Ethiopia

So i went to Ethiopia......

At many times during this trip i found myself asking "God? how did I get here?"

Sometimes it was in shear amazement at the beauty of creation..

Sometimes it was out of concern for being stalled out in a car with a dead battery in the middle of a mud pit, in the middle of the bush, in the middle of the night.

But at the end of the day I am generally in awe of the drastic changes God has made in my life.

When I think about what the new year will bring and the things I want to accomplish I know I want to see advancement.. but not in my career.. I want to see advancement in the kingdom of heaven, advancements in things being set to right in a broken world. There is something scary and exciting and freeing about making decisions based primarily on how I can effect the most benefit to others, rather than myself.... yet somehow my own passions and desires are deeply entwined into the options laid before me... I have a few decisions to make this coming year... these are not the type of decisions I EVER thought I would be considering.... again that question "God? how did I get here?"

Should I invest time into an intensive photography school with a missions focus? Should I put that on hold to make sure I have the time to fully commit to staffing our Justice focused Discipleship Training School?

What should i do with the first 5 months of this year? In May I am planning on going to the Not for Sale Academy in California (a two week intensive course on the investigation of Human trafficking... but until then? should I serve at the base in Germany?) or should I go to Kenya to investigate the possibility of our ministry helping support a Kenyan run orphanage?... Maybe pop back into Ethiopia to visit our existing projects there on the way back?

These are the options that i am weighing... and it blows my mind...I am starting to become keenly aware of my smallness in all of this ('this' being my current life direction)... but i suppose thats ok...

When Hudson Taylor THE pioneer of missions to China was asked why God chose him to do all the things he did in China, all he could answer was “I often think that God must have been looking for someone small enough and weak enough for Him to use, and that He found me."

So when I am laying in a mosquito tent in the middle of the African Bush... able to look at the stars and distinguish the milky way easily from the rest of the starry sky, while hearing a lepord fight with baboons across the river... I take comfort in knowing that while I am so so small in this vast huge scene....

I am the little partner to a BIG GOD who has put these choices before me.

He surprises me... but only because I forget who He is or maybe just don't fully believe it yet... The Bible says He is faithful. That if He takes care of worthless sparrows how much more does he take care of me? .....

He does...

He is faithful... over and over...

He is faithful.

and I slowly forget... i wish i wouldn't...... One of these days I will just shout "Of course this happened.. He's FAITHFUL!!!!"

Rather than sit in surprise: "Oh! wow! oh yeah.. I guess He really is faithful!? Jesus, such a surpriser....."

What can I say?.. I'm still learning.. and surprises are nice.. for now. I am such a child...I am small... oh so small...so privileged to take part in all this and as I do, He is so so Faithful.

Enough rambling.......But back to Ethiopia...

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I think the greatest part of this trip was some of the things God started at work in my heart... some of which i just rambled about...

But SOME other things were pretty cool to be a part of aswell...

I was able to visit our Koshe Project in Addis Ababa the capitol city of Ethiopia.

Koshe means "trash" in Amharic... here is a new Video stephanie made about that project..

While we were visiting we were able to secure a new house for the girls to work in and help them move in. these Girls are amazing and its awesome to have been able to see firsthand what God is doing in their lives.

The Koshe Project from Stephanie Eatherly on Vimeo.

Here are some pictures from the moving day

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Aside from visiting our current projects we were also able to visit some of the tribal peoples living in Ethiopia..

From the perspective of a photographer this was an incredible experience...

I am still working on finishing my photos... but.. i think it about time to at least get some rough previews up....

THE KARO TRIBE



This Is Ekre... he is one of the elders from the Karo Tribe... The above Panorama is his backyard... literally. While a beutiful people, they have struggled to let go of their belief in ancient curses. The people of this tribe would declare infants Mingi (cursed) if one of any number of abnormalities occurred in their children, one of which was if a baby's bottom teeth came in before its top teeth. Mingi children were in the past often left in the river by their village to drown, rather than let the child live and have the whole village suffer from the curse. In the past couple of years our ministry was able to start an orphanage so that the parents of mingi children could send the children off their land rather than be left to die in the river.

