Fueled by Heidi Baker

Last night we went to hear Heidi Baker speak at the Foundry. I got to say hi to a friend there I have not seen in quite sometime, Scott McLeod. It was great to see him last night. Then joined my friends to listen to Heidi bring the word. It was great to hear how God had worked on her heart for many of years. She was very honest about the things that bothered with things in America, then to hear how God brought her to a place to reveal His love for those things. God brought her to a place of brokenness as she walked into a bathroom filled with gold sinks and railings with plush red carpet. There God told her that He loved them just as much as He loved those who live in the dumps and slums of Africa.
She then went on to share how she had a vision and seen Jesus standing at the foot of the cross with His arms open wide. Here people would come up to him bow down and laying what they had at His feet kissing them. Then they would get up and go into the dark places of the earth. This was where Jesus light would shine the brightest in them.
When she reached the end of her sermon she had us stand up, close our eyes and ask the Lord to show us who He calling us to serve. When I had done this and I seen the young women who come from the small villages of Ethiopia to the big city of Addis Ababa. Here they are running away from a problem in hopes to find a solution to it, when they only find themselves in a worse position then when they had left home. When they arrive they arrive at the bus station. This is where men come and seek them out. With their smooth talk they take them off to make them slaves, prostitutes, or even worse some of them are sexually abused. Some of them come to Addis Ababa pregnant and have no one to turn to. This also causes a problem for them. They end up homeless and begging.
Why should this be? Sadly there is very little help for these ladies if they can find it. This is my heart. They are needing God's love just as much as you and I do. Who is going to show them? My heart longs to share them the love of God. You see they long to see their dreams fulfilled and they have heard that all the things that they need to succeed is in the big city. These are dreams that God had given them just as He has given us dreams and this is my dream. To see theirs fulfilled. I have joined  Mission Ethiopiawho seeks to fill the desires of these ladies, single mothers, widows, and the orphans. We share the same vision and calling of God's heart for them. I am happy to share this calling with them. While I am in Ethiopia I will not get any financial support from Mission Ethiopia. So I am asking for friends, family, and fellow believers in Christ to partner with me.  I am still lacking just $400 of monthly supporters to make this happen. I need your prayers in this and I also need your financial support. So I ask you to set some time aside to pray about being a monthly supporter. 

Am I there yet?

I am here in the United States waiting to leave for Ethiopia. It just seems a matter of time when I leave, but when? When do I leave? I keep asking myself. I wonder when. When will I get to be with my fiance of three years? When will I get to start ministering and teaching in Ethoipia. As I ponder these questions from one day to the next giving thanks to God most high that it will be coming soon. Looking at lowering down how much money I am to need over there as a soon to be married man. It is not easy. If I were by myself then I would be able to do this on little as $400 a month in Ethiopia, but since I am not then I have to think about more than myself. I wonder at times will I want to come back to the states? Since I want to go there so badly and I have sold all that I have. At this time I have no plans to ever to return to the states to live again.

With a set budget for volunteering with Mission Ethiopia an organization that creates jobs for single mothers and widows so they can feed, clothe, and send their children to school is the very same dream that I had four years ago. If money was not the issue I would be there now. So each day I leave the house carrying letters with me for anyone that I meet or know someone that may not know what I am doing. Along with sending out emails day to day and following up with people. It seems like I am doing the really hard work now. I just wonder how hard the work is going t be when I finally get there. I just know that when I finally do, there will be some very happy people and one happy fiance. I just thank God that He has called me to a place that I had once begged Him to take me out of and not only has He called me to this place, but just so happy that He has placed Hanna in my life who from the very place I am called to. Can you say Praise God?

Living for something bigger than myself

Four years ago I decided that I would throw away what I thought was a life for me, a better paying job, a nicer car, a house and go and live. Live for something bigger than myself. I decided that would finish my education and when I had finished I would return to a place that few would want to call home. To go and call a place my home that I am not guaranteed a hot shower everyday, electricity everyday, Internet everyday, and have to make sure that I brush my teeth with bottled water everyday. For what? For the opportunity to see one, two, three, ten, twenty lives change just because I was able to walk beside them and help them find hope outside their situation.

