Visit to Gore

The Bethel Home for Children in Gore where the Ethiopian Pentecost took place is still an important ministry of the Illubabor Bethel Synod that is supported by our partnership. The iCARE program of Shenandoah Presbytery seeks the needed sponsors for 50 of the 71 children who are there, most of whom are orphans.  We took a day away from Mettu to visit the Home and the 32 hectare coffee plantation nearby which has been donated to the Home, and which they hope will be able to help them move toward self sufficiency.

The only way to get into the coffee plantation is to drive through a sprawling 850 hectare tea plantation.  The operation is run by the Synod through its Development and Social Services Commission (DASSC).  IBS’ Director for DASSC, a man named Terfassa traveled with us and was able to explain many things about this and other social projects of the Synod.

 

Millie, Randy and Terfassa at the Coffee Plantation

 Terfassa told us that they have just hired a new agronomist who is helping them to make the plantation more productive.  In addition to growing the coffee, they also harvest honey and cardamom and they have a few banana trees.  They are hoping to cultivate ginger and avocado and possibly other fruit trees as well.  They hope for the first time to have a small profit at the end of this year that can help to support the ministry of the Home.

Because Ethiopians traditionally eat with their fingers,
handwashing is an important cultural ritual.

 After visiting the plantation we went to the Home where Kes Amana, the director welcomed us to lunch at his house.  After lunch he showed us around the compound visiting the dining room, classrooms, wood working shop and the library.  All the children attend school in Gore but the home provides additional tutoring to help them succeed, and vocational training such as woodworking, sewing, and computer skills. 

Endalkachew Kidanewald (Endy for short) was another of the Ethiopian high school students who was at the Gore Home when the revival took place.  He remembers the Home as providing a sanctuary for the homeless, the destitute, and the orphans.  It was a place for children who had no future, who had no place to go.  It was a place where they were accepted and cared for, a place that offered hope to many people. 

Endy now lives in the States but visited Gore eight years ago.  He was remembering how twenty years before that, during a time of great famine when many people were starving in Ethiopia, he and other students from Gore were helping out at the relief site.  At that time he said they found many babies left to die by the roadside.  Either their parents were dead or their starving mothers could not stand to watch them die, so they were just left at the side of the road.  Endy and the other Christian youth would pick up these babies and take them to the Gore Home to be cared for.

As he was telling this story of their rescue efforts to a group at the Gore church, the man who was pastor of the Gore Church at that time sat down and started to cry.  “Why are you crying?” Endy asked him.  “Because I am one of those kids that you and your group found who was left to die by the side of the road.” was his reply. 

Young people at the Gore Home

The pastor had been born into a Muslim family, and during the great famine was one of those small children who was left to die at the roadside.  Saved from starvation by committed Christian young people, he was raised in the caring environment to the Gore Home, and in gratitude is living his life as a leader of the Christian church.

 There are still children and young people who need the caring environment and the new hope that is offered by the Gore Home.  It is one of the blessings of our partnership that people in Shenandoah Presbytery, through our iCARE program, can be a part of this important life-giving ministry.