An Introduction to Our Trip

For those of you just tuning into our team's journey, welcome. We are now around 48 hours away from our first team leaving for the adventure that awaits us in Ethiopia and wanted to give you all an idea of what is in front of our team and ask that you would follow along over the next few weeks and pray with us.

We are so blessed to be able to partner with a great ministry like E3 Partners and their staff here as well as their staff on the ground in Ethiopia. Our main task is to partner with them for the purpose of spreading the gospel of Christ to those who have yet to hear and to work with the local church in Asela, Ethiopia to establish new church plants among the villages around that city. Even this week, the E3 staff in Ethiopia has been training the men and women that we will be working with, called "Disciple Makers" who are Christ-followers living in and around those villages to prepare them for their partnership with us as well as the ongoing work they will have once we leave.

Once on the ground, our team of 20 will be divided into 4 teams of 5 and will travel to 4 separate mission sites, each equipped with at least 2 translators and 2 or more "Disciple Makers." Our main activities will be establishing relationships with the people of the village using soccer, hand ball (volleyball), and other games and taking advantage of opportunities to share with the people of the village our stories of God's grace in our lives and the hope that He offers to each of them. We will do this by telling stories from God's Word and using the "Evangecube" a great tool developed by E3 for sharing the gospel. We will also have opportunities to pray for the physical needs of people and be the hands and feet of Christ to people in impoverished areas of Ethiopia.

This trip is the culmination of a long journey of preparation that started back in October of 2009 and has included hours of preparation collectively and individually and the raising of thousands of dollars of support. Our work will follow to 10 hour flights and a 3 hour van ride to get to Asela and will be followed by the same on our return. We have two teams going, one traveling with us on July 16th and returning on the 25th and the second team leaving July 23rd and returning on August 1st. Five of our team will be staying for the full 17 days. The Lord has provided in amazing ways for the members of our team and has provided us with an amazing team. Tomorrow I'll let you hear from some of them and what their hopes and prayers are for the trip.

Starting today, you should find daily updates here and pictures from the field as well as stories of how God is working through our teams, so check back daily. The following is a video we shot last year of the church in Asela (Sagure is specifically the name of the village) celebrating our arrival and praising God for bringing us to partner with them (the camera work is awful thanks to yours truly, but you get the idea).