You see this is what changed my life. A mother of two wanting to give me her babies that she could not take care of and had to sleep on the streets. Had to beg each day just so that she could feed her babies. I asked who helps mothers like her. I was told no one does, that's just the way it is here. My heart sank that day as I would see one mother after another begging to just survive. I wanted to then to reach out to each one of them and share the love of Christ with them. To help them see that they are priceless and that they are worthy, to help them find work that would provide a stable income for them. That was what I wanted to do.


It was then that I no longer cared about a life in the states where there is more than enough. I had set my heart on never leaving Ethiopia that day. I begged God that if He would let me stay and help these mothers I would abandon everything I know back home. Sadly that day He did not let me stay. That day I returned to the states where I would finish school with a degree in social work. This allowed me to learn more about myself and how I can help others. This is what my heart has longed to do for the past four years and now I praise God I have this chance to join what God is already doing, and that is to help bring hope and empowerment to these single mothers and widows with a ministry that shares the same heart and vision that I do for the single mothers and widows. It is Mission Ethiopia (http://missionethiopia.com/) that provides a job for them. This is a chance for me to walk beside them each and everyday showing them that someone cares about them. So the work is already there, I just have to walk into it. Sadly I cannot do this alone so I am inviting you to be a part of this amazing work. Here's how: I am needing as much prayer on this as I can get. So I am looking for as many as I can get to partner with me in prayer. Also I am looking for financial support for I will be there for a year or more. I am  for 70 people that are willing to partner with me financially at just $20 a month. My departure date is September 9th and I cannot leave until I have the support I need in place. So I am asking you if you would go before the Father and prayerfully consider partnering with me in this great work in sending me out.
Checks can be sent to Belmont Church Attn: Rob Fraizer 68 Music Sq. East Nashville, TN. 37203 or you can click on one of the donate buttons above on this blog.

Thank you so much for your time in reading my blog and praying for me. None of this can happen without you. So I ask you again to take a moment and pray to see if what would God have you do.

Its not about me, Its not about money, Its about relationships!

I have shared many times about my first trip to Ethiopia that changed my life and my view on life. How I returned to the states only wanting to return and help the single mothers who are struggling to just feed their children on a daily basis. Mission Ethiopia http://missionethiopia.com has partnered with different churches in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that allows mothers to work making beaded necklaces. This gives them a paycheck to send their children to school, pay for doctor visits when they get sick, and most of all feed them everyday. That helps them with the financial part of life.
This has been the vision of my heart for a long time. When I say long time, I mean about four years long. To reach out and walk with these mothers and widows as they still have to face life on a daily basis. You see money doesn't solve all of their needs. It is easy to say, "I can send them money" and you can, but just we all are broken and need God's reconceliation in all of our lives it makes much easier when you have someone to walk with.
You see its not about me, or the money, but about relationships. Its in relationships that we can discover who we are in Christ as we walk together in our brokenness and humility. Christ came to this broken world and He demonstrated to twelve men what its like to walk in relationship. He humbled Himself and showed them what it looked like to serve even though He was the creators son.
I look at how Christ striped Himself of his linens and got down on His knees and washed the feet of those he was leading, as a metaphor of us stripping ourselves of the luxuries of life and getting on our knees and washing the feet of those we are leading as a way to help them get closer to God by washing away the lies that the enemy has told them, or what society has said about them. Its more than just a paycheck.
As I am writing this I am thinking about how our Father in Heaven sent His son Jesus Christ to this world to bring hope and empowerment to a lost and broken world and how Jesus sent out the deciples to do the same. And that is what Mission Ethiopia is doing for these single mothers and widows. They are spreading hope and empowerment to them. That is why I am excited about this opportunity. For this has been my dream for past four years. I am so looking forward to this opportunity. Romans 10:14 and 15 says, "14 But how can people call for help if they don't know who to trust? And how can they know who to trust if they haven't heard of the One who can be trusted? And how can they hear if nobody tells them?15 And how is anyone going to tell them, unless someone is sent to do it? That's why Scripture exclaims, 'How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!'"
This has been my goal, dream, and vision for the last four years and I am excited to share it with you. But I cannot do it alone. As so many has signed up to help answer the call of sending me out I am still short financially. I am still asking for 60 more people that would be willing to partner with me for a year at $50.00 for this first month and $20.00 for the next eleven months. $20.00 is four cups of coffee from a coffee shop. I know this can happen. My flight leaves on September the 9th and I hope to be on it.

