Here you have it:  our pride and joy! These are our two favorite guys in the whole world!! It really is too fun being parents. Adonijah is now 20 months old and Elias is 4 ½ months old. They are growing like weeds!

These two precious people are some of our friends from Ethiopia. The first is Alemenshe, 10 years old, who had crossed eyes and cataracts in both eyes. The lady next to her is Berke, in her early 60s, who dealt with a goiter for over 30 years! The Lord was faithful in providing $880.00 USD for surgeries to take place so that they could live normal lives here on earth. This covered the cost of not only the medical aspect, but also transportation, lodging and food as well. Praise the Lord! Here they are after their surgeries.

In August we were able to venture out to the East coast to visit Doug and Rose Martin, along with the congregation from Calvary Chapel DC Metro, and Steve and Carissa Reeves, and their beautiful three daughters, Ruthee, Vaylah, and Dayuma. While with Doug and Rose, we were able to do a little site-seeing of Washington, D.C. and hang out with them and their daughter, Jeanette, and grandson, Douglas. It was a total blast! During our stay with them, we took the opportunity to drive north a little ways to New Jersey to visit our good ‘ole buddies who went to Ethiopia with us this last time. They are all doing well and we were so happy to have a chance to see them again.

We are happy to inform you that the orphanage land has a temporary fence around it, so there should no longer be a threat from others trying to take it away from what we believe the Lord has called us to use it for. We are ready to build the orphanage building and need the Lord’s direction and provision to be able to do so.

As of right now, we are awaiting the arrival of Argaw’s new green card in the mail. After we get it, we will be looking for plane tickets to go back to Ethiopia. We are hoping that the green card will be here soon so that we can buy tickets for possibly the beginning of November.

Praises and Prayer Requests:

• Praise the Lord for the provision for the surgeries for Alemenshe and Berke
• Praise Him for the provision for our family to travel throughout the States this year
• Praise God for the building of our fence around the orphanage land
• Pray for continued spiritual growth for our friends in Ethiopia
• Pray for the provision to build the orphanage building/s in due time
• Pray that the Lord will direct us in purchasing our plane tickets to Ethiopia

Thank you once again for your care and concern of what the Lord’s doing in Ethiopia. We love you all!

In Christ Alone,

Argaw, Rachel, Adonijah and Elias Ayele

A late Happy New Year to all of you! We hope your year is going well so far. This past month has been fairly busy and we are anticipating for this month (our last month before we leave for America) to be even busier! We will be in America on March 4^th, and we have so much to do before then.

Many of you have asked about Yerus. I’m sorry I haven’t updated you since the last newsletter, but I want you all to know that she is back to her normal self again, praise the Lord! Almas, her mother said she was out of the hospital and back to being healthy again. Thank you so much for your prayers. I know they appreciate the prayers as well!

Argaw’s sister who lives in France came to visit us for 3 weeks this past month. Her name is Genet and she is very precious! She was the last of his family members for me to officially meet. We hit it off well and we will all miss her very much.

So, not enough pictures could be placed here. This is an experience I’ll never forget! We went to Masincho, Argaw’s family’s village, for a “little” family reunion when Genet arrived. We slaughtered the less than 2 year old cow that Argaw owned and his mom was caring for and fed close to 100 people! Before eating the meat, Argaw and I passed out a pudding cake I had made for all the people there. Everyone loved it! I don’t think they’d ever tasted something so sweet. While Argaw was helping the men get the cow ready, I was inside helping the women mix a Sidama traditional food, called wassa. Afterwards, the women spread out the wassa on some banana tree leaves on the ground. Then the women gathered around together and the men gathered around together and they ate the wassa and meat. It was so awesome!!!

 (Mom, I know you probably hate me for this, but I wanted everyone to see who was coming!) A team of 6-7 people from my home church is coming to Ethiopia towards the latter part of February. We will be doing many things with them to show them around and give them a taste of Ethiopia. One of the most exciting things we’ll be doing is visiting Masincho once again and throwing an even bigger feast! We will purchase a larger cow this time and are hoping to be able to have a Bible study with 100-200 people. The team is bringing many clothes and shoes to give away, and we are hoping to bless many people through this outreach. It will be my parents’ first overseas mission trip and we’re so excited to be a part of it. We are thrilled to have the team come, and from emailing back and forth with each of them, I think they are a little excited as well!!!

