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So far, we have asked three different doctors from America regarding Lantu receiving a heart surgery. We sent each of them her echocardiogram. Each one came back with the response that because she has pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in your lungs), Lantu is inoperable. One of the doctors diagnosed Lantu with having Eisenmenger’s Syndrome. Here is what I found about this syndrome from http://www.mayoclinic.org:

“Eisenmenger syndrome is a complication of having a heart defect. It is most commonly caused by a large hole in your heart between the two lower heart chambers (ventricles), called a ventricular septal defect (VSD). This heart condition is present at birth (congenital heart disease).
“This hole in your heart causes blood to flow or circulate abnormally in your heart. Oxygen-carrying blood (red blood) from the left ventricle mixes with oxygen-poor blood (blue blood) from the right ventricle. This mixed blood then returns to your lungs instead of going to the rest of your body, causing high blood pressure in your lungs. High blood pressure in your lungs (pulmonary hypertension), when significant, can cause serious medical conditions.”
We don’t know exactly what this means for Lantu, other than we are to keep praying. We are not giving up yet. Ellen Roemke, our friend who volunteered from April until July, is trying to find more opinions regarding Lantu’s case. Until then, we know that Lantu’s heart/lungs cannot handle a lot of physical activity. So, we are trying to refrain her from running around with the other kids and encouraging her to walk instead, which is really good for her.
It has been amazing to see her at the children’s home with all the other kids. Most, if not all of the other kids have gotten sick with a very bad cold within these past few months; however, by the Lord’s grace, Lantu has stayed away from that. She only recently developed a slight cough, but we’re hoping it doesn’t amount to anymore than that.

Please pray for Lantu! We love her very much and are saddened that her prognosis by a few doctors doesn’t look very promising. But, we do have great connection with the best Doctor in all the world! The Great Physician knows Lantu more than any person on this earth does. We just pray that peace will be what’s upon our hearts and minds and not worry. We pray that Lantu will stay comfortable and not have to suffer any pain with her body being the way it is. We pray that if the Lord wants to heal her earthly body, that He would do it! And, if He chooses not to heal her, we pray for peace and comfort. We also pray for wisdom as to how to deal with caring for Lantu and explaining to the staff how to do this as well. Thank you for your prayers!!! On behalf of Lantu, I also thank you!

Precious Little Binyam

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Binyam Birhanu and his mother, Marishet, came to live at Ebenezer Grace Children’s Home 15 days ago. When we first weighed Binyam, he was 3.3 lbs. He was already 25 days old when he came. Marishet is only 18 years old and we don’t believe she understood how often she was supposed to be feeding her newborn baby boy. She ended up getting diagnosed with typhoid and typhus shortly after arriving so we told her to stop nursing her son and only bottle feed him so that the strong medication she was on would not pass through to him and compromise his health any further. Soon after she stopped nursing him, he started having diarrhea, which we were very concerned about. However, after weighing him again, we were very delighted to find that he had actually gained a whole 2.2 lbs. which put him at 5.5 lbs. Although he gained the weight and we thought he would be just fine, yesterday morning at 8:30 we received a call from Wo’ma, the children’s home supervisor. He informed us that just an hour or so before, he had taken Binyam to one of the hospital’s emergency rooms because he looked severely sick. The hospital he took him to referred him to another hospital as they didn’t think they could do anything for him. While waiting to get the referral paperwork to send him to the other hospital, Binyam went to be with Jesus. This was a total shock to us, as we were certain he was getting better. But, we have peace knowing that he is at complete peace right now being in his Creator’s arms and I can only imagine little Binyam as a plump baby and not such a skinny, sickly little guy anymore.

Binyam after bath time

We decided not to have a big memorial service for him, as we didn’t know how the other children would handle it. Argaw had Wo’ma make a small casket for Binyam. They put him in there and then had Marishet say goodbye to him. After she was able to mourn for her child, they sealed the casket and the municipality officials came and got his body and had him buried. Meanwhile, Ellen and I were thinking of ways we could minister to Marishet. Argaw suggested that we bring her over to our house and feed her and try and comfort her. We thought that was a great idea except for the fact that we don’t speak Amharic or know the culture of whether it would be ok to cry in her presence or not. So, before she arrived at our house, we prayed that God would give us wisdom and that He would stop our tears if we were not supposed to cry. Well, before Marishet came, a few of our friends from a Women’s Bible Study we attend (2 Ethiopians and 1 American) came by to see how we were doing. It was amazing because God had provided these wonderful women to minister to us and to Marishet. The Ethiopian women were like Ellen’s and my Aarons! And, while they were ministering to Marishet in the perfect way only another Christian Ethiopian could do, our American friend was able to minister to Ellen and I in only the way another Christian American could do. The Ethiopian women prayed for Marishet and talked to her about the Lord, which was something we could have never done without a supernatural intervention. They also informed us that our tears over Binyam would not be helpful in Marishet’s healing process but would prolong it. God gave Ellen and I the strength to stop crying…at least for a little while anyways. We were so thankful for our wonderful friends who followed their hearts to come and minister to us. God is such an amazing Provider for what we need at the EXACT time we need it! He is also the most awesome Comforter to His children!