Thank you very much for your time and your consideration of giving.
God Bless you
Chris

One less struggling mother, One less orphan

Yesterday I was listing to the radio and they were talking about how the city of Detroit, Michigan had started a pilot program for free lunches in the city, not because everyone there is in need of a free lunch, but because they feel that the children whose parents have signed up for the program are not eating because they are embarressed. So to take away the social status they have decided to put every child on the program even if their parents are wealthy or not.
We live in a society if you loose your job you can go and get unemployment and if that will not cover your expenses you can also go and sign up for free medical and food stamps programs. A single mother can use the a government program to better herself here while she goes to school or to get some type of training and there are some who do just that and are doing great now. But what if you took all of that away? What if there were no programs here in the United States?
Four years ago I went on a missions trip to Ethiopia with Visiting Orphans and I witnessed something that I had never seen before not even on t.v. As we were leaving an orphange that we had just visited a lady approached us as our team was getting on the bus. She was crying, so we thought something happened to her. As she was talking to us her two toddlers scrambled around her looking at us and playing with each other. Neither child had no shoes while the other child had only a shirt on and that was it.
One of our guides Hanna stepped off the bus to see what was going on. She began to tell us that the mother was begging us to take her children with us. I was taken back by such a request. I would have loved to take her children, but why would she want to do such a thing? Hanna went on telling us that she was homeless and had nowhere to go and she could no longer feed her children. Wow! All the thoughts raced through my mind of how I had never seen this such a thing. A mother wanting to give her children up so she would not have to watch them suffer from starvation or even die.
We gathered around her for prayer only after we had given her money to last her a month, pizza that we had left over and had gotten out our donations of children's clothes and put new shoes on their feet, and new clothes on here children. We then gave her a umbrella and a poncho to try to stay dry for it was the rainy season at that time in Ethiopia.
We left after that. I sat down in the bus thinking about what had just happened and I began to talk to our guides as we passed by other mothers I seen standing on the street as their children played around them. I began to ask about how is it that these mothers end up like this. They began to share with me that some of these mothers are single cause some of them, their husbands died either from HIV/AIDS or some other form of death, they may have left them to go to another country such as the states or Europe, some of them became single mothers out of prostitution.
This just blew me away, cause my mother was a single mother most of my life and I just wondered, what if I had been born in a place such as Ethiopia? What would my mother do to provide for me or would she want to give me to a foreigner hoping that I would have a better life? Even though my mother never did use govt assistance she was able to get a job and always had someone to watch me while she worked.
You see that is not the case in Ethiopia. There is no childcare programs all over the city that are free to struggling and homeless mothers. There are no govt housing or food programs in Ethiopia. But there are a few places that are rising up to help provide a job for mothers who are struggling or homeless. One of those places is Mission Ethiopia
(http://missionethiopia.com/). They are providing jobs for single mothers and for those who don't have the ability to have a regular job there. August 29 2011 I am going to leave the luxuries of the United States to go volunteer with Mission Ethiopia to help with their vision that we both share to care for and help provide jobs for those who have less than and on top of that I had mentioned about one of our guides Hanna. Well since I had met her we have had a growing relationship that started three years ago a year after we had met. Last year on my third trip I spent some extra time in Ethiopia to be with her for one reason. To ask her to be my wife. I am excited to tell you that we will soon be Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Fisher.
As of right now I am raising support for this volunteership. I will be there for at least a year. Giving to those who are needing that helping hand, finding new ways to improve their lives. You can partner with me. Here is how. First and foremost we are in need of prayer. Lots of it too. Here is how you can pray for us. That each and everyday is started out seeking God first and laying aside our own ideas of what we think life should look like. Pray that we walk under the authority that is set before us in a godly manner. The other way you can be a part of this is financially. Here is how you can do that. You can either write a check to Belmont Church in the memo put Christopher Fisher/Ethiopia and send it to Belmont Church Attn: Rob Fraizer 68 Music Sq. East Nashville, TN. 37203 or you can go online if it is easier for you at https://www.wepay.com/donate/sendingchristoethiopia and make a donation there. I am looking for monthly partners and if I can get 100 people that are welling to support me for the next 12 months at $20.00 a person that will cover are expense for the whole year.
Thank you so much for your time, prayers, and support. None of this could not happen if it were not for you.

