laundry” and “bath”. There is never a lack of things to see and experience.
We’d like to ask for prayer for physical health for our family as someone seems to always be battling illness, for Madison and Hannah during this rainy season cooped up indoors more often, and especially for God to be glorified in Ethiopia…He is the God of Addis Ababa, and the King of this nation. Thank you for praying with us and being a source of support and encouragement; may we all together become “the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing” 2 Corinthians 2:15.
By His grace,
Sean and Becky Cox
E-news June 2009
Greetings from sunny Africa! Six weeks after our arrival in Ethiopia, we are feeling pretty well settled in. It has been quite a learning curve, but we are now able to find our way around Addis Ababa without a map (most of the time). Our family is continually learning just how much we rely upon the Lord…for overcoming language barriers, building relationships, for school, transportation, maintaining our family values, and dealing with extreme poverty and illness and oppression in this place.
It is very humbling to enter the homes in this HIV/AIDS community next to our own home. One home I visited recently remains at the forefront of my mind…I entered into the darkness of this tiny shack and came face to face with intense poverty and grief. The mother in this home sat stone still in the middle of the dirt floor, dressed in black from head to foot, her face without expression. I learned from my translator that she had just lost her 9 month old baby daughter 3 days prior to our visit. The baby was severely malnourished because her mother is also malnourished and sick with HIV and unable to adequately nurse her baby. After intense vomiting from a GI infection, the baby became too dehydrated and consequently died. The pall of death and grief was so intense in this place…there was nothing to do but pray with this mother who is suffering so. She began to weep as we prayed…her stoic demeanor stripped away…all of us in the house wept with her. We can bring food and medical supplies for the body, but only Jesus offers the hope and real healing that is needed for these poor people…they truly are the poorest of poor in so many ways.
To prayer walk through this community is an eye-opening experience. We continually pray that the Lord will do a new thing here in this city. He has been allowing us to recognize the potential and the partnerships which our team is beginning to create with local people. We are excited about how much God has been working upstream, long before our arrival. There are two communities we are wanting to work with…one is a Muslim community surrounding Bingham Academy where Sean will have the opportunity to help implement small group ministry with a group of young men who used to be street kids. Our prayer is that this will begin to include their Muslim families and friends as time goes on and trust is established.
The other community is the Kore community where we live…it is considered the poorest, consisting mainly of those with HIV/AIDS and leprosy. Several local people in this area have recently taken CHE training, so we anticipate beginning Community Health Evangelism in this community in the near future. The physical, emotional, spiritual, and social needs of this “slum” village are very pressing, very serious, and extremely oppressive. Praise God for His all-sufficiency…without Him this task is too overwhelming.
We are so very grateful for all of you who have committed to pray and be “on the team” to reach out to the “least of these” in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We’re so honored to be surrounded by such a tremendous group of people who allow their hearts to be moved by the plight of the poor…who care more about God’s kingdom coming to this earth than their own lives being shielded from pain or distress. It is a privilege to know people who genuinely think that others matter as much as they do and are particularly aware of those who are poor around the world. May God be glorified by those who love Him and join together to “fight the good fight”! This is our biggest prayer of all: that we may simply reveal His glory to a lost and hurting world…together.
“May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth.” Psalm 67:3-4
By His grace,
Sean and Becky Cox
May 09, Team Cox e-news update
Wow, what a ride we’ve been on during these past weeks of beginning life in Ethiopia. It has certainly been more than we’ve imagined! God is so good and faithful in answering prayer. With eager anticipation we look forward to our future here; especially expectant of what the Lord will continually work on inside us as we are forced daily to face the overwhelming needs which surround us.
To say it has been a humbling experience so far is an understatement. As Sean and I attempt to learn the Amharic language every morning in language school, we feel more and more incapable of retaining it all. There are so many different verb tenses and gender exceptions in this language, so many different ways to greet people, and several sounds which we do not use in English; feels like a very steep mountain smack in front of us. However, in my opinion, mountains are meant to climb. So, we blunder our way through speaking with those around us in our community, in the local shops (souks), markets, taxis, on the street…pretty much everyone we encounter. Thank the Lord people here are very patient and gracious and generally eager to help us learn…also quick to laugh with us at our mistakes. Our language teacher is named Kafyellow; he is a young man who teaches during the day, then attends Addis Ababa University in the evenings to earn a degree in language; he is quite fluent in at least four languages. Kafyellow has taught us much about Ethiopian culture, religion, history, politics, language, social behavior, etc. We are very grateful for him. Every mid-morning we have a break from class to gather with all the other students and teachers for devotion and worship time. It has been altogether lovely to learn songs of praise in Amharic and to sing them together in a room full of people from different nations and languages. It is definitely a highlight of the day.
To a far greater degree is the humbling experience of simply walking or driving around this city. There are beggars everywhere. We live in one of the poorest areas of the city; our community is called Kore and is known for the large population of HIV/AIDS families and leprosy colony. It feels like home to us, however. There is a little evangelical church in our area which is involved in a “Good Samaritan” program, reaching out to the HIV widows and their children. I am going with some of the church leaders into the homes of some of these people on a weekly basis. We spend time visiting with them, find out their physical and spiritual needs, bring them food, share the gospel and read from the Word (in Amharic translation), and pray with them. I cannot truly describe what this experience is like. These families live in tiny, one room shacks with no sanitation, little food, very few possessions; the women are quite ill and some of the children as well. I cried as we prayed over one little boy who has been sick for some time; he is so small and frail in appearance; his eyes tell his story. It is very difficult to leave these homes, wanting to do so much more, yet having to trust God that His Word will not return to Him empty but will accomplish what He desires and achieve the purpose for which He sends it. I am reminded of how Jesus must have felt in Mark 6:34. Seeing all these people who are desperate, vulnerable, without direction, without protection…how His heart must break with the compassion He has.
We encounter many Muslims daily. There is one Muslim shopkeeper at the end of our road whose name is Sultan…very fitting name for him, I must say. He enjoys having a forengi (foreigner) come into his shop; he pulls up a stool for us and asks many questions. He loves to discuss politics, religion, the “problem with America”, and everything else you could think of. I can tell he loves a good debate. Sean is often out afoot on the search for a vehicle to buy and a house to rent in the future. He is getting to know quite a few men who “deal” vehicles and houses and is growing increasingly aware of who has what connections and who is trustworthy.
We cannot help but be increasingly aware of those around us who are desperate for the hope which we all have to offer, as part of the body of Christ. Death is so very real, especially in this place, and I hope the thought of it will cause us to weep, plead, and pray; for by God’s unreasonable grace we have been saved and there is only one thing that stands between us and those who are without this hope…a blood-stained cross. There is nothing more permanent or terrifying in my mind than being on the other side of the cross at death. I pray for a greater sense of urgency on our part. I also praise Jesus that we share in His victory over death.
We want to thank you all for your continued prayers; we can feel the very reality of these offerings on our behalf. Without these prayers and without God, we are nothing. Our small role in His amazing story is miniscule; we pray to only have the privilege to declare His glory. Please continue to pray that we may live life one surrendered day at a time; eyes on Jesus, hands to the cross, feet to the path. There is no better way.
God bless you…we love and miss you so much! Philippians 1:3 is a daily reality: “I thank my God every time I remember you”. Thank you for this partnership; thank you for the privilege of serving the King of Kings alongside of you.
By His grace,
Sean and Becky Cox