Ethiopia – Day 4 «

Ethiopia – Day 4

Graduations are boring.

Be honest. My graduations were boring. Your graduations were boring. They are all boring – except the one I attended today.

Over 600 people gathered in a church in Addis Ababa today to celebrate the first graduating class in Ethiopia from Compassion’s Leadership Development Program. This program, known as LDP within Compassion, provides exceptional young adults with the opportunity to attend college after graduatiing from High School. The undergraduate degree is only one part of LDP. Each student is partnered with a church mentor near their school and they participate in Servant Leadership Training through the Compassion country office. Each student enters LDP with high expectations and the hopes of their families and communities on their soldiers. Compassion beleives that these students will not only end the cycle of poverty in their own family but they will also be the leaders that transform their communities, churches, and nations. The LDP program is funded by one on one sponsors, similar to Compassion’s child sponsorship program, with the monthly commitment of $300. The LDP students attend different colleges around the country (there are 22 schools represented right now in Ethiopia’s LDP program) and all follow the same Compassion Servant Leadership curriculum and come together often for group training. So, the LDP graduation is in addition to the college graduations that all of today’s students have already been through. But, today’s graduation represented the hope that Compassion brought to these students, most of them beginning in the Compassion program more than 10 years ago.

For 4 hours this morning we celebrated the futures of 16 Ethiopian LDP students. We celebrated the hope they represent. We celebrated the people across the world who sponsored them. We celebrated that all of this is done for the glory of God. After the graduation we ate foods that I did not recognize and talked with these young adults who are already working in Ethiopia as nurses, teachers, social workers, web designers, and managers.

Here are some pics from the graduation:

The children’s choir from one of the local Compassion projects started the graduation with music. What’s better than beautiful children singing songs in a language where the only word I recogize is ‘Jesus’? We had an interpreter that was transmitting to earphones but when the kids started singing I took the earphones and just enjoyed the music.

There were many speakers during the day but I need to introduce you to Epherem Gensi, the East Africa Area Director for Compassion. Epherem is an amazing man with a background and doctorate in Economics but is a devoted advocate for children. Epherem oversees Compassion’s work in Uganda (his home country), Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda. This is one passionate and funny man!

Esubalew, one of the graduates, spoke and thanked Compassion, the churches, the LDP sponsors, and all those who have supported them over the previous 3 years. He then turned to his fellow graduates, made them stand, and then challenged them by making them promise to remember that…’to whom much has been given, much is expected.’

The graduates then received their certificates of completion. Now, when we do this in America we do it in a methodical way with little or no emotion – not in Ethiopia. Once it was time for the graduates to receive their certificates the music was turned on and the party started. When Ethiopians clap they don’t just randomly put their hands together. Instead there is a rythmic clapping that feels like we are about start some kind of Queen song. So, for each student the crowd of 600 clapped, cheered, and rocked to some Ethiopian graduation music. (note: Wess and Francisco did not pack those red robes – the Ethiopian staff decked them out before the graduation)

Wess spoke and I will devote an entire post later in the weekend to our time with him. Wess told the gradautes over and over how proude he was of them. He told them they should be proud of their parents who overcame the Great Famine of the mid 80’s to raise them. He told them they are the pioneers of the Compassion program and the future of their family. He told them the story of Queen Esther, a woman born into poverty, but saved by her ’sponsor’, Uncle Mordechai. He then finished by telling them through his own tears, ‘In this world you were born into poverty, but poverty was not born in you. Today, for your family, the cycle of poverty ends.’

The graduation ended with Wess and other Compassion executives washing the feet of the LDP graduates. The focus of the program is Servant Leadership and this is modeled from the top down at Compassion.

We moved to the courtyard where we had the previously mentioned unknown plate of food and congratulated the graduates. The kids from the children’s choir joined us and I attempted to take a picture of myself with them.