Swart Omo-Gram
The Making of a Mission: Chapter Eight
October 1999
We want to introduce you to some colleagues of ours. Like us, they have left their homes, families, and all that is familiar to them. Like us, they are living among a foreign people, without the conveniences of home. Like us, when their children are school age, they have to send them to boarding school and endure months of separation. Like us, they too take the risk of disease, danger from snakes and scorpions, and living in constant heat and dust, which they, too, are not accustomed to. Like us, they too are sent by their home churches on whose prayers they also depend. Unlike us, their home is not so far away in miles, but still worlds away in every other way. Their home is Ethiopia.
How can it be so different for them if their home is Ethiopia, you ask? Ethiopia is such a land of variety in geography, and even more in its peoples. Each tribe is so different from the other, it is as if each people group is its own country altogether. For a person to go from a more developed part of Ethiopia to a place such as Omo, is as much an act of faith for them as it is for us. Now, let me introduce you to the rest of our team.
Our team includes Johannes and Elfinish with sons Chernet and Mereetu. Also there is Iyasu and Amarich and son Unetu. Johannes and Iyasu and families have been living here with us for 8 months now. They are sent from home churches in the lush and beautiful highlands of Ethiopia. They built their own houses out of available sticks and mud. They have no one to fellowship with or encourage them in their own tongues. They only return to their homes once a year for rest, renewal and reporting to their churches. They have made a long-term commitment to sharing the gospel with the Daasanech people. They are learning to speak Daasanech and constantly open their homes to the people around them, looking for any and every opportunity to share Christ.
We would ask that when you pray for us and the work here, that you remember Johannes and Iyasu and families. They are our colleagues in every sense of the word. We couldn't do what we do without them. It is our desire that they through the national church, will carry on the work here long after we are gone. Pray for their daily protection from sickness and harm. Pray for them as they learn Daasanech and build relationships. Pray for harmony between them and that they can encourage one another. Pray for the Daasanech individuals that they are discipling daily.
"Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified everywhere, just as it is among you." 2 Thessalonians 3:1.
Co-Laborers with you,
Dick and Donna Swart
Box 127
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Leah
Box 3219
Davidson, NC 28036
Caleb and Shelah
Box 80
Kijabe, Kenya
Iyasu, Johannes and families.
Dick takes some old men
for a boat ride.
