Ethiopia
Harmony's Work in Ethiopia
Harmony Outreach is now in Ethiopia!!! At long last, the burden that God began laying on my heart several years ago has finally come to pass!
Harmony is supporting three orphan homes--Mercy House, Saba House and Waliyta Sodo House. Each home has between 10-12 orphans. These homes are part of a network of homes connected to a beautiful ministry called Hanna’s Orphan Home. HOH has approximately 250 orphans in their care, dispersed in 26 homes throughout Addis Ababa and other parts of Ethiopia.
Mercy House is named after the youngest member of that house, a sweet little girl who is blind and partially deaf. She lost her sight and most of her hearing after contracting meningitis, one of several diseases that stalk Ethiopia. Mercy, like the other children in the HOH network, was not immunized because HOH had no money in their budget for routine medical care or immunizations. And so, in addition to our support of individual orphan homes, Harmony Outreach is supporting the cost to provide HOH a full time staff nurse along with immunizations for the approximately 250 orphans plus staff!
Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country, has a staggering 5 million orphans. With a population of 85 million that means that orphans comprise 6% of the population. Compounding matters is the fact that Ethiopia is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. Only a tiny fraction of Ethiopia’s orphans will ever be adopted internationally. Given these facts, and to have the broadest possible impact, our work is with the overwhelming majority of orphans who will not be adopted. The goal is to raise these children in a Christian environment to live, succeed, and become change agents for their own country.
Perhaps the most compelling reason for this model is Jesus. Jesus announced the beginning of his public ministry by going into a synagogue, opening the Bible and reading these words from the prophet Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations (Isaiah 61:1-4 Emphasis added).
Jesus said he came to rescue the poor and brokenhearted, transforming their lives into something new and beautiful. These “oaks of righteousness,” planted by the Lord, would then go on to rebuild and restore the society around them! What an amazing truth and how different it is from man’s thinking. Restoring society from Christ’s perspective happens when believers invest themselves in the lives of the broken hearted, the vulnerable and those regarded as valueless. At HOH they are already seeing it. Children who were trapped in a cycle of petty crime and incarceration are now the top-ranked students in their schools. HOH graduates have gone on to become lawyers, doctors and other types of leaders. Children and adults from Muslim families are coming to Christ.
Hanna’s Orphan Home is a beautiful ministry founded by an angel named Hanna Teshome. I call her “the EMT” (Ethiopian Mother Teresa). But with HOH being established and operated by Ethiopians, they are poor and have continued their operations trusting in God to meet their daily needs. Harmony’s partnership with HOH is a beautiful example of the Body of Christ—one body with different members, each with a different function. When we all come together, with Christ at the head, the Body is made complete and nothing is lacking. We are so excited that God called us to Ethiopia where we come to the rescue of orphans who would not have survived or who faced hopeless lives.
With your help, and the Lord’s leading, we are “bestowing on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair!”
