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Note #8628 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05055
January 31, 2005

John and Gwenyth Haspels blaze mission trails in Ethiopia

by Beverly Bartlett

LOUISVILLE - Thirty years ago, when John and Gwenyth Haspels were a young
couple in the Los Angeles area waiting for their first mission assignment,
there were a series of delays and a yawning uncertainty about whether it
would work out as they had planned.

Gwenyth Haspels eventually was at peace with the idea that she might not be
going to Africa. She told God that if He did not want her to go, she would be
willing to stay in the United States.

"That was interesting, because most people probably think of it the other
way," she says. "'We're willing to go if you want us to.' For us, it was, 'We
are willing to stay if you want us to.'"

The difference may lie partially in their background - each was the child of
mission workers. They were raised mostly in Africa before returning to the
United States for their post-secondary education.

While it would seem to be the natural background for mission work, it was
still far from an inevitable decision. "Most missionary kids don't end up
going into the field," John Haspels says. "Some wouldn't even think about it.
But through the latter years of high school and all through college and
seminary, I sensed that I would end up in mission work."

Now John and Gwenyth Haspels are doing some of the most challenging work in
worldwide ministries, bringing the story of Christ to cultures that have
never before heard the gospel. Being on the "frontier" of Christian missions
means conveying the message of Christ to people who do not have even the
faintest knowledge of the gospel story. In some cases, such as in their most
recent project, it means they must literally build a road to the community
they wish to reach.

Once there, they must study the culture of the people and look for
commonalities that they can use as analogies and metaphors.

"We try to look for things in their own culture that are already bridges for
sharing the gospel," John Haspels says. "So the gospel isn't something
strange, but something they can latch onto."

 For example, they recently started working with the Baale, who believe in
blood sacrifices. Using that belief as a starting point, John and Gwenyth
Haspels are able to talk to the Baale about the sacrifice of the Lamb of God.
Often, John Haspels says, this involves learning the people's own creation
story, and then telling them the Biblical account.

Frontier mission work is difficult in more than one way. Mission workers in
many parts of the world today can keep in touch with family and friends in
the United States via e-mail and cell phones. But for most of the year John
and Gwenyth Haspels live with only a two-way radio to use to communicate with
the outside world. They have to travel five hours to get to a phone and
obviously don't have e-mail. It's a two-day drive to the next city of enough
size that they can get supplies for the clinic and school that they run.

"It's really isolated," Gwenyth says, "and there are no other foreigners
except for the German girl who works with us." John and Gwenyth Haspels,
however, work in close partnership with the Ethiopian Evangelical Church
Mekane Yesus.

For the past eight years John and Gwenyth Haspels have been working with the
Suri people of Ethiopia. There are three main "subtribes" or clans of the
Suri: the Chai, Tirma and Baale. At first John and Gwenyth Haspels worked
with the Chai and Tirma, but in the last two years they have opened a road
over a mountain into the Baale area.

This road is not just a way for John and Gwenyth Haspels to reach remote
villages. It also offers the Baale greater contact with the outside world and
improved economic opportunities.

John and Gwenyth Haspels have signed a three-year agreement with the
government of Ethiopia, promising to build a school and clinic for the Baale.
They are also digging wells. "All of this will be the context in which
evangelism and church planting will take place," John Haspels says. Meanwhile
they continue to live with the Chai and Tirma, nurturing a young church in a
culture that did not know of Christianity until eight yeas ago.

John and Gwenyth Haspels do their work, knowing that harder days may be ahead
of them. They are watching with a wary eye the ticking time bomb of AIDS, an
epidemic that is sweeping across the continent and has already attacked one
member of their village. But Gwenyth, a registered nurse, knows they are
making only slow progres. Judging by the number of syphilis patients she
treats, many in the village are still participating in risky behavior.

Sometimes she fears that only the effects of the epidemic will change
behavior. "Not that we'll stop teaching," she said. "We'll do it in the
clinic and we'll do it in the church."

(Beverly Bartlett is a freelance writer living in Louisville, Ky.)

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