Driving... the Ministry.

Jason and I went to Ethiopia to serve in an orphanage called Hope for the Hopeless and teach about Jesus at vacation Bible school. The experience was like none other and our hearts have been imprinted with the individual face of each child. They touched us. We touched them. And the staff was just incredible and Fekadu, the director, is consider amongst our dearest of friends.

Through this experience, we were required to get a private car and driver. One orphanage was in the city, the other in the country. We needed to be able to get to both and we needed a driver who could act as a translator from us to the children as well. God gave us Beki.

Bereket is his family given name, but most foreigners can not pronounce it, so he goes by Beki ( said like Bicki, not Becky). Though our qualifications of the driver were clearly laid out before our arrival, Beki did not know he was going to also be a translator. He also did not know that he would be working 12 hour days for 10 days straight. We assumed he knew the role he was hired for, and did not learn until days later that we were much more than he had bargained for! Yet, he was overjoyed to be serving along side "Protestant" Christians. (We are actually non-denominational Christians but in Ethiopia, all true Christian faiths are lumped together as "Protestant". The majority of the people in Addis are either Muslim or Costic Orthodox.)

Anyway, I could type all day about the man that Beki is... but for your sake, I will sum it up. Beki was truly thirsty for God's truths. Beki would have talked about the Bible and asked biblical questions every moment we were not teaching if he could have. And we fell in love with Beki in a way we could have never expected. God tied our hearts together and when we left, I wept. I was truly sad to part from a man I now considered a brother. We vowed to one another to keep in touch, and Beki has been an equal pursuer of that promise. A few months after we returned to the states, Beki quit his job as a driver and got a job at a non-profit reaching out to the country side villages with medical assistance.

Over the last 2 years, Beki has saved money and attempted to come to the US. His request for a travel visa was denied. And some time later, after much prayer, we offered to send Beki to a seminary school to truly study the Bible he loves and to pursue his desire to become an evangelist.

Beki prayed and considered our offer. He sought out information from schools and I sent him information from one I had researched online. He decided he wanted to give up his job and further his education and knowledge of our Lord... but did not want us to pay for it if there was any way he could do it for himself. This was not out of pride, as it may sound. It was out of concern for us and the money we have already committed monthly to the children in Ethiopia. He did not want to further burden us financially.

Beki revealed what was his plan for his future before feeling so convicted about leaving it all behind for ministry. Beki had saved a substantial amount of money and was continuing to do so (all while helping his sister and parents out monthly with his wages, too). He wanted to save up enough to open a country side taxi business. The business would generate enough revenue to pursue his higher education and allow the financial freedom to become an evangelist, all said while throwing in the hopes that God would provide him a wife and child when he wasn't working so hard to save any longer. Now, his savings plan had been cut short in order to fast track his call to seminary school. He was considering a bank loan to purchase the car and wanted to know if I felt taking on that debt would be a beneficial idea. Debt is uncommon in Ethiopia and a very scary idea... not to mention personal views on accruing debt.

The light bulbs went on, for both Jason and I in that moment. Jason had taken a missions class that semester in school. He had learned about a "community development" approach to ministry and had felt that pouring countless dollars into Ethiopia was not a solution but that community development BY ETHIOPIANS and FOR MINISTRY was the real key to long term, loving change within the country. We just couldn't figure out the "how" to develop a country with so little industry or business.... But God told us that BEKI was the how.

We prayed with excitement, having already heard the Lord SCREAM at us with this realization. We pushed the excitement down, and asked all the really hard questions. How? How much? Risks? Profit numbers? Fixed expense? Variable expense? Etc... Was this feasible? Would Beki see the vision that God had given us and embrace it or did Beki want to keep this idea and business for himself?? Would he be willing to give it all to the ministry if God called him to? Even his savings?

In time, we approached Beki with all God had laid on our hearts. Would Beki think the country side taxi business would be a way to build a ministry? Would he be willing to give the profits of the business away to the people of Ethiopia and the kingdom? YES! An overwhelming, YES! He had saved 50% of what was needed to buy the car, and was even willing to put that into the ministry... never personally gaining from a dollar of profit.

Now many people have told tales of people in impoverished nations working with Americans for causes... while putting their open hand out through the process. This was just the opposite. God spoke to Beki the same way He spoke to us. Beki was excited and honored to have such a part of a self sustaining ministry within his country of suffering. Our relationship was about to take on a whole new dimension. We were now more than friends, more than extended family, we were ministry partners! So what would the ministry project actually look like??