What we feel God has been saying to us

Our Team

Our team meets each Sunday evening to process and pray. We have been doing this since 2010. At one of our last meetings God was reminding us of all the sweet promises and words he has given us along the way. We spent a time of reflection and prayer over this process and listened and remembered and thanked God.

What we feel God has said in our process of preparing for missions:

For our whole group-

- God is the most glorified when we are the most satisfied in Him.

- God's glory is most reflected in us when we are most delighted in Him.

- This is His work not ours/ This is His story and not ours.

- We leave home and family and stuff for His namesake! Matt 19:29

- God desires His children to praise and bring glory to Him throughout all the nations. He has called us to this.

- Missions exists because worship does not and because praise does not.

- We are to be learners and serve with open hands doing whatever God desires. Even if it looks very different than what we initially perceived. 

- We are to go as a team- Yates and Simpsons 

- At this time we are clearly called to go to Ethiopia

- People have been praying for us and for this work long ago. God started His work in Ethiopia a long time ago and we are just a part of it (People like our friend Saba have been praying for God to be glorified in Ethiopia)

- Our family, including our kids, will be part of our ministry

- Lasting change comes from community transformation. Not creating more dependency

- God made it very clear that He would make it clear where He wants us. We asked for this from the beginning and he has been so faithful. 

- We are safer in the hands of God than anywhere else. We are not to fear things that can kill our bodies, but rather those things that can kill our soul. (Matt 10:28)

- We are at a stage where God will either open or close the door through our application process. If He wants us there then He will need to also confirm it to those at Soddo Hospital and if that happens it will be so clear to us that is where we are supposed to be.  If not- we know God has good plans for us elsewhere. 

To Michelle and Adam- 

- God called Michelle to discipleship. Intimate relationship with a few instead of large group. 

- "God is preparing a place for you to which you are already connected by your church body or community."

- Going to fill a need in a community that they identify versus going with all the answers. Serving with Humility.

To Kavi and Taylor-

-Taylor and Kavi were brought together in large part for this purpose- for God's heart for the nations.

- however in the end- it doesn't matter what we are doing in life but that we are walking with Him, hearing His voice and leading and being obedient to His call.

- I (Kavi) am to not spend all my time doing hospital medicine alone but we are also to be involved at the community level.  This is so important for good Primary Care, Discipleship, Community Medicine, community and individual transformation. 

- What we do we want to be multiplicative and sustained locally.

- Empowering local believers to have tools to not only serve their own community, but give them a way to bring the gospel to to un-reached peoples.

A Wonderful Trip

Yes, yes, yes, we are alive and well. After a trip like we took, one wants to be able to tell a good story about the trip and about all the wonderful things we are excited about, but it takes a while to process it all into something you can put down in words. So thank you for your patience.

We indeed had a wonderful trip, with no travel delays, no sickness, no undo hardships. We also traveled well as a group. God united our two families to encourage each other, share each other's burdens, and pray together.

This trip certainly had a unique weight to it, as we are going to see if this is the place where God would have us live for the next season of life. On that front, we were genuinely encouraged that this may be the place for us. We met so many great people with hearts that are seeking to love the people of Ethiopia. We are still processing through all of the trip, and what it means for our future, but for now, we are excited about Ethiopia.

And now, some stories:

Story the First:
 When we arrived in Ethiopia we were met by our friends from Ventura, Sharon and Chrissy who were in Ethiopia at the same time with a team supporting the Mossy Foot Project (www.mossyfoot.com). We drove from the airport to the SIM guest house and on the way so quite a large crowd of Ethiopians. They were all getting excited for the Ethiopia - Sudan soccer match. If Ethiopia could win by 2 points then they would qualify for the Africa Cup tournament.

Streets Crowded with People hoping to see the match

I thought it was pretty fun to be in a city during a big important sporting match. Outside the guest house you could hear the cheers at the stadium 2 kilometers away when Ethiopia scored the goal to take them into the lead. When they scored their final goal to bring them two points up and win their spot in the Africa Cup, the streets erupted with cheering. The people were so excited to win and were blowing horns and banging drums outside.

