Dear Friends,In January I made a trip back to Ethiopia to check on the project and our co-workers. So many things are happening that it is difficult to keep up from 10,000 miles away.Th e biggest change is launching treatment support programs in 7 governmenthealth centers. We hired and trained 7 new Case Managers (treatment counselors) and 14 Expert Patients (HIV+ peer counselors) and set up computerized patient record systems in each of the health centers. This is only about half of what we plan to do. Over the next few months we will hire staff …

Our schedule is very full and time for writing updates is limited. I am planning on having other team members share some thoughts as soon as possible. Perhaps tonight I can convince a couple of them to write an update and we will post it tomorrow.Let me give you a brief overview of what has been happening with the team . . .Last week finished up extremely well. We were able to minister in a number of different contexts. The main part of our work consisted of doing clinics at the project office for project beneficiaries. It is always so …

Monday, February 25, 2008 the start of our second week. It started out like every other day here. If you slept well as I have, the alarm goes off at 6:30am, breakfast at 7am. We had devotions and boarded our bus at 8am. The project staff has devotions and prayer every Monday and we have had the privilege to share this time with them.After devotions we were divided into home visit teams. Home visits are my favorite part of this project. We feel honored to be welcomed into the homes of those we are serving. Today my team members were …

The work of our team today reflects the array of service that the Project in Addis Ababa carries out for the sake of Christ. The staff and interns have laid a deep foundation that allows a short-term team like ours to share in the privilege of serving others.We began the morning by dividing into four teams who then went on home visits to beneficiaries of the Project. What is a “beneficiary”? A beneficiary is a person with HIV/AIDS who is being cared for by the Project in a holistic way: medical care is provided, housing is subsidized, …

We are pleased to be able to provide a few images from our Ethiopia missions trip (despite the sometimes rather slow internet connection).

The members of this medical team have experienced a combined total of 28 past medical trips to Addis. And everyone agrees that each trip is unique and different from any of the ones we have been a part of before. The project changes, the beneficiaries change, the city changesToday was unique among “first day” experiences for medical teams that I have been part of. Our day began with staff devotions at the project office in Lideta. One thing that was different for me was the fact that my brother, Andy, the project director, was not there. …

On Friday, February 15th, 2008, eleven members of the MTW medical team left their homes and families to begin the long journey to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where they will spend the next two weeks serving the staff and beneficiaries of the MTW HIV/AIDS project. For some, the journey took a bit longer. Drs. Bobby Bain and Joe Moore from Zion Presbyterian Church in Columbia, Tennessee left a little earlier than most of us, but after an almost three hour delay getting out of Nashville, they missed our flight from Washington Dulles International Airport to Frankfort, Germany by about …

This morning as I was driving home from taking the boys to school, a song entitled “Help Me Be New”, by Sara Groves kept running through my head. I made it my prayer for today. Here is the song . . .

God is doing a work in me
He’s walking through my rooms and halls
Checking every corner
Tearing down the unsafe walls
And letting in the light
And I am working hard
To clean my house and set it straight
Not let pride get in the way
To catch an eternal vision of
What I am to become
Will you help me be new?
Will you hold me …

QUOTES ON FASTING

Martin Luther preached about fasting in a sermon based on Matthew 4:1ff, saying “Of fasting I say this: it is right to fast frequently in order to subdue and control the body. For when the stomach is full, the body does not serve for preaching, for praying, for studying, or for doing anything else that is good. Under such circumstances God’s Word cannot remain. But one should not fast with a view to meriting something by it as by a good work” (What Luther Says, St. Louis: Concordia Publ. House, Vol.1, 1959, p. 506).

“Throughout its course, the life …

One of the things I am quickly learning during my first observation of Lent, is how forgetful I am. But not in ways that you might imagine. Five days into Lent, and since my initial lapse on the morning of Ash Wednesday, I have not forgotten to observe my Lenten fast. I have successfully avoided television, newspapers, radio, magazines, and, yes, even the internet. But what I have been forgetting is to use the time I have been saving to engage in intense spiritual activity. I have continued my normal routine of devotional readings and …

keep looking »