Bringing Hope and Empowerment to Single Mothers and Widows in Ethiopia

Dear Friends,
I want to take a moment to share with you the last four years of my life. In June of 2008 I went to Ethiopia and Rwanda with Visiting Orphans. During my time in Ethiopia the team was leaving an orphanage. As we were leaving a mother of two toddlers approached us. She got on her knees crying as her children played around her not aware of what was going on. One of her children had only a shirt on and nothing else and the other had no shoes. One of translators told us that she was pleading with us to take her children with us cause she could no longer take care of them.
Sadly we could not take them with us, but we reached in our pockets to give her what we had in money and then we got out our donations and found shoes and clothes for her children. We got back on the bus to leave and as we did we seen her sitting by a ditch feeding her children what food we had to give her. I was heart broken over this. As we drove through the city I began to notice other women walking, sitting, and standing around on the streets of Addis Ababa. So I began to ask our translators about them. They told me that most of them were homeless due to their husbands left them, died due to HIV/AIDS, or the had been a prostitute due to their poverty.
I wanted to so badly to reach out to them and help them, but did not know how. I returned back to the states where there is help for single mothers who were struggling. My plans before I went to Ethiopia was to graduate school, get a better job, a nicer car, and a house. I came back to the states longing to return there and give all of that up to help these ladies find a source of income for them and their children.
I returned each year for the past three years with Visiting Orphans and this has kept this vision alive. During this time I want to share with you that the interpreter on my first trip that I had mentioned above is going to be my wife.When I shared my vision with her, it brought her joy knowing that I wanted to someday move there, cause she did not want to leave her country.
Now for the additional good news, I will be working with Mission Ethiopia www.missionethiopia.com & http://vimeo.com/25618178 that has started this very work. Due to the labor laws in Ethiopia they cannot bring me on as a paid employee or even a contract employee. So I will have to come on as a volunteer, so I will have to raise my own support to do this. I am inviting you during this time to ask you if you would partner with me. Here is how: First and foremost I am asking you to pray for guidance as I step in a different culture that I do not try to solve their problems with the mindset of an American. I am also asking you if you would take a moment and prayerfully consider a one-time donation of any amount or a monthly donation of $25.00 with$100.00 for the first month to get me started to bring hope and empowerment to these mothers. Send your check to Belmont Church Attn: Rob Fraizer 68 music square east, Nashville, TN. 37203 or you can go to https://www.wepay.com/donate/sendingchristoethiopia
Thank you for your prayers and your consideration of supporting me financially.

In His Loving Grace
Christopher Fisher

Planes, Trains, Automobiles, & God

So to start off I just I have to give Him some glory. Jesus is the reason I am here in Dulles Airport. I had made a decision to spend my birthday with my very lovely lady who is happy to become my wife. So I had booked my tickets then got some buddy passes from Nashville to Dulles through Chicago. Well...Chicago was the problem. The day before I was to leave I was listing to the radio and heard the weather cast that Chicago was going to get twenty inches of snow.

So I called Southwest Airlines to ask about the flights going through there. The lady had informed me that the airport would be closed from 12 noon on Tuesday to 12 noon on Wednesday. My heart sank as my emotions went into a whirl wind cause my flight going to Ethiopia was to leave for Ethiopia at 11 on Wednesday. What was I going to do?

