February 17, 2023
Bear One Another's Burdens: Trip to Ethiopia and Sudan with Yonatan Hiruy March 7-24, 2023
Many who come to Canada as refugees have fled violence and turmoil in their home lands. As we come to love one another, their cares for their relatives and families back home inevitably become our concerns also.
I first met Yonatan Hiruy in 2002. As a keen follower of Jesus, at 16 years of age he fled a violent anti-Christian communist regime in Ethiopia for safety in Sudan. After an exhausting walk of 3-4 weeks through hostile territory, he was presumed to be dying of food poisoning by his friends who carried him, unconscious, across the border.
God delivered him! After some time, he made his way to Sweden where he was educated, met his wife and eventually became a pastor. His church in Sweden sent him to Toronto to help a fledgling Eritrean church there (a country which separated from Ethiopia in 1993). A friend of his was living in Edmonton, who called Jay Gurnett, who called me, and I called Yonatan! We have worked together to support a VMC network of Eritrean and Ethiopian churches in Canada since then.
A terrible civil war has been raging for the last two years in Ethiopia. An estimated 600K people have been killed and 3.5 million have been displaced. This has been absolutely heart-breaking for Yonatan and his fellow country men. A peace accord was signed in December - and is holding.
Yonatan has urged me to accompany him on a visit to Ethiopia and Sudan for the purpose of bringing hope, comfort and encouragement to his forgotten, distressed and displaced people. We will provide support and leadership training for Christian leaders who are advancing the Gospel in word and in deed, in and through their churches, under difficult and confusing circumstances. And, we will assess the situation to consider what might be done there in the future. This is a VMC project I am volunteering for. By the way, we plan to visit a refugee camp in Sudan, where Yonatan himself lived, after fleeing Ethiopia as a 16 year old.
Pray for us as we go, lots of details to be worked out - will keep in touch.
Update sent March 6:
Greetings to you all,
I am getting ready to travel.
Departure from Toronto, Tuesday morning (March 7), Arriving in Khartoum, Sudan on Wednesday morning. Will be meeting with church leaders on Thursday, visiting refugee camps later in the week. Will keep in touch. Please pray Holy Spirit guidance along the way. This trip has more "spontaneous elements" than I am used to. And, please pray for safety as well as success with the logistical details.