Ethiopia Mission 2023 Testimony: Kaylee Hibbard

Hello! My name is Kaylee Hibbard. This is my senior year at Louisiana Tech, and my fourth year at The Wesley. This past summer, I was able to go with a team of students and staff on a mission trip to Ethiopia. We spent four weeks in the country, so it is incredibly challenging to try and summarize that entire month, but I want to share a small portion of how amazing this trip was with you today. 

What I realized very shortly after agreeing to go on this trip is how little I actually knew about what I had just signed up for. The only time I had ever left the country was when I was 9 years old, and it was just to Mexico, which is far removed from a 19 hour plane ride to Africa. If you had asked me to point out Ethiopia on a map before last year, I would have been out of luck. And on top of that, this was the first mission trip I’d ever been on. In any other scenario, all of the unknowns would have inevitably overwhelmed me. Despite knowing next to nothing about what this trip would be like, though, all I can remember feeling while agreeing to this undertaking was joy. And that joy remained throughout the entire preparatory portion of the trip, while we were there, and all the way up until we landed back in the States. Even today, months and months after the trip, all I can do when I think back on it is smile. 

When we first got back to our day-to-day lives, everyone around me wanted to know all about the trip. I was so thrilled to be able to share this with other people, but as soon as they asked, I had no idea how to explain the experience. How do you put into words the most incredible generosity, love, and provision offered to you by the locals there? How do you encapsulate all of the ways God took care of you so clearly for a month for someone who’s never experienced it? I found myself retelling stories of the Ethiopian people I met, because those encounters are what left impressions on me. 

The first week in Ethiopia, we worked in a city called Burayu at a Pastoral Training Center there, where future pastors went to train and learn how to become a pastor. This center also has a local church attached to it, and the courtyard was a popular play spot for the local kids. We had a VBS-like program one weekend, and we met so many awesome kids, parents, and teachers there. It was very clear early on that these were not people who lived lavishly. Many of the kids had no shoes and they wore the same clothes everyday. One of the crafts we did was making bracelets, which is something that our translator, Lalisa, told me is super uncommon there, so the kids were so excited to be able to make their own and take them home. There was a small group of girls who stuck out to me because of how joyful they were, in the way that is so unique to kids. They were teaching one of our group members the native language, braiding my hair, dancing, and one of them even tried to give me the bracelet she had made for herself. This seems like a silly thing to get emotional over, but this was one of the children who had no shoes, no change of clothes, nothing–and she was handing me a bracelet she was so happy to have made and that she had spent so much time on. There is something so powerful and unexplainable about meeting children that, despite their lack of fiscal wealth, are happier than anyone I have ever met when you come from a place that takes stuff like that for granted all too often. 

During the third week, our team went to a Sudanese refugee camp and had the chance to talk to kids and adults who have lived in this camp most of their lives. One woman in particular, Elizabeth, stuck out to me. She was an older woman, and she has lived at the camp for 19 years now. She told me heartbreaking stories of her old home in Sudan and how she had lost family in the destruction that accompanies war. Strangely enough, she smiled a few minutes after sharing all of that, and began to tell me how faithful God has been to her all of her life. Can you imagine having so much faith and trust in God that you’re able to smile after remembering the hardest moments of your life? This is a woman who has hardly left the walls of a refugee camp in 19 years, has lost so much, and yet she is filled with the joy and peace that only God provides. 

I still think about Elizabeth and the girl from Burayu often, and I am so thankful that I met them. Whether it was a child or an elderly woman or any of the others we met, God is present in the people of Ethiopia. We went to Ethiopia to serve in any ways we could– doing projects, VBS, outreach programs– and yet, I left feeling like I was the one being served for the past month. God taught me more about love, joy, and gratitude in 28 days than I have ever learned in my 22 years. I’m grateful for the people back here like you in the States who donated and prayed and made this mission a possibility for me. Our team is going back this year, and I cannot wait to go back and see what God has in store for this summer.

Kaylee is an incredible servant of Christ. We are blessed here at Wesley by her joy, love, dedication, and friendship which she pours out in full measure to anyone she meets. Now freshly graduated, she majored in Kinesiology at LA Tech and is a second-year member of our Discipleship Team. We’re so thankful for her leadership!