Ruby Dilts
News Editor
Being away from home for any length of time can be hard. Being about 8,000 miles from home for three weeks is certainly hard. Liv Todd and Avery Blaine experienced this difficulty firsthand as they traveled to Ethiopia on an OBU GO (Global Outreach) Trip.
“[The trip] was definitely a growth opportunity,” sophomore nursing major from Fort Smith, Arkansas, Liv Todd said. “It was hard, but the Lord was so good during it.”
Before the trip began, the two saw evidence of God’s faithfulness.
“I was still on the fence about [going on a GO Trip] during the GO chapel last year,” sophomore nursing major from Kansas City, Missouri Avery Blaine said. “I told God that I was available and asked that he would open the right doors if I was supposed to go… and he did.”
After landing in Ethiopia, Todd and Blaine saw continued examples of God’s faithfulness.
“God doesn’t call us to comfort. God calls us to a life of surrender to him,” Todd said. “There were a lot of times we struggled while we were there… but in the Great Commission he tells us that he’ll be with us until the end of the age, and that’s reassuring.”
Blaine and Todd worked closely with Mission 10:10, a street kid and orphan outreach program in Ethiopia. OBU math professor Dr. Krista Hands works as the Mission 10:10 treasurer and accompanied the students on the trip. The group led a Vacation Bible School for children, as well as facilitating home visits.
“Home visits are hard,” Hands said. “You start to see the depth of the poverty of the people we’re working with.”
Through Mission 10:10, individuals have an opportunity to sponsor a child in Ethiopia. Mission 10:10 then provides the child with tutoring, discipleship, and food. The resources provided through Mission 10:10 are sometimes the only means of education and nutrition that a family may be exposed to.
“When you’re in the [Mission 10:10] facilities, it’s easy to focus on the smiles… without really seeing what lies at home,” Hands said. “I think it’s valuable for our students to see that. It’s humbling, too, because in America we don’t really invite anyone into our homes, and [these families] are just so honored that you’ve come.”
While the home visits were taxing, Todd and Blaine saw personal growth.
“In my comfort, I’m not going to grow. I have to step out of that and surrender, and he really showed me that on this trip,” Todd said.
For the students, surrender took the form of trusting God during a GO trip. Surrender can look like a variety of things, though. Sometimes, it looks like trusting God’s plan for the growth of your family. Hands first visited Ethiopia for adoption purposes. She now has eight children, many of whom joined her family through foster care and adoption.
“Our children who came to the US at 14 and 16 years old… are very big proponents of [volunteer mission work] being about relationships, not just sending money,” Hands said. “There’s definitely a need for people to [give financially], but there’s also a need for people to go and form relationships, because that’s what these kids take away from this — the relationships formed and the time spent and the things learned.”
Traveling overseas to share the Gospel can be intimidating. Sometimes, something as minute as eating in a foreign place can be intimidating.
“Being away from friends and family… our beds, our showers, our foods, and things like that was so different,” Blaine said. “The culture shock was hard to get over.”