THE MURSI TRIBE



Kongoga Is a young Mursi Girl around 12 years old. As young girls the process of stretching out their ears is begun. At the age of 17. Mursi women have their lips pierced have begin stretching out their lips with large plates as well. While the people around us seemed well enough, we learned that many of the people in the tribe had severe parasites causing them to hemorrhage blood. I saw the water they were drinking and it made sense.... While there is nothing we could do then and there, the whole "help ministries that provide african children safe clean drinking water" thing took on a slightly more personal note... 'I wonder if Kongoga will make it?' I thought? as we made our way back to the main city.

Mursi Hunter - I asked him if he had a bow and arrow... he pointed to his Ak-47... ha




so yeah... i will bring this blog update to a close... Please pray for wisdom for me as the new year begins... I am so humbled and excited that I get to do the things i get to do.. and consider the doing the things i get to even consider doing... Thanks for all your support...

My attention was brought to this the other day... and it spoke to me a bit... so i'll share it...

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.I will be found by you,” declares the LORD
Jeremiah 29:11-14

They are not for Sale

I recently participated in putting on the
"They are not for Sale" Conference In Hamburg, Germany
This conference focused on issues of Injustice around the world, specifically the issues of human trafficking and extreme poverty.


LOTS of people where there.

One of our speakers was David Batstone, president of the California based Not for Sale Campaign.

People were inspired to be actively involved in the issues of Justice and given realistic ways to get involved.

In addition to helping with some of the organization of the conference... I was also able to participate in worship by playing drums. "BANG DRUMS!!!!"

More than just a conference though, this represents a starting point for our base here in Germany.

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In the coming months we are going to be stepping into new areas of ministry and focus.

Partnering with the Not for Sale campaign: In middle of 2011 we will be having a Justice focused DTS...

We have an opportunity to parter with Not for Sale on some of its projects in Peru, and Thailand and Eastern Europe.

As various staff members are preparing for this DTS we are heading to San Francisco to take part in the Not for Sale Acadamy. This is a two week intensive training on the investigation and reporting of Human Trafficking. I am planning on going in May of this coming year.

Here is that school: Not For Sale Academy

I am excited for what lies ahead.

Photos by: Chad Strobach

PS. Check this out.

Slavery is more prevelant today than EVER in human history, and its in your own backyard Slavery Map

Africa

Im going to Africa next week...

I will be going to the country of Ethiopia in Africa for two weeks. We will be visiting some of the remote tribes there as well as making a stop to visit some of our long termers at our projects down there!

For those of you in America interested in making donations, i now have an account set up through YWAM so you can get a receipt for tax purposes!

here is that information!


Please make checks out to

YWAM

and mail to

Accounting Department,
PO Box 3000,
Garden Valley, TX 75771-3000


For tax purposes my name cannot appear anywhere on the check.

With the check please enclose a SEPEREATE piece of paper with the following on it:

“Donation for: Sean C Rogers, Herrnhut Germany”

You will get a receipt in the mail confirming you donation.

If you would like to set up an automatic withdrawal.. you can email Julie in their accounting department and she can send you a letter of explanation

julie.sinke@ywamtyler.org

Thanks so much to everyone for your prayers and support, every little bit helps!

Sean

India

Earlier this year I was in the city Dharamshala in the mountains of Northern India. Dharamshala is a very culturally diverse city. There are many Tibetan’s exiled from China that live there, even the Dali Lama himself calls Dharamsala home. This makes the city a large tourist destination for westerners studying Buddhism as well as Yoga.

About three weeks in to our month long stay we had done a lot of service and ministry, but I had felt like God called me specifically to India over other countries I could have gone too. I found myself wondering, what am I doing here?



Vicky is a shoe shiner.
We had seen him in the upper part of the city here and there… But it was on a visit to the slum in the lower part of the city that Vicky really caught my attention…



I have learned that photography breaks down walls and opens doors.


This particular day I was taking and handing out family portraits with Polaroids in the slum. Vicky, who had just gotten out of school for the day, walked up. He was instantly intrigued by my camera and began asking questions about my different pieces of equipment. I began explaining how a light meter works, pointed out the different parts of the camera and what they did. Before long Vicky was experimenting with my light meter and reading off camera settings to me. Unfortunately our bus was leaving soon so we had to leave.

