Home… Well, Halfway There!
September 17, 2009
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| Happy at home! |
We have a Halfway Home!!! For those of you who haven’t heard, Children’s Home Ethiopia has had 5 children living temporarily at the Drop-In Center. These children were ready to be off of the streets, but needed a transition home prior to being reintegrated into a family. For some, there are no existing family members available or those who are available are ill-equipped for the task of raising a child. Others simply need to learn how to live within the confines of a home and with a family before they can successfully take that big step into their families’ homes. So, in many ways the Halfway Home is a re-parenting phase for these children.
For 3 months the Drop-In Center has housed CHE’s Halfway Home. This was not an ideal location for the home because of many reasons:
- The Drop-In Center and CHE offices are located here, so space was very limited.
- The Drop-In Center is right in the middle of the ghetto, if you will, therefore the children had direct contact with the streets that they once called home. Separation is key in the rehabilitation process.
- CHE’s Halfway Home Parents had no privacy. Their position is already demanding, so the added pressure of living at the Drop-In Center where many children come and go all day was overwhelming for them.
Thanks to an anonymous donor, CHE was able to rent a Halfway Home in the outskirts of Addis Ababa. I visited with the children at the new Halfway Home just the other day and was blown away by how this home accentuated their changing lives. The thing that stood out the most to me was how normal their home lives now seem – They eat dinner in a dining room rather than a spare office, they can walk outside their compound and play with other neighborhood children, they sleep without the constant noise of the inner-city (busy streets, car horns, club music, etc…), and the list goes on. Also, Abazu, the Halfway Home House Mother, looked at peace where previously the stress of living at the Drop-In Center showed in her countenance.
I am excited about this new phase in the life of CHE and the lives of the children living at the Halfway Home. I expect God to use this location to heal many wounds, restore many families, create new families, and to be a light to the community of God’s redemption in the lives of broken human beings.
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| Studying at the dining room table |
Trust Takes Time
September 3, 2009
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| Yohannes having fun at Drop-In Center |
Just yesterday I heard shocking news – one of the boys living at CHE’s Halfway Home, Yohannes, revealed his true history. Previously Yohannes had told us that he had been abandoned in Addis Ababa by his father and had since been on the streets. The reality came out about one week ago when Yohannes told Nega, CHE Director, that his mother, father, and siblings all lived in the countryside. He had run away from home in search of a better life in Addis Ababa. Of course, this better life was not realized, but rather a meager existence on the streets became his life.
I am not so shocked by his true story, but rather I am shocked by how long it took him to trust the CHE staff with it. For close to a year they have been showering Yohannes with love, providing for his physical needs, and basically parenting him. What I understand now better than ever is that building trust takes time and trust produces honesty. For some reason Yohannes had not fully trusted the CHE staff with his true story until this past week. Maybe now the reasons behind his lack of trust will come to light and further healing will take place within him.
This experience is profound. What does it tell us? There is no such thing as a quick fix when working to restore a child’s life. There are so many elements involved and building trust is paramount. What will come from this for Yohannes? That answer is impossible to answer with certainty, but my hope for him and his future success has increased significantly.
Please pray for Yohannes and for Sodo, CHE team member, as they are currently traveling to meet with Yohannes’ family.