I thought my children had big eyes!!!

We will never forget our precious little Binyam with those big, brown eyes!

 

A little bit about Ellen…

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If you have been following our newsletters, you will know that we have been blessed with a volunteer since early April and are hoping to keep her until the end of September. I just wanted to write a bit about her because I want the world to know how much the Lord loves me and how He shows me by sending someone as special as her to be with me!

Ellen putting on weed cloth to the garden boxes.

Her name is Ellen Roemke. I won’t tell you her age because you won’t believe me anyways. Not only is she beautiful and looks HALF her age, but her energy and willingness to serve and do whatever needs to be done for me or the orphanage is astounding! It has been such a blessing to have her around. I (Rachel) am pregnant for our fifth child. Not many of you can understand what that might even look or feel like, but it’s pretty tough when all of your energy is taken away by the exhaustion of pregnancy and you have a brood of 4 other little ones running (or scooting) around the house. I’ve had to stay in bed all day long two or three times now from morning sickness or sinus infections, and I’ve been able to do that and get back up to par only because Ellen is here. Argaw helps me and is at my every beckon call, but running an orphanage has its own daily tasks that he must take care of. On top of helping me out with my kids, Ellen has planted many of the garden boxes that our last volunteer, David Eck, built; she is teaching English to a number of local children who want a better grasp of conversational English; and she also teaches the musical instrument, recorder, to the oldest three kids at Ebenezer Grace. How does she do all that she does? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m super blessed and so thankful that God had her come at the exact time that He did.

 

Buy Some Cool T-shirts and Support Ebenezer Grace!

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http://www.tragichopeapparel.com/store.html

If you’re looking at a way you can support this ministry, please check out this website! The second row is of shirts (as of right now) is in a line called the “Love Never Fails Project”. If you purchase one of these t-shirts, all of the proceeds go to Ebenezer Grace Children’s Home! Right now they are all guys’ shirts, but girls’ shirts will be coming soon. Please check them out!

Faithfulness of the Lord

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Well, if you read the newsletter, specifically the prayer requests, I told you to look on this blog to see an update of the Lord’s faithfulness regarding giving us favor from the government. So, here it is!

Orphanages in this country do not have a very good reputation with the government. Unfortunately, because there are so many corrupt orphanages running nowadays who only take in children in order to adopt them internationally and make money off of the kids, the government looks at most orphanages in the same, negative way. A good friend of ours who works with the government informed us of these preconceived ideas about orphanages. He encouraged us to have a presentation for some of the government officials in charge of allowing orphanages to run and shutting orphanages down so that they could see all that we have done to help the community and to assure them that our motive in helping children in this way was not to make money off of them by adopting them out internationally. This man also put the entire thing together by making banners, invitations, a budget, a program layout, etc. in order for us to present this ministry to these officials. The only thing we had to do was provide money for the lunch for the attendees and figure out what we were going to tell them. Argaw and I put together a slideshow that Argaw led them through in the native language, Amharic, and everyone was brought to tears! The testimonies of Lantu and Yirgalem just crushed these people! At the end, there was a discussion period where they would tell us good/bad comments regarding what we were doing. Although I couldn’t understand most of what they were saying, Argaw told me afterwards that not one person had a bad comment to make about us! In fact, he said that many of the people who shared their comments about our organization said that our Children’s Home should be an example for all other orphanages! They also apologized for not helping us more in the past, and promised that whatever we needed help with in the future, they would be glad to help with. We were so pleased with how things turned out and the fact that the Lord was glorified that day through Ebenezer! We couldn’t have asked for a better turn-out. Also, the money, which turned out to be quite a chunk of cash for a single event, was provided in the nick of time! God is so good and so faithful! We are just in awe of how He has taken care of this ministry up to this point and He continues to remind us that He will never leave us nor forsake us! Praise the Lord!!!