Dear Elevate Family:
Grace and peace to you all in Our King and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am overjoyed to share with you the blessings of God’s Grace on our children and mothers/aunties in Addis Ababa. We are closing the school year with blessings upon blessings as our God and Father has, in His Will and Pleasure, ordained victory over this Ministry…Hallelujah! I would like to update you about two areas pertinent to our Ministry right now. The first relates to a project that I have been passionate about pursuing ever since becoming Director of the Ministry. For those of you Elevate Family Members that have supported and followed this Ministry for long enough, you know what an incredible and miraculous testimony the Bring Love In/Elevate Orphan Story has been. I believe it is a testimony that needs to be shared and I have been pursuing someone to do a film documentary on Elevate for the last 3 years. The Lord has provided, in His Perfect Timing, Joshua Carroll. Joshua is an accomplished producer and director and recent graduate of Liberty University (that’s right…he’s accomplished already!!). He is the creator and producer of BrickFilms focused on Biblical Stories (Brick Films Biblical Stories). (https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Part-One-Joshua-Carroll/dp/B08TSL1LZY) Josh comes from a missionary family in Uganda we have known for many years and my family has had the pleasure and honor of knowing The Carrolls as warriors for His Kingdom. They are an amazing family and Jenn and David Carroll, Joshua’s parents, are faithful servants of The Most High overseas for many years. Joshua will be writing an update to The Elevate Family to expand on the concepts and ideas behind this wonderful project that I believe will be a great encouragement and tool for awareness of what The Lord can do through a few who trust and obey….that is you Elevate Family!! We now have a thriving ministry that cares for many widows and orphans in a unique way that is being blessed with vibrant maturing believers in Jesus Christ and successful and productive citizens in Ethiopia. We are experiencing the vast majority of our children gaining entrance into University and several have graduated with degrees, as you know, in advance subjects like engineering. This fact, itself, is a miracle! All Glory be to God! Lastly, on this point, I want you to know that a generous donor has sponsored the entire cost of the film project, a 2 year project that will take Josh to Texas (to see Levi and Jessie), Montana, and, of course, Ethiopia multiple times over the course of production. Thank you JESUS! Now, what’s the update on the children? We have several great updates: (see pics) * We have adopted 6 new young children this year, ages 6-10 . We had a very active season of social work and counseling for some of these children. Five of these children are in weekly counseling and are making great progress. * Twenty of our ‘mothers and aunties’ are receiving training twice a month (and have been for the last year). These trianings are on child protection and counseling for smaller children and teenagers. We have seen tremendous growth in the strengthening of relationships between the siblings , mothers, aunties, and especially the newley adopted within our Forever Families. * We hosted another Mothers and Aunties retreat at a “Weyba Tis”, an Ethiopian traditional bath, to stregthen relationships and help prevent burnout. We have been doing these types of investments into the mothers and aunties regularly and believe it is beneficial. * We graduated 9 children from high school. * Journey Church is preparing for a summer missions trip to Addis in July ….please pray!! Overall, Elevate is going through a season of blessing within the Ministry. The main challenge we have is that we have seen a large decrease in giving this year. In order to meet the needs of the Elevate Families, at the level we always have, we ask that you increase your support of this Ministry. God is blessing it. He will always Provide for Us. But, if you are able, if The LORD has blessed you with the ability to give, I would argue that this Ministry has demonstrated God’s anointing in a way that is unmistakable. Consider increasing your gifts to make-up for those who have decreased their giving. Please remember that we have a family that sponsors all administrative expenses so that all of your giving goes directly to Ethiopia. How much more efficient can you be than that?
In His Grip, Reuben