I found myself in conversation with God asking to meet Vicky again. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to go back to that part of the city before the end of the week when we would be leaving for another part of Asia. I had the idea to go look for Vicky the next day when I had a narrow bit of time off. The plan was to find Vicky while he was working as a shoe shiner… assuming he would even be working, let him fix my shoes, take photos of him, and then teach him photography with what Polaroid film I had left.

The next day I dragged my roommate out with me to assist with a photo shoot I didn’t know for sure was going to happen. I told him if we didn’t find this kid on the main street we could just go back home. We looked up and down the main street and Vicky was nowhere to be seen. Discouraged I told my roommate we could go back unless he wanted to look down this other side street with me. He conceded and we continued our search.

Not a second after getting down this side street we see Vicky running towards us. We told him we were looking for him… “NO! I was looking for you!” he exclaimed. We were at first a bit confused but then realized that our meeting at that moment was an actual answer to prayer.






































































After getting my shoes fixed and taking pictures, I was able to walk around the city with Vicky and teach him some photography basics for about two and a half hours. During this time I grew to love Vicky as a friend. Here is a kid who lives in a slum, is working, and going to school. Having the privilege to be able encourage him and to invest in his life like this still confounds me.




After he had used his last Polaroid and we headed home. He began to ask me what my tattoos mean. For those of you who don’t know, I have an illustrated summary of the gospel on my arm. I explained to Vicky that, we were created to be in relationship with God, but that we said no to that relationship that God sent his son Jesus to die so that if we follow him, we can be restored to that relationship with God.

Vicky said he wanted to study about Jesus more... but did say “I think I might want to follow Jesus.”

The next day Vicky showed up at a church service we were at in the city, and later I also saw him hanging out with some of our friends who are working there long term. I realized that God brought me to India to play an integral part in the process of God drawing Vicky closer to Himself and showing Vicky that He loves him.

India

Renchen was a Tibetan Buddhist...

Our team met Renchen in the city of Dharamshala India. Some of us were teaching conversational english classes and he was one of our students.

It wasn't long before he was asking questions. Some of them were admittedly a little bit funny, like "Is there an age limit to be a follower of Jesus?"

Later during our time in Dharamshala, Renchen came to a worship night our team put on at a local cafe. At the end of the night we prayed for the people present. When we were about to pray for Renchen we asked if he had any prayer requests... We were expecting maybe a request along the lines of health, or family but instead he simply asked, "Pray that I can know Jesus more." We enthusiastically obliged his request.

By the end of our time there Renchen had become good friends with most of our team, and many of us, myself included were able to share the Gospel with him. As we were nearing our departure we were able to connect him with one of our friends who works long term in that city.

Only a few days after we left we got an e-mail from that worker. Renchen decided to give his life to Jesus. Renchen had joined a Bible study and was bringing 3 of his friends... Last i heard his 3 friends have become followers of Jesus too.







Renchen came to send us off on our way from Dharamshala, I snapped this pic of him from inside our bus while he was waiting for it to leave.

I'm starting to realize that I am only a small part of the BIG story that God is writing throughout history... But i love being part of it.

New Chapter

I got a new Job...

I just joined staff at the base here in Germany and am getting myself into some pretty awesome things...

In the immediate future:

I am part of a team planning and organizing a justice conference in Hamburg in November. At this three day conference, speakers will address several issues of justice in the world today; from human trafficking to child prostitution and extreme poverty. Check out the conference website here:

They are Not for Sale

The conference is being put on in association with The Not for Sale Campaign
In october i will also have an opportunity to travel to Not for Sales' Thailand base. Here we will will explore ways that our base can aid what they are doing there.

I am Super excited about what God is doing in my life. I hope you'll partner with me as I enter this new chapter of my life.

Your prayers and encouragement are super helpful. Please pray for me as right now I'm engaging in some pretty big things.
This conference is going to be big, a lot of work, and likely a lot of stress. In addition to praying for the conference itself,
please pray for strength, wisdom, and perseverance for the conference team (myself included) to execute this conference
well.

Please also pray for my finances, my job is a full time ministry and I will now be living off 100% support.

I just got back from outreach to India and Nepal last month. Will hopefully have lots of photos and stories from that outreach up soon!

Newsletter: May 2010

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