When Belay Gebru’s mother was murdered while he was still a child, he found himself living on the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and trying to care for his two brothers.
He was vulnerable in every way. He was physically vulnerable to hunger and abuse, without the protection and care of a family. And he was emotionally and spiritually vulnerable to fear, anger and resentment. Where was God in the face of such evil and suffering?
God intervened through a small church and orphanage that took in Gebru and his brothers. “They gave us food, shelter, medical care and education,” Gebru shares. “It was then [I] came to know Christ … God changed my misery … and that church helped me see my adversity in [a] different lens.”
Gebru is now founder and director of Hope for the Fatherless, a ministry that has cared for hundreds of vulnerable children and helped call Ethiopian churches to step into the counter-cultural work of adoption. “[Through] the life that I walked, in the orphanage, being an orphan and having less in life, God prepared me to rescue more children. Like he rescued me.”
But the means that God used to work redemption in Gebru’s story of grief and loss? A small church with limited resources that chose to simply show up. Gebru says that this church would have “missed the opportunity to participate in what God was writing in my life” if it had not stepped toward him and his brothers in their greatest time of distress.
“What matters most,” he says, “is to do small things with a big heart. This is pure religion for me.”
The Pure Religion Project, CAFO’s church ministry initiative, aims to inspire and equip God’s people to live out the “pure religion” described in the book of James and invited throughout Scripture through resources, supportive community and ongoing connection and coaching.