Excited crowds jumping on cars

When dinner time came, we loaded up to drive a short distance away to a restaurant Sharon enjoys. We made our way to the main drag and upon turning onto the street we found ourselves caught up in the victory celebration. Throngs of young men were walking through the streets celebrating their victory! Unfortunately the throng would rather ride than walk. We quickly had many passengers riding on our bumper. The driver quickly stopped the car and got out to tell them to get off! But when he stopped, the crowd crawled on top of the vehicle too. Any vehicle with a bumper had people hanging on. The people passing were hitting the car with their palms and with sticks. Now here we are, 8 farangi (foreigners) with 2 kids, in the back of a land rover in the middle of a soccer celebration of unruly young Ethiopians. Of course this caused some fear for us, as any celebration can quickly turn to a mob (I'm looking at you LA Lakers fans). Our quick thinking driver, pulled us over and went and got the help of a police man to escort us on foot away from the scene. Thank God that the celebrations stayed peaceful and we stayed safe.

Story the Second:

When we traveled south to Soddo, we had the amazing opportunity to go out with the Mossy Foot Project to see one of their important ministries: building houses for widows. Mossy Foot provides the money for the metal roof and the nails for the construction. The local church and community provides the wood poles and the mud that forms the walls. We were visiting the site with the Mossy Foot pastor, and the team from Michigan that raised the funds to pay for the house.

We arrived to the joyous singing of the community. They sang and danced and worshiped Jesus for providing. The widow could not stop hugging everyone that had come to help her build her house. All the time she was singing in her language what translated to "Praise to Jesus". We were so blessed and encouraged by the great work that the Mossy Foot Project is doing for the people of this area.

Thank you for your prayers while we were in Ethiopia. We were greatly encouraged by them and God was faithful to answer our prayers for our trip.

For more pictures you can look at this album.

Home Stretch

Thank you all for your prayers while we are here in Ethiopia. We left Soddo yesterday after 6 days there of meeting great people and praying over the town and the hospital. We are all very encouraged about how God could use us in that community. We still have lots to pray about but it has been a very fruitful trip.

We have two more days here in Addis with a couple meetings scheduled. We are staying open to God's leading regarding the ministries here as well as Soddo.

And now we are laying in bed at the SIM guest house listening to the nightclub down the street blaring "Hey Macarena". Hey Ethiopia, 2004 called to say that song was terrible even then.

This picture is the view from Soddo Christian Hospital on the last day. For more pictures click in the photo up on the right of the page. Taylor has been updating that album.

A beautiful place to call home?

We have now spent 3 nights in Addis Ababa and are getting ready for bed on our first night in Soddo. We have so many stories to tell bit for now I will say that we are safe and healthy and being welcomed by everyone we meet. We would very much appreciate your continued support in prayer as we visit Ethiopia during this trip.

Pray for:
Continued unity for our team with lots of love and grace for each other.
For rest in the form of good sleep at night for everyone, especially Asa and Elias.
True discernment for the specifics of what our ministry in Ethiopia will look like.
Sweet times of prayer together.

This picture shows the beauty of the countryside on display on the drive from Addis Ababa to Soddo.

Thank you

We travel to Ethiopia today.  Thank you for all your prayers and support as we travel and pray overseas.  We cannot thank you all enough.  An excerpt from a book we read as a group, Serving as Senders today, illustrates our feelings:

"And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Romans 10:13-15.
Paul acknowledges that there are others besides those who go who mush be involved in this worldwide evanglization endeavor: Those who are serving as senders.
Those who go and those who serve as senders merge their callings and talents and giftings to form the cross-cultural outreach team.  All are equally important.   All are vitally involved in the fulfillment of the Great Commission.  All are dynamically integrated and moving toward the same goal.  And all are assured success, for those in God's work are on the winning team!

We leave October 12 for our 'Vision Trip' to Ethiopia to explore a future move for our families.  Sign up to 'follow' our blog to see our updates during our trip!

