Discovering…Faith

Discovering…Faith

My time in Ethiopia has been incredibly impactful! The first week was focused on finding Jesus’ love for me. It was amazing to begin to understand how much Jesus really loves me and how through His love I can love Him back. I began a journey of really discovering Christ love and it is a journey that will only be completed on the day that I stand before Him!

The next week was about African Worldview. It is incredible to begin to understand other cultures perspectives on the World. Africa’s see the world very different from an American like me. The really cool part about the week was finding what parts of an African Worldview match up with a Biblical perspective. I am beginning to see the World in a brand new way! I am really discovering how Christ views the world.

The third week was learning about documentary photography and then at the end of the week we went on a mini-outreach to document an aspect of African life. I chose to do my project on a family where the mother and her seven-year-old son is HIV positive. It was one of the most amazing experiences. God really showed me the love he has for people living with the HIV/AIDS virus. Four of us took lots of pictures and shared two afternoons with the family. They feed us traditional Ethiopian food, literally feed it to us with their hands. Spending that time with the family broadened my view on so many things but the thing that I really found was that through the families testimony I discovered faith.

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This is my documentary photo assignment on the family…

Amariche means very beautiful and smart, she is about 36 years old. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia she went to Atgabin in the south of the country and stayed there 18 years then came back and joined the army during the Dirk Regime. After her service she went to Asmara, Eritrea for seven years then came back to Addis Ababa. Amariche has six children, five girls, and one son. She became a Christian only two years ago. Along with her older daughters Amarich makes clothes and tablecloths to support her family. Dispite her hard life she holds on to the Love of Jesus and encourages others to do the some, “Since we are the Army of Jesus we need to pray for Ethiopia daily”

Amariche weighed only 32 Kilograms when her CD4 count was 135. Now she weighs 62 Kilograms and her CD4 count is 610. She was very sick but with prayer and Anti-Retroviral Treatment she is now living healthy while being HIV positive.

Yordanos is four years old, not old enough for school yet, she holds her baby sister Debora who is six months old. All of the older children help their mother out by taking care of the younger.

Zarah, the middle child, is nine years olds. Compassion International supports her, her school fees are provided along with some supplementary food. She is one of over 200 children being supported by this organization. Compassion International also supports Amariche and the whole family as much as they can, even if it means only a quick home visit from one of the workers.

Growing up Amariche was not educated as a child, she did not know how HIV and AIDS was transmitted so when she cared for women with HIV, there were no health standards and because of the lack of educated she thinks she got the virus from caring for the HIV positive women. She would wash clothes in poor conditions were she could get scratched and because she did not understand that the virus could be transmitted by blood, took no precautions and could have been infected.

All of Amariche’s children have been tested; all of her daughters are negative. Her son Esubahew shares in her HIV status, he is 7 years old. Esubahew means the will of the Lord, he’s name reflects his mothers attitude towards her only son being HIV positive. Amariche puts her son along with all of her children in the hands of God.

Amariche does not own a house, currently her family lives in a house made out of sticks and tarps in the corner of a hospitals property, they have been living there for six months. Being homeless, if the hospital needs the space then her and her family would have to leave and would be homeless. Her prayer request is that God would provide her a place to stay, “Our God is rich He can give us our needs.” With more faith and trust in God then most people Amariche says, “God will provide”

“If you believe in God when you pray to God, then God will help you and heal you and respond to your prayer, you have to have faith and trust in God because He will help you”
- Amariche