Yates Family In Soddo

Transitions are difficult. The Simpsons made it successfully to Ethiopia in the face of influenza, some slight baggage problems and sickness. I will let them update you as they are able.  For the Yates family, it has been a season of loss. Some of them silly things, some of them not, but all of them real.  Our sweet puppy, Domino, died last November, then Adam's stepmom Penny died of leukemia, then our very good friend Tim and Leona Okeefe moved to Nepal, and Mackenzie Slater moved to Honduras.  Finally, our partner, the Simpsons, moved to Ethiopia.  Although each loss is different, we have still been experiencing it as loss.  Instead of stuffing down all the yucky feelings of loss and grief, which I am very good at, recently we have been encouraged to grieve each loss as it is and ask God to meet us there, in our sadness, our loss and our emotions no matter how bad. This morning I was encouraged by this passage John 11:33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jew...

Off to Ethiopia. Yesterday, January 17, 2014, the Simpson Family took off for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They left from Los Angeles with an overnight lay over in Dubai to arrive in Addis. They will stay there for a week of orientation from the Gabrysch's (a fun couple living in Soddo already... http://jeremyandchristina.blogspot.com/ ) and then start their life in Soddo.  Everything was on target to leave this past week, when Asa Simpson, the youngest, came down with a horrible fever... up to 104°F from Influenza.  With a week until their departure, it made plans and packing much more stressful.  “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,     whose trust is the Lord. 8 He is like a tree planted by water,     that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes,     for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought,     for it does not cease to bear fruit.” Jer 17:8. Praise God, his fever broke ...

This season has been filled with many goodbyes.  Being committed to this life of international work we will invariably have many more, but recently the goodbyes have been rough. Our family is in the midst of saying goodbye to the Simpson family as they leave for Ethiopia this week. They of course are in a huge season of goodbyes to all their family and community here as they prepare for to start a new life in a new place. Why are we saying goodbye to our partners? Well, the Yates and the Simpsons families are on slightly different timelines to get to Ethiopia. The Simpsons will be go ahead to prepare some very important work for our team: our house! Taylor will be starting his first construction project in Ethiopia, a Duplex that will house Missionary families at Soddo Christian Hospital. The project is really exciting and will be a valuable asset to the work of SCH for generations! We have the honor of being the first families that live in the Duplex, so we are particularly excite...

Adam and Michelle rocking the Ethiopian threads The Yates and the Simpson families had the pleasure of participating in a missions fair at our church  Reality Ventura . The day was so fun. We had the opportunity to expose the church to a little of the needs of the Ethiopian people and church as well as show pictures and explain some of the cultural background of Ethiopia. The kids from Sunday school made us some awesome posters with words of encouragement and prayers for our work. Our church is blessed to be sending out 5 families in the next 6 to 8 months. Each of these families are our dear friends and in fact all of them include a doctor that trained and worked at Ventura County. The Simpson Family (this blog) to Ethiopia The Yates Family (this blog) to Ethiopia The Fankhauser Family  to Liberia The O'Keefe Family  to Nepal Mackenzie Slater  to Honduras Join me in Praising God for the work that he is doing to send workers out to the ends of the earth!

(This post was written by Taylor) I have to tell a quick story of how we came to know about the Mossy Foot Project ( http://www.mossyfoot.com/ ) and their directors Sharon and Jim Daly because it just shows how amazing God is. It was about two years ago, Simpsons and Yates were praying for God to show us clearly where he wants us to go and we had just finished sending out emails to hospitals literally all over the world looking for a fit for us.  Haiti, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, India, Peru, Tajikistan, Ethiopia... All over the place!!  And we get a very warm email back from Soddo Christian Hospital in Ethiopia inviting us to their upcoming board meeting in Chicago. This sounds interesting, so we end up flying to Chicago to meet the founder and leadership of the hospital.  We really like them, and to everyone it seems like this might be a good fit for our families.  Then a disappointment comes.  We hear that they are a relatively new hospital an...

This week, the Simpsons and Yates are in Ft Myers Florida for a conference at ECHO ( http://echonet.org/ ). The conference is the Health Agriculture Community and Culture. Together with 16 other medical missionaries getting ready to go to Africa, Asia, and Latin America we are exploring topics that will allow us to be effective in working in other cultures to affect real change in the health of communities through education. A big part of the conference is about wrestling with our western expectations and the realities of working in the developing world. It has been so valuable to hear the stories of other families that are going through the same process of preparation that we have. Their stories have encouraged us to continue trusting in God for his provision so that we can go and do His work in Ethiopia. A really fun aspect of this class is it's focus on agriculture as a way to improve life of the rural poor. ECHO is focused on teaching sustainable agriculture methods to people i...

We've been sharing a lot about the personal process that we have each been going through to get our families to Ethiopia, but we haven't necessarily shared much about Ethiopia. We have all been learning tons about Ethiopia, it's culture, history, and it's social and political systems. We humbly admit that we won't really KNOW Ethiopia until we we've "walked a mile" there. Until then we get to learn by reading the blogs of the wonderful people who are volunteering there now. One of the things we have learned is the hard reality facing the people in Ethiopia. Here are some medical statistics that we learned. 50% of the population is under 15 years old 40% of the population lives in extreme poverty, less than $1 per day 1 in 6 children die before the age of 1 1 in 10 die before the age of 5 1 in 70 women will die while giving birth 6% of births have a trained attendant present In all of Ethiopia, a country with a population of 91 million, there are only 1...