The following is an update from Team Ethiopia, a small group from Central Church in Memphis, TN, who will be serving as short-term missionaries at Onesimus Children Development Association in June 2011. We’ve invited our dear friends and ministry partners to post their trip updates and prayer requests here on the TFC blog. Enjoy…
Team Ethiopia 2011 has officially departed Memphis, TN and is on their way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They were sent off by a good group of family and friends that not only helped reduce over weight bags (the team took sixteen bags, 50lbs each - 12+ of those bags were filled with supplies to give), but also prayed with them before they left. The team is scheduled to land in Ethiopia (barring any trip delays) around 9:30 pm Friday night - equivalent to about 12:30 pm central time Friday.
The team (specifically Bree Starnes and Nicci Feathers) will be blogging daily once they get a chance to connect to the internet. So be sure to check back daily until their arrival home on Sunday, June 19th. In the meantime, please pray for their requests below as they travel over the next 24 hours approximately.
Please Pray:
- For each member of the team: Kelly McGugan (trip leader), Liz Roberts, Kelly Dawson, Michelle Honnen, Britainy Sholl, Nicci Feathers, Bree Starnes, and Morgan Frey.
- Many of us are leaving behind our spouses, children, pets, and basically those that depend on us. Pray for those we leave behind!
- Pray that the Lord will guard our stomachs from thebacteria lurking around us. Please pray specifically that no member of our team gets sick while we are there.
- God has something in store for each member of the team. Pray that each member will be like a sponge, ready to absorb what God wants to show and teach him/her.
- For each child we will minister to. We will be working with around 150 children throughout our time in Ethiopia. Each of these children are beneficiaries of the project we are visiting called Onesimus Children Development Association. There will be three types of children we will work with, please pray for them all…
- Street Children – those actually living on the streets
- At-Risk Children – those who live with some sort of family but due to poverty are increasingly at-risk for being lured by the streets
- Halfway Home Children – children are in these homes because they either have no family or their family cannot care for them appropriately
- For the Onesimus Children Development Association staff members we will work with.
- These staff members have very difficult jobs and it is easy for them to become overwhelmed. Pray that our team will be able to encourage these believers, giving them strength to persevere.