Reverend Million Fassika, an assistant Pastor in the Lutheran church in Ethiopia attended the SS workshop conducted in August 1999 with four other lay ministers in the church. After the workshop these ministers returned to their church, and shared the SS vision with the whole congregation. (Rev. Bahita Bitsu-Amlak is the senior pastor of that church. But he did not attend the workshop).
The church decided to form a committee of twelve people whose hearts, were stirred up with the vision, to coordinate a seed project to help street children living on the streets of Addis Ababa. These children, many of whom have lost one or both of their parents, live in constant danger on the street. Most of these street children school dropouts, spend the nights along the main street, and feed on hotels left over and garbage.
As teenagers they like to have fun. One day they came to the Lutheran Church to disturb the congregation, especially 'children of intact families.' The church seized the opportunity to launch an SS seed project and approached the children with love. The Seed Project Members invited them to attend regular Sunday School for Street Children.
The Seed Project Members devoted themselves to raising money and collecting clothing for the girls. They began by providing a few children with food,
clothing and helping them to generate their own income like car washing, shoe shining and peddling small items. The children are using some of the money to help with educational expenses. These few children told their friends what the church had done for them. The news spread to other street children and now more than thirty children are under the church's care.
Most of the children have reunited with their families and continue in the self-supporting program. After seeing what the church has done for their children the parents of these children are also involved in the ministry as guarantors responsible for their children concerning their income generating activities.
The church now has a special spiritual program on Sunday afternoon for the street children. Their Bible teachers, as we have noticed, are very devoted and patient with these socially challenged children.
Because of the growing number of children, the church has found the ministry to sometimes be difficult to manage. Highlighting the ever-growing SS partnerships, the church leaders decided to transfer the care of some of the children to a well-established Christian partner organization, Win soul for God Evangelical Ministry, that also attended an SS training workshop on the topic of 'Wholistic Ministry of the Church' in 2000. As a result of the SS training, Win Souls for God Evangelical Ministry has shared the Gospel with more than 1000 people, and 168 of them, all of them street children, have decided to follow Jesus Christ. |
