July 2000

Dear Family and Friends:

It has been some time since you have heard from me, so let me tell you a little about what I have been doing and where I am these days. As of June 7, I moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to work at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) headquarters in the International Health Ministries Office. I am a resource person for AIDS, malaria, and TB. It is a temporary position, but I have found it to be a satisfying job, and as well, a quiet place where my life seems to be somewhat simple again. When I initially returned home, I spent my time with family and friends, and just enjoyed being back in my home church again. From about mid-January through May, I was able to visit many of the churches that had so faithfully supported me while I was in Ethiopia. It was a joy to be able to meet people face to face and share my thanks, as well as the thanks of my Ethiopian brothers and sisters. So many of you played a key role in God’s work with us there through your prayers, your letters, your financial support. He used and is still using all these things to make a significant difference in the physical and spiritual health of people there. Please continue to support that healing work as you have in the past. The clinic and synod workers need that same support now more than ever.

I do not know what my plans for the future will be even now, though I believe I am in the right spot to make that decision. I will not be returning to Ethiopia, it seems. I am sad about that in some ways, though I know that the work we began is continuing and no longer really requires my presence. My coworkers there write me regular letters and tell me of the things they have accomplished. In the past months they have capped five springs for clean water and have built five model latrines—all with the help of the community. The curative work in the clinic continues, but I think they have finally caught the vision for community health. Maybe I had to get out of their way to see them flourish! Please pray with me as I seek God’s will for my future. Your prayers lifted me up in the past, and I know will help guide me in my next steps.

Below is a the story of a woman I lived near to in Ethiopia. I hope to share with you more of these stories in the months to come so that you might know the people around Gatcheb a little better….

Bateshayba lives at the place where Gatcheb Road and several village paths come together. It is the place that people must pass to go to Mizan town, to go to the clinic and school, and Synod offices. Her home is the last home women and children see when they go to get water – often several times a day. Is her being there an accident of random choice? Read her story with me and I think you too will believe as I do, that God has purposely given her that place as a special witness and point of ministry among the people there.

Bateshayba is a slightly built woman with chronic lung disease, and elephantiasis—a crippling disease of the lymph system—in her legs. Burdened with these two problems she hobbles to get around. Basically, though, she lives with her feet tucked under, confined to her home. One often finds her hunched over a small fire she uses for cooking and for warmth. Her home is a mud hut about eight feet in diameter. The grass roof is coming apart, and the mud walls have numerous holes in them. She has a small cot that the chickens seem to use as their own. Rats abound, eating the little food that she has sitting on the floor by the wall. She lives off the 30 Ethiopian birr (about $3.75) that the local church gives her each month—about 10 cents per day. People give her some bananas and other food, much of which she sells, some which she lives from. Despite this lack of income though, she tithes to the local church. Instead of eating a chicken that no longer lays, she gives it to the church. Sometimes she sends a birr back. If only we knew stewardship and lordship as she does.

I met her when she invited me in her home when I was returning from church one Sunday. As I entered, I expected her to be alone. What I found was people sitting along the sides of the walls and a child curled up next to her. We drank precious coffee with cups borrowed from the neighbors. And one by one as people finished they said, "I must be on my way"—to the market, or home, or
wherever. Before they left she would ask one of us to pray. Each person was sent with a blessing, and we in turn—as she often said— blessed her. She would often send to me, by way of a young girl that lived with her, gifts of bananas and mangoes, asking only that I come to be with her and pray with her. During those times, she would tell me stories of how the children of the villages loved her; of how people liked to stop at her home on the way to where they were going. One day she told me how a young girl came to live with her. Maybe eight or nine years ago, before she was so physically limited, she found a baby girl in her garden, apparently abandoned. Though
she had little to survive on then, she took the baby in and cared for her when she was helpless. Now, she says, "This same little girl takes care of me." Bateshayba says, "God gave us to each other. He knows what we need."

Bateshayba is God’s witness in that busy yet remote corner of the world, a testimony to His generosity and all sufficiency in the midst of apparent need. She is confined to her house, yet her ministry touches people around the world through people like me, who have been privileged to know her. Let us learn from her. And, let us follow her example. May she be an encouragement to us all that mission is not so much the going out, but rather, an attitude of the heart that says, "God, use me, wherever I am."

Please write to me at the address below and let me know how all of you are too. Thank you again for your love and support.

In Christ,

Caryl Weinberg

The 2000 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 34