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Dear Friends Everywhere,
Today is really freezing! The rain pours down every day and night in Addis. We wonder whether we live in Africa. We use fire place or electric blanket for warming our body. It sounds strange to you, but we now prepare to live in winter time of Ethiopia.
Ethiopia, ranking as one of the poorest countries in the world, is suffering from war and drought. Since May of 1998, the conflicts of the Northern border between Eritrea and Ethiopia became worse recently. Last May Ethiopia attacked some areas that Eritrea had taken over. They said that they had been patient waiting for Eritrean army to move out of the area, and it was the time to recover their areas from Eritrea to end the war. We yet can’t see the end of war.
Alongside the war, the crisis of draught in the South and East is required prompt and appropriate action. According to an international NGO statement: “ The failure of the rains may have triggered the crisis but that is not the fundamental cause. The coping mechanisms of vulnerable communities are so fragile that minor climatic variations can result in crisis conditions.” And the statement continues, “We wish to state that the present food crisis is not yet a repeat of 1984/1985.” In various areas, folks are going hungry and cattle are dying. So pray for all, NGOs, grain distribution efforts, the helpless and hungry, administrators.
Last April, Jong kook had a trip down to Omo river to research the Godiye tribe. One of the small benefits of no rain was that the River Omo, in the western boundary in Ethiopia, was diminished to be down to the point where people could walk across it. In the west of the river, there is the Goldiye tribe, who have never heard about the Gospel. The Goldiye are notorious as the last ethnic group in Southern Ethiopia who practice mass murder and even some say a weird for of cannibalism. They killed about 1500 people last year from surrounding tribes during their cattle raids when they steal animals to replace their herds, which are dying of disease carried by Teste flies. They leave no survivors to tell the story.
Nomadic specialist, Malcom Hunter, Ben Skaggs who speaks the Me-en Language and Jong kook drove down to near the Omo and cleared a road for about 30 kilometers down to the Omo river. After that they drove across by truck. Ben and Jongkook rode on motorbikes to reach Godiye tribe. When they got there, the tribe were about to leave from their village so that they might not confront the fight from another tribe, who tried to take the cattle from the Goldiye because the drought caused them dying. However, three foreigner’s visiting stopped the fighting, and Ben started to tell the Gospel. Few years ago, Ben had been there to tell the Story about God for a few hours as long as he could stand from the heat and the Teste flies after he landed from Helicopter. It’s amazing that he could meet the one of the people he witnessed there at that time. The man said that he was waiting for him for a long time. While Ben was witnessing them, the Me’en evangelists, Malcom and Jongkook got the help from the Goldiye to work the airstrip open so that evangelists and their families could be moved in and maintained regularly.
Jong kook flied back on 8 of April after finishing the work that enabled the plane to land on the airstrip. That wasn’t easy adventure. Jong kook got lots of bruises and wounds from the motorbike’s accident and had been Ill in bed of serious fever and diarrhea. He is all right now ! I appreciate you, who got my e-mail request, prayed for us. And please pray that the Gospel can be spread out among Goldiyes.
Last May we had 2 visitors from the States. Dr. Jonathan Lee, Korean-American dentist and Dr. Paul Strait, Chinese-American Emergency doctor visited us for 10 days. It was great joy for us to have two young men with us. We had met Jonathan in New Haven and he had cared our family’s teeth free after he knew that we were missionaries. We also had found that he had had missionary vision to serve at the field. We had invited him including other Christian dentists at my former place in New Haven and had had great time for sharing God’s ministry in Ethiopia.
Jonathan’s work at SIM dental clinic to check and treat SIM mission families was great help since there was no dentist at SIM Ethiopia. Paul, Jonathan’s prayer mate of medical school, went down to Awano Station, which is 6 hrs distant from Addis, to help the clinic where one single lady missionary runs the clinic by herself. Both of them were very excited to experience the missionary life to care missioaries’ health and to share their testimonies with Ethiopians,
Another excitement of our ministries was puppet Drama Seminar. As you know from our past ministry, Ethiopians love drama, whether they are Muslims or Orthodox, adults or children. Our puppet ministry reached many people and touched their heart to receive Christ. Last April we held 3 days’ seminar that 50 young Sunday School teachers of 13 KHC Addis Ababa Churches learned how to make puppets and to use them as a method of witnessing the gospel. All of us including Ethiopian teachers enjoyed this seminar. Dr. Jonathan Lee brought our Amharic drama books, “The Rich man and Lazarus”, and “David and Goliath” written by Jong kook and printed in New York by Graces’ cousin’s Press Co. We are preparing another books at the moment. We hope that those books would be very helpful to present the gospel through puppet drama in Ethiopia.
During this rainy season, we are preparing the seminar of Vacation Bible School so that 13 KHC Addis Ababa churches may be helped to plan and to prepare the program. There are so many children from Muslim or Orthodox families in churches. Some churches expect 600-700 children to come for the program. Most of the church starts the program at the last week of August. We hope to challenge Sunday School teachers to develop the program, while they only focus on teaching period except doing any activities. Please remember in your prayer that many children and their family can be touched by the the Word of God through the program.
Jason and Anna are doing very well. What a blessing. Anna was invited to stay at one of our friends’ house Massachusetts in the States during school vacation. Jason is going to attend Korean MK’s ( Missionary Kid) conference in Korea. That can be good opportunity for them to experience different things during vacation time. And we expect another visitors coming from Korea in August. Our main supporting church, mission board team is coming to see us. That’s really exciting for us.
With our thanksgiving, love and prayers for you all,
Jong-Kook & Grace Park
SIM
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