Well the lady who was so nice told me about a flight going into Baltimore leaving Nashville at 4:55 pm arriving at Baltimore by 7:45 pm. So I took it. I just had to figure out how I was going to get to Dulles from there. So I started looking around and found some options ranging from $200.00 to $15.00. Of course the more expensive one was just 45 minutes while the $15.00 one was about 2 hours. I prayed and asked God to please help me figure it all out.

So I packed until 4:00 that morning, went to bed around 4:30 that morning. I got up at 7:30 and packed everything in my car then off to work. I worked until 2:30 went to the bank came back to work and caught the airport shuttle at 3:45. Got the airport and the flight was delayed. No problem! As long as I was going to get there I didn't care.

We had left the airport and got to Baltimore by 8:30. I tried to find a way to Dulles and I had met a family who had adopted a child from China and they told me how to get there. So i caught a bus to the train station. I bought a ticket for an Amtrak train and was told to take that to Washington Central. Well with four bags that weighed over 100 lbs made it very difficult to get around, but that was alright. I had never been on the Amtrak before.

I boarded the train with my big over sized bag and my three heavy bags and this one guy helped me out. Praise God. I was nervous about this whole train thing, but I had to trust God. I was getting frustrated to with all of this shuffling around. So out of my confusion of talking with the family at the airport and the ticket booth lady I got off at the wrong stop, but God had a plan that I did not know about. I went to the ticket booth there and told them that I had never been there before, was lost and needed to get to Dulles Airport. He told me to buy and $3.00 ticket and take the orange line to West Church something or another. I just remember west church.

I boarded the subway and off I went. I started to wonder, Did God really have a plan? So I sat there wondering would there be anyone at that stop to help direct me to the right place? Well we went to stop at this one stop and we had to wait, because the subway train before us had broken down and all of those people had to get on the subway train I was on. I sat there while they all got on and these two guys stood right in front of where I was sitting. They talked about the game and about other things. Then they seen I was getting ready to get up and they made room for me. We started to make some conversation about how big my bags were. I told them what I was doing and what had happened to me. When I started to get off of the subway they asked me if I had any plans on getting to the airport and I told them that I did not.

One of the guys told me that he lives right by there and he would drop me off. Wow! What a God thing. It was all God. When we had gotten out to the parking lot there were no other transportation after that and they had told me that a taxi would have cost me $50.00 or more. Can you believe that? The driver kept telling me your a good guy so its a karma thing. I just to him that I like to think of it as the Grace of God. When he had dropped me off I just wanted to break down and cry. I was in awe of what God had done. He never ceases to amaze me. I just have to praise Him for His loving kindness and mercy. He had a plan all along and even though at times I started to second guess Him, get nervous wondering if I had made the wrong decision by taking the train, He still came through on His plan.

What a journey this has become as this winter storm has just missed D.C. I feel like it is as God was standing at the south side of D.C. blowing the storm and cold temperatures away from here so that our plane could left off on time. What a mighty God we serve.

This has truly been a story of Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and God. Can't wait to see what God does in Ethiopia. I hope it has something with a me staying doing ministry and being with the woman I love dearly. Would I do it again? You bet ya!

Then there was one.

June 2

It was a hard to sleep after our first night back in Addis Abba with the time change, but never the less, I was ready to go out and share the love of the Father to the fatherless. We had our breakfast of Ethiopian Waffles, then a quick time in prayer, then off to love on some babies.

The 1st orphanage we went to we pulled into the gate, and low and behold, there were all of the young children ready for us. We got out of the vehicles, and we made our way over to the toddlers, and immediately, 5 or 6 children surrounded me at once. Then Simon brought out a few balls to play with, and I was left with one faithful child. She had the most beautiful big eyes. She stayed by my side during our stay there. I picked her up and began to play catch with another child while holding this beautiful little princess who will refer to as Jane.