This is a picture of a little girl named Lantu and her dad. Lantu is 4 years old now and she is much smaller than Adonijah, who just turned one year old! They live in the country side and are unable to afford any medical help. However, she is wearing glasses now because the Lord has allowed us to be able to help her have a much-needed cataract removal surgery. She had cataracts in both of her eyes. She still has many, many problems physically and mentally, but we know the Lord will work those out for her or has some purpose for her dealing with them. We just wanted to mention her so that you could pray for her and her family. Her dad is a very sweet man, and he’s only trying to help his little girl live a normal life as much as possible.

As crazy as it may seem, Adonijah is now one year old! We are so very proud of our young man!! We celebrated with cake and friends. Although he had no idea what was going on, I’m sure he at least enjoyed the cake! He still wears his birthday hat too!!!

We still have yet to see any sign of Binyam. We have seen Abush, unfortunately, it was back on the streets begging. This saddens our hearts, but we know the Lord is sovereign. We know that the Word which penetrated their hearts to begin with has not turned back void. We know that the Lord is continuing to convict them and trying to draw them to Himself. It’s up to them to follow Him or not. We know that God is faithful to finish a work He has started, but it’s up to us to choose to follow Him with our hearts or not. Unfortunately, these boys so far have chosen other paths. Please keep them in your prayers. Although our hearts are saddened, we are not discouraged to the point of giving up, and we still love these boys. It is frustrating to see time and effort seem to go to waste, but we have to remember that it was the Lord’s time and the Lord’s effort that we were using…it has nothing to do with our own time and effort. Thank you so much for your prayers for us through this time. We have been encouraged by them.

Praises and Prayer Requests:

·          Praise God for allowing us to purchase plane tickets home and for one of our supporting churches being able to sponsor half of the cost

·          Praise the Lord for Yerus’ healing and that she’s doing much better now

·          Praise the Lord for the opportunity to have a team from America come for the first time

·          Praise God for allowing us to be a part in Lantu’s eye surgery

·          Praise Him for providing for us to feed almost 100 people in Masincho with Argaw’s little cow

·          Pray for the team coming in February…traveling mercies, finances, a blessed experience, etc.

·          Pray for the opportunities we have for outreach with the team, especially in Masincho

·          Pray for Lantu and her family as they struggle with everyday life in a poor village

·          Pray for continued provision for the rest of our time here and the rest of our plane ticket costs

May God bless you all. We love you dearly and are hoping to see many of you soon!!!

In Christ Alone,

Argaw, Rachel, Adonijah and Elias Ayele

P.S. In case you didn’t know, we found out that we are blessed with having another boy!!! His name will be Elias Roma Ayele.

Hey, everyone! I'm sorry I never got this newsletter on until just now. Also, I'm very sorry for forgetting to post the other one or two from the months before. Please forgive me. If you have any questions as to what in the world is going on, just let me know. I'll be very happy to answer them! Also, I just wanted everyone to know we found out we're blessed with another boy! We're very excited about this!

God bless you all!

The Ayeles

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas just as we did here in Ethiopia. No, there was no snow, but we did celebrate the birth of our Beautiful Savior with food, friends, and fun! We were very blessed this Christmas! We also trust that you have had or are having right now a very blessed New Year as well.

This is my 8 year old little friend, Yerus, who I have asked you all to pray for. Just to remind you, she has full-blown AIDS and is very sick right now with a simple bacterial infection, which for her could be very life-threatening. Please continue to pray for her. She is a very dear friend to us, whom we love immensely! Last year she would come to our house often and we would play a game or two (or three) of Sequence. She’s very intelligent and such a delight.

Our last two boys have left our house in search for independence and a chance to prove to themselves and to the world that they are truly changed men. Neither Abush nor Binyam have been to the Bible studies in the past few weeks. We also have a lot of evidence that makes us believe that Binyam has stolen our bike. Please be praying for them. It has not been even 6 months since they were on the streets doing drugs and begging for food. Pray that the Spirit would lead them and that they would have wisdom and strength to follow Him instead of their fleshly desires.

