What We Believe

As an organization, there are seven values that motivate the work of The Forsaken Children:

1. We are totally dependent on God.
2. We trust that Jesus, not The Forsaken Children, is the Savior the street children of Ethiopia need.
3. We believe that God designed every child to be a part of a family.
4. We respect children.
5. We emphasize Ethiopian leadership in caring for Ethiopian children at risk.
6. We work toward Ethiopian project self-sustainability.
7. We are transparent with our finances, fundraising, and accounting.

The Forsaken Children strives to be an incarnational and transformational ministry.

Incarnational Ministry – Philippians 2:5-8
Jesus left His home, His high position, and His very good life in heaven to go and live as a servant among poor, needy, and hurting people. Out of an extreme love for these people He developed relationships with them and ministered to all their needs – physical, emotional, and spiritual. This is our first model, to leave our comfort, our luxury, and our “good life” and go live among the poor, needy, and hurting people of this world, make relationships with them and meet their needs.

The physical and material needs in Ethiopia are overwhelming and realistically we won’t come close to meeting them all. We have a few skills to help meet the most basic needs – food, water, education – and a large part of our ministry will center around this and specifically the children. However, the point isn’t to alleviate every need; that simply isn’t realistic. The point is to respond to each need with compassion and wisdom, knowing that we are limited and most of these needs will go unmet.

Transformational Ministry – John 3:3 and 2 Corinthians 5:17
Jesus described it as being born again. Paul said that we become new creations. However it is described, there is a transformation that occurs in our life when we give our life to Jesus Christ. We have witnessed this type of transformation in the lives of dozens of street kids. A transformational ministry uses the relationships that develop out of incarnational ministry to share the life-changing grace of Jesus so that hurting people can go from lives of despair to lives of lasting hope.

As we think of our work in Ethiopia in terms of these two ministry models we can start to put the puzzle pieces together into a bigger picture. We know that to live incarnationally, as Jesus did, means developing relationships and meeting the needs of the poor. We also know that true transformation only comes through knowledge and faith in Jesus, which means evangelism and discipleship. When we phrase it like this these may seem like two very separate things. In fact, many today view these as mutually exclusive goals; either you alleviate poverty or you preach the Gospel. We see them as one and the same. Jesus taught and modeled that they actually fit seamlessly together and that we must do both.

What is our work in Ethiopia? It is following the great commission in response to the two greatest commandments; to love God with everything that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. If we do that our mission will be a success.

Note: Photos on this page are by Nathan Golden