Every year the Ethiopian Orthodox Church celebrates what is called ‘True Cross’. This is the symbolic receiving of the Cross Jesus endured. Coincidently the Gumuz also have a cultural ceremony on this day however, it is not in the light of redemption and love. This particular holiday is focused on the local village hero (the most skilled warrior/hunter) who will honor his village by taking the life of another. This hero is placed in isolation to concentrate on the charge he has been selected for and when the time comes he will kill either another Gumuz or Ethiopian man.The Gumuz have a deep history of animism amongst their tribes and villages. This belief subjects the Gumuz to a constant fear of the dark world, evil spirits and appeasing the organizer and inflictor of it all – the Devil. Sacrifices and offerings are commonly seen around the villages in order to deter evil spirits from bringing harm to their life. Sicknesses are often thought of as punishment from the dark world for not pleasing their requests.
Animism holds the Gumuz in a constant fear of the unknown.On the way into the Gumuz in January we stopped to collect bamboo seeds as the bamboo plant only seeds every 15 years or so. As we stopped to collect seeds we discovered a body. There was a group of visiting Canadians that were traveling with me- they were a little bit nervous as we continued our trip into Gumuz land.
We have helped the KHC church start an outreach program to the Gumuz through agro-forestry. This project is going well and my sister Beth, who visited in February was able to introduce valuable concepts for the Health component. The church has also had an impact spiritually with the Gumuz with about 80 believers now in the 4 targeted villages.
They were meeting under the trees but have recently built two multi-purpose church buildings for meeting and training. I am making an urgent appeal for funding for this project as it is critically in need of funds to continue. To read more about this project and help support it click here .February saw the official opening of the multi-purpose centre with more than 350 people in attendance. This project started with memorial gifts given at my Dad's funeral almost two years ago. A simple block maker was purchased and work began not knowing where the rest of the funding would come from. God provided and the work has taken off in all directions with computer lab, library, People Living With AIDS and micro-finance project, Vocational Training programs,
the re-opening of the Bible School, Compassion Project for 250 of the poorest kids in the area and 5 fold increase in the number of members in the church.After 4 years in Ethiopia we have come to the decision this will be our last term. From the beginning we wanted to make sure that whatever we did we would work with local partners so that when we left the day to day operations would continue on and not depend on us. This enabled us to be involved in starting numerous projects from everything to working with commercial sex workers to a Big Brother/Sister program with the University Students and the many projects with the KHC Church.
We are no longer needed in the day to day operations of these projects and will be able to continue to be involved from Canada raising awareness and funding for numerous ongoing issues. Devxchange is also rapidly expanding into new countries with numerous partners that require administrative support in Canada. I hope to continue to make annual trips to Ethiopia to encourage and support the work as well as channel volunteers to assist in various needs. We plan to end our term in Ethiopia the end of June but will continue part -time with Devxchange in the home office so hope many will want to continue to support us in this new phase of ministry. We will keep you informed as things develop.