Everywhere I went Jane was right there with me. We went over to where the bigger children were having class to look inside. There we found a small classroom filled with beautiful little people all wearing these bright green neon shirts that said, “Jesus loves the little children of the world.” There was no light in this classroom. They had a small opening as a window that could be closed by a sheet of wood, then a door. All of the children were so happy to see us. After that happened, class was dismissed. Thanks to the Americans.

Some more children then mobbed me. We sat down so that I could touch all of them without letting Jane go. With this entire going on, they had seen my tattoo. What fun! They tried to rub it off, then they read it, then they went and got other children to look at that tried to rub it off. It was funny.

After some time playing with the children we went to one of the toddler rooms for them to eat. This room was small, and on top of that, they had just changed the nastiest diaper that I had ever smelled in my entire life. The smell just lingered in the room for several minutes, before we got use to it or before it just left. During this they brought out the food for the children. I fed Jane while I held her. I think she was just fine on feeding herself, but she waited until I picked up her food and started feeding her. As one other little girl came over and wanted the same attention, she tried to push Jane out of my lap so she could be fed, even though she had been feeding herself. I pulled her aside and told her no, and then I took her food and began to feed her too.

After the children had eaten all of their food it was time for a nap. I laid Jane down in her crib, and then it started. She began to cry, so I stayed there, and the workers asked us to leave. I could not leave Jane there just crying. So I stayed. I will say, that they were probably not happy with me. So I picked Jane up and held her. The workers seen that nap was not going to happen anytime soon so they let the children go back outside to join the rest of the orphanage. So Jane and I made our way out side.

There we enjoyed ourselves, just the two of us walking around, at times we would sit down and I would sit her beside me. Other children would come over to be held or sit in my lap. Jane did not mind as long as she could still touch me. The other children would get up and play, but Jane always remained right there with me, as though I was the only thing that mattered in her life.

A little later one of the workers came to get Jane so she could lay her down for a nap. Jane was gone just like that. I really did not get to say goodbye, and she did not cry as she left.

We soon left from there to go to the A Hope orphanage where either the children there live with the HIV/AIDS virus or they were orphaned because their parents had it before they died.



Here we would put on a puppet show that would have me walking around with the children blindfolded and lost looking for my friends. What great fun it was. As I made my way through the chairs of children, bumping into them on purpose, they would laugh as I said “yike'rta” which is, “excuse me” in Amharic. I learned this from my friends Konesh and Joseph our drivers for our time there. They taught me a few words that I had already forgotten by now, but will soon relearn.

Oh! I almost forgot. When we left the Guest House, we were in two cars. On our way over to the orphanage, Aki was in one car and I was in the other, and we had the puppets hanging out the window yelling, “Salome” which is, “hello”. The people there loved it. At one time we passed a big truck and did it, and they laughed, then they sped up to us and the passenger grabbed a towel or something like that and made a puppet out of it. It was so funny.

Now back to A Hope. While we were waiting for the director to get back, and for the children to awake from their nap, there were 3 men chopping wood with some really dull axes. They were doing it in sandals. Yes, sandals. So Nate went back to the Guest House to get some shoes for these guys. When he returned, what a blessing it was to them. They took some time to try them on only after we washed their feet for them first. Then they took them back off, put their sandals back on, and went back to work. They were so appreciative of the gift we gave them, that they let us chop some wood too.


When the children woke we did our puppet show, (I know, I am all over the place with this blog. Remember it was two weeks ago.) I got was the face painting person. How on earth did I become the face painting person? I never painted faces before in my life. Well I made a small attempt at it, and guess what? They loved it. They loved so much that I had a line of children who wanted to get their faces painted. Then they had seen my tattoo. It was all over then. One child brought me a pencil and wanted me to draw what was on my arm on his arm. LOL! I just laughed, told him that I could not do that. Then another child wanted me to use an orange marker, then he left when he seen that I was not going to draw a tattoo on his arm. A few minutes later he came back with orange markings on his arm from him giving him his own tattoo. Funny. We soon left there to go and get some coffee at Kabali Coffee. Which is their Starbucks in Ethiopia. It is better than Starbucks though.