YWAM Ethiopia  Mercy Development

Abdissa Tadessa YWAM Children's Home Director

Youth With A Mission has a vibrant ministry in the heart of one of the poorest areas of the capitol city of Addis Ababa. YWAM Mercy Development was established in 2004 as a collaboration of Bernd and Merry Frost, missionaries from Hurlock Base in Germany and the current Ethiopian Director, Abdissa Tadessa.  Dr. Frost was recently honored to receive a Doctor of Divinity from Latin University. 

The ministry began as an outreach to street children.  The children’s compound is home for 25 children, 18 of whom formerly lived on the streets and the others taken from desperate living situations. These children are provided with food, housing, education, health care and Christian character training and have caring staff to love and guide them. Three evenings a week, YWAM staffers and some of the older children offer recreation, personal encouragement and friendship evangelism to some of the 100,000 children living on the streets of Addis Ababa. Abdissa, the YWAM Children’s Director, has  a huge heart for the plight of the vulnerable street children who live out of garbage cans, face unspeakable dangers and try to survive without the care and guidance of any adult. 

The present children’s compound is bursting at the seams, so a generous donor has provided the funds to secure an additional facility. Now the girls live in one compound with houseparents Samy and Ruth and the boys are in the original home with Abdissa. As the young adults finish schooling, vocational training or a college education is provided to ensure they are well established spiritually, emotionally and physically to become self-sustaining responsible adults. With the additional space that the new facility provides, more street children will be offered a home full of Christ’s healing, forgiveness and love.

	New Girls' Compound

To read more about what God is doing through YWAM Mercy Development, click on the following links to their newsletters:

YWAM Mercy Development July 2010 Newsletter

YWAM Mercy Development March 2010 Newsletter

YWAM Mercy Development January 2010 Newsletter

Samy and Ruth's January 2010 Newsletter