God's Plans

We had our schedule for today but God changed that for us. We were planning to go to the New Life Vision Association. This is an HIV orphanage with about 200 children in their care. We arrived at the orphanage to the surprise of the director. They were not expecting our visit. There were no children at the house. They were all in school. There was some sort of miss communication but even that was God ordained. The director was very sorry that the children were not there so that we could spend time with them. He is a very sweet
gentle man and would love to have Visiting Orphans come back. Even though this did not go according to our plan this was still a very encouraging meeting. He seemed very encouraged by our visit. We left the donations we had planned to give them. He is a Christian converted from Islam. He asked us to pray for him that he stays strong in continuing this ministry.

We scrambled for a little while to come up with plan B. In actuality it was always God's Plan A. One of our guides here used to work for another ministry. He made a few call and we made a visit to a ministry called The Forsaken Children. This is a ministry that minister directly to the children who live on the streets of Addis
Ababa.

These children find themselves on the streets for various reasons. Some are run aways, some are sent here to make money for the family back in their village, some are send here on business and never make it back home. Some of the young ladies in under their care as young as 9 years old have been raped. This ministry is their for them. They house some children. They have even reconnected some children with their families who long ago assumed they were dead. When we arrived we received a welcome that very much reminded us of the welcomes in Uganda. We had a wonderful time with the children. We sang songs played games and made personal connections with the kids. This was something that lifted everyone's spirits. Praise God that we followed what He had planned for us all along.

We went out to a nice dinner again. Afterward we came back to the guest house and listened to the testimony of a local man who works with the ministry in the dump where we visited a couple days ago. He told us about the history of those people. It is an amazing story. Our time here is wrapping up soon and I'm praying for many more amazing experiences. It is getting late and I am exhausted.