When a group of Taylor students and staff signed up for a January 2008 mission trip to Ethiopia, they might have had visions of intimidating jungles and primitive living conditions. Upon their arrival in Yetebon, Ethiopia, however, they were greeted by a place some of them later described as "the Garden of Eden."
The group's destination in Yetebon was the facility for a ministry known as Project Mercy. The ministry, led by Marta Gabre-Tsadick and Demeke Tekle-Wold, has served Ethiopian children and families since 1977. With more than 1,500 students attending its school, countless families from the area benefiting from its skills training programs and healthcare and about 60 orphans living at the facility, Project Mercy is a haven for those in need.
"As soon as I stepped on the compound I knew I was on holy ground," Taylor sophomore Cherilyn Sutherland said. "Project Mercy is assessing the needs of the community and then seeking to meet them in practical ways. They are the hands and feet of Jesus in a community that is desperately searching for the love of God."
Like all students on the Lighthouse J-term trip, junior Laura McGrath served in a number of areas: teaching classes, playing with the orphans and students and providing a helping hand where needed. McGrath said she was impressed by the ministry's ability to effectively serve the educational, occupational, spiritual and physical needs of people in many regions--all in a simultaneous fashion.
"I felt like everything that was going on at Project Mercy was a textbook example of how international development should be done," McGrath said. "It's so much more than an orphanage and it's so much more than a school - none of it could have happened without God sustaining all of it."
While the students served the children at the facility, the Taylor staff and faculty members on the trip were working on a variety of other projects to assist the ministry.
Some people planted fruit trees to give Project Mercy a renewable food source and others typed government-mandated tests for the school.
Wynn Lembright, vice president for strategic initiatives whose role was investigating a future Taylor partnership with Project Mercy, brought a number of doctors and surgeons with him to Ethiopia. There, they were able to help Project Mercy find a network of dependable physicians to work at their hospital.
Lembright also had an education professor, an information technology specialist, a business person and a number of other volunteers from the Taylor community come to evaluate the ministry and serve in Yetebon.
"That core (of volunteers) then interfaced with all the venues of Project Mercy," Lembright said. One of the positive results of the team's presence was the development of a leadership-training program for Project Mercy students called "students of promise."
According to Director of Lighthouse Programs Jennifer Collins and Professor of Education Cynthia Tyner, the Ethiopia mission trip may be geared more heavily in the future towards education majors who can teach at the school in Yetebon.
"The goal is to raise awareness ... to improve the educational quality at Project Mercy," Tyner said.
Although the team from Taylor helped in a number of ways, many of the participants on the trip said they benefited more than the people they were helping in a number of ways. McGrath was just one of many group members who said she felt honored to work in the presence of Marta and Deme, the couple who have dedicated their lives to Project Mercy.
"The faith that Marta and Deme had (to make the facility self-sustainable) was so reckless and so beautiful," McGrath said. "It was such as huge testament to the redemptive power of Christ."