So, maybe you’ll think this is pretty nerdy of us to put a picture of the orphanage license on our newsletter, especially when you can’t even see it really! Well, maybe it is! However, we are so happy and so proud of our Lord for doing this amazing work for us that we couldn’t help but boast in Him for finally working it out for us to have this license. Again, we will hopefully be finding out the costs of all the building aspects of the orphanage and probably how much we would need yearly to sustain it, and we will let you all know when we return to the States in March. Praise the Lord for promising to finish the work He’s started!

Praises and Prayer Requests:

• Praise God for the orphanage license we’ve been waiting for over a year now!
• Praise the Lord for his faithfulness in speaking truth to the boys, whether they are changed or not
• Praise Him for providing for every financial need we have
• Pray for Yerus and Almas, her mother, for peace, comfort, and healing according to God’s will
• Pray for Abush and Binyam and their journeys of life they are on right now
• Pray for the Lord to provide tickets for us to return in March to the States

Thank you so very much for your prayers and support. We are so blessed with friends and family like you!

Argaw, Rachel, Adonijah and Baby Ayele

September 2007

  Ethiopia News

“And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”

(Joel 2:32).

Hello, our wonderful family and friends. We miss you all very much. We hope this newsletter finds you all well. We had quite a busy month in September.

We hiked up a nearby mountain with the boys one Saturday afternoon. It was tough work for us Americans (and even for Argaw, who is very Americanized!). But, for the boys, it was no problem. They got to the top without a drip of sweat on their brow. Ok, so maybe they sweat a little, but it was much more difficult for us than it was for them. It was really fun, though. Even Carissa, at thirty-two weeks pregnant, made it all the way to the top.

In Ethiopia, it is a start of a new year. However, it’s not just any new year, it’s the new Millennium! Ethiopia goes by the Orthodox calendar, and it is just now the year 2000. So, we had a little celebration at our house with the boys and with Abebech, our housekeeper, and her family. I (Rachel) made some national food for the first time, and it was a hit! Everyone enjoyed it. We took them in the house and they watched a movie and loved it. After putting on a skit for us, the boys made a campfire, and they sang and danced around it like in the movies. It was a blast! All in all, we had a great time with them, and I think they would say the same about their time with us.

Adonijah is growing so fast. He’s now got four teeth. He’s growing into a big boy. In fact, he’s such a big boy that the Lord evidently thought he would be an awesome Big Brother! Yep, you guessed it…I’m pregnant, once again! We are very excited about the upcoming baby. If my calculations are correct, I will have my baby in mid-May. Argaw and I have talked and prayed about it, and we both feel it would be best if we have this baby here in Ethiopia this time around. This way, we can keep up our ministry to the boys, and we won’t be gone so long again.

Please Pray for the Following:

• Carissa’s delivery-health for her and the baby, finances to come through for both of our families to stay in Addis Ababa for at least a week, and for the adjustment from 2 kids to 3 will be smooth
• Some of our boys have left the group. They have chosen their old lifestyles and have gone back to the streets. Please pray that they will get convicted and that the Lord will draw them to Himself.
• Some of our boys are also having troubles with chewing chat, a leaf grown in Ethiopia that makes you high. They have asked for prayer that they would not be tempted to do this anymore. Please pray with us for them to overcome this sin through the power of Christ’s blood
• A healthy pregnancy for Rachel, and that morning sickness would not hinder her ability to be a mommy to Adonijah
• We are hoping to come home for Christmas, but are unsure of when the best time would be. Pray that the Lord’s will would take place and that if He wants us to be home during that time, He would provide and give us the dates that would be perfect for this trip.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support. We could not do this without you. We love you all very much! God bless you!

Argaw, Rachel, Adonijah, and Baby Ayele

P.O. Box 1662

Awassa, Ethiopia

Home:  011 251 46 220 3953

Cell:  011 251 91 107 8575

argawrachel@yahoo.com