Extra Commitment Opportunities

There is a channel through which gifts can be designated for specific items that support the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s work around the world. These are called Extra Commitment Opportunities (ECOs). You can give directly to an ECO account online or by mailing your check designating the name and account number of the particular item you have chosen to:

PC(USA) Individual Remittance Processing
P.O. Box 643700
Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700

Your gift will go directly into the ECO Account designated, and you will receive a letter indicating that your gift has been received and will be used for the purpose intended.

Below are some ECOs related to Ethiopia. For a complete listing visit Mission Funding's Web site and type Ethiopia into the search box.

Children and Youth

Children of Africa

Education

Bethel Evangelical Secondary School (BESS)

Bethel Evangelical Secondary School is a premier institution with a reputation for producing well-qualified graduates. With 335 students now attending, funds are needed for improvements, a new library, a laboratory and the replacement of underground water pipes. Gifts to this project may also assist with necessary related project expenses that are essential to the successful completion of this project, such as mission personnel, travel and administrative support.

Bethel Mekane Yesus School, Addis Ababa

This school enrolls about 800 girls (day students) and lives up to its name, which means the Light of Life. Bible study and daily worship are a part of the everyday schedule. The academic standards are high and in many ways the school is a model for education in Ethiopia.

Evangelism

The 1.1 million Afar people of northeast Ethiopia are 99.2 percent Muslim. PC(USA)’s partner church in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY), has been asked by Afar government officials to assist in the provision of a number of services: veterinary, literacy and water, along with grinding mills, tree nurseries and hostels. The PC(USA) has partnered with the EECMY to undertake these opportunities in a careful and sensitive way as part of a holistic ministry. Already some Afar have responded to the gospel.

Health

Christ-centered care for AIDS patients addresses physical, spiritual and emotional needs by providing medical supplies, clinical referrals, food, household help, pastoral support and prayer. Gifts to this ECO will assist in all aspects of patient care and training of care providers as well as support for the caregivers themselves.

AIDS continues to be a crisis for entire families in many parts of the world. Gifts to this account will support congregation-based AIDS projects, prevention education, various forms of training and continuing education events, including the training of pastors, materials development, support of hospitals doing testing, counseling and training of staff among other things.

AIDS Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Africa

Because the needs of orphans and their caregivers (often a grandparent or an older sibling) are so desperate, this ECO has been established as a separate ECO. Gifts to this account go specifically to projects working with children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS to help provide their basic needs, including food, clothing, education and medical care. Through the ECO people who work to care for the orphans are also trained in ways to best support these children.

Consultant for HIV/AIDS and Women's Work, Ethiopia

Contributions to this ECO support the work of a consultant in Ethiopia, to help the PC(USA)'s partner churches assess, plan and implement HIV/AIDS prevention and care programs and to respond to women's needs in the area of health care, education and economic opportunity.

Contributions to this ECO help provide training, medicines and supplies for health work in the Bethel synods of the EECMY.

New Malaria Initiative

Malaria kills more than 1 million people annually, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria claims the lives of 3,000 young children every day. The 2006 PC(USA) General Assembly has responded to malaria's tragic toll by calling for a collaborative malaria initiative that will broaden and strengthen the PC(USA)'s current malaria prevention program. This effort is to begin with the formation of a special committee, to be composed of representatives of Presbyterian church partners in Africa and U.S. Presbyterians. The committee will develop an international plan of action to address the scourge of malaria and present the plan to the 2008 General Assembly. Contributions to this ECO will support the work of the proposed special committee.

Community health work is combined with basic development in an isolated, underdeveloped area of western Ethiopia. Roads and wells have been constructed. With a new health clinic, funds are needed to train community health workers who will provide basic health services such as immunizations, prenatal care and health education.

Water for All

Without clean water, good health is impossible. In many parts of the world people suffer chronic and life-threatening illness and children die needlessly for lack of accessible clean water. Gifts to this ECO help provide technical assistance, equipment and training to develop sources of clean water in needy communities.

Women's Health International

In much of the developing world women's health is undermined by traditions and practices that leave women disempowered, marginalized and living in poverty. Gifts to this fund will support a range of programs, including health services, education and economic development that improve the well being of women.

Mission Personnel

Following 40 years of experience as a nurse and teacher of nurses, Dorothy Hanson is now serving as a PC(USA) consultant on AIDS in East Africa. She works in the coordinating office of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus and with the Presbyterian Church of East Africa. After a five-day training program with coordinators from 20 church units, one participant wrote to her, “We have all been working in HIV and AIDS work for a long time, but all we were seeing were the sick, the dejected. Never before have we seen such power of God; it is a miracle. You showed us God can use anything for his glory.”

The Rev. John and Gwenyth Haspels — Evangelist

John and Gwenyth Haspels have served in a remote area of Ethiopia for over a decade, partnering with the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. John, an ordained PC(USA) minister, works with church planning and Gwenyth is a medical clinic supervisor among the Suri people in Tulegit. In a church that has grown from 20,000 to more than 4 million members in under 40 years, church planning is a vital ministry. A neighboring chief said to John, “We have come and we can see that the people living here in Tulegit are living in the light. We are still living in the darkness. Please come and bring the light to us.”

Marie Lusted retired after 49 years of service in November 2004. Soon after, she returned to Ethiopia to continue her work translating the Bible into Anuak, this time as a long-term volunteer. Marie, known to most as “Breezy,” has been interested in Bible translation since 1957. While working as a nurse at the Pokwo and Gilo clinics in Ethiopia, she got involved in the mission’s literature program, helping proofread the New Testament in Anuak. While her primary work is translation, Marie’s faith also compels her to advocate for the human rights of the Anuak people and the care of orphans.

Michael and Janelle McCarty serve out of Bethel Evangelical Secondary School, a boarding school for students in grades nine through twelve located in Dembi Dollo. There Janelle teaches English and Michael works with the Western Wollega Bethel Synod on projects involving the settlement of the Majunga people, a nomadic people now settling near Dembi Dollo.

Michael  and Rachel Weller, along with their four children, have served in Ethiopia since 1994. Michael, an ordained PC(USA) minister, serves in evangelism and leadership training with the Western Wollega Bethel Synod (WWBS) of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. Rachel works with women from WWBS teaching about healthy practices. As a result, some churches now have community vegetable gardens, more people maintain clean drinking water, and there is greater awareness of how HIV spreads. Michael feels the burden of equipping Christian leaders with sound biblical education to provide “both the motivation and the means to discover new ways of living in relationship with neighbor and enemy.”

Bruce and Lora Whearty have been appointed as educators for the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus in Addis Ababa.  Full funding for the position is still being sought.

The Revs. Anne and John Wheeler-Waddell — Professors of Missiology

John and Anne Wheeler-Waddell, both ordained PC(USA) ministers, are developing an emphasis in missiology at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis Ababa. This is essential as the churches in Ethiopia are experiencing tremendous growth among many different people groups across the country. Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology is the first graduate theological school in Ethiopia offering master’s level training in systematic theology, biblical studies, and church history. You could say John and Anne are making church history in the arena of global Christianity.

Other Support

Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, General

The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus has congregations, evangelistic programs, educational, medical and development institutions throughout the nation. Because of the general poverty of the nation, each of these programs can function only with outside contributions.

Regional Liaison for the Horn of Africa

Gifts to this ECO provide travel and operating expenses for the work of the regional liaison in supporting partner churches and programs, mission personnel, involvement of PC(USA) presbyteries and congregations, organizations and mission networks in the region, which includes Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.