Fear and Encouragement

September 12, 2012

The Lord is SO good and faithful!

As we prepare for our trip to Ethiopia this October I found parts of myself overcome with fear of the possibilities... sickness, pregnancy, travel arrangements.

I have spent sometime meditating on Mark 4:19-25.  Where the father of the demon possessed child professes to Christ, “I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!”  I have realized my need to openly profess my areas of unbelief and fear… and then wait for God to work in that particular area and increase my faith in amazing ways.

This week we (Adam, Taylor, Kavi and I) with some friends met with two refugees from Ethiopia for dinner, Saba and Teckle.  Saba is an amazing Chef and cooked for us.  She started a non-profit Taste of Hope (http://www.tasteofhopeworldwide.org/home) and cooks world class Ethiopian food for dinner parties and catering.  She and Teckle were so encouraging.  We really feel that after all these months of stepping out in faith that God is calling us to Ethiopia, He now instilled in us a passion for his people of Ethiopia and that can and delights to use us to answer the heart-felt prayers of Saba and Teckle for their homeland... for hope, for change, for Christ.  God is so beautiful and has revealed to us some of the way he unites people and uses each one of us to sometimes be a direct answer to other’s prayers. 

At the end of the night Teckle shared these scriptures with us: Psalms 3:3 and 37:3.

Psalms 3:3 But you Lord are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high!

            He is my protector even in the face of sickness, pregnancy and travels.

Psalms 37:3 Trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.  Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.  Commit your ways to the Lord and trust in him and he will do this.

           

God speaks that as we follow Him, we are safer there in His ways and in His leading than outside of it.  So why fear if we are walking with him?

God is good and encouraged all of us with a new passion for Ethiopia and the hope and release of fears to walk in HS leading.

Michelle

Simpson Family Update

Hello Friends and Family,

We love you guys! Some of you we see quite often and others may be farther away and we maybe out of touch. For all of you, we really wanted to update you on what God is doing in our lives and what this next season will hold.

For the past few years, we have been extremely busy. Kavi finished medical school in 2008 and then completed a three year family medicine residency program at Ventura County Medical Center, where she worked 80 hours/week. We had baby Elias our first month of residency and so Taylor started working part time and was the primary baby caregiver at home in addition to working as an architect and keeping our house up and running. Taylor's brother Thor and sister in law Vicki moved to Ventura with their family to also help care for Elias. So between Taylor, Vicki and Kavi's mom - Elias was able to have a wonderful first 3 years of his life in spite of a crazy residency schedule. He was definitely a good example to me of how sometimes it take a village to raise a child.

As most of you know, God made it clear to both  Taylor and I that He desires for us to serve, love and bless those in less-developed countries. This vision was given to us even before we met in 2002. Since that time, we have been waiting for God to prepare us for this work and send us. It seems that we are being released now to enter fully into this calling and we are so excited. Kavi finished residency September 2011 and during residency God really worked in us to further develop our vision and calling.

During residency, we met another couple- Michelle and Adam Yates. We quickly became good friends. We co-hosted a residency bible study and our friendship deepened. God made it clear that we should pursue serving together overseas instead of going separately. We have been praying together every week since spring 2011 with the intention of seeking God's heart for our families, where He desires to use us and what form this will take. 

So now we have a little team consisting of two Family Medicine Doctors, an Engineer and an Architect, along with a growing pack of children, focusing our lives on loving God and loving people.  We desire to use our giftings and skills to help people discover health and experience the fullness of Life that Jesus intends for every person. Michelle and Kavi are the family physicians. Michelle also finished a fellowship in Obstetrics and HIV medicine. Kavi has graduate training in International Public Health. Taylor is an Architect of medical facilities and Adam is an Engineer and project manager.

Through a very cool process, God has shown us that we are to be involved in teaching, training and empowering local people at different levels. We are interested in Community Health Evangelism, a ministry model that empowers local people to take ownership of their spiritual and physical health and development. We are also interested in primary care and hospital medicine and teaching healthcare professionals on a more formal level. As we were seeking God's will on where we should go, He led us to explore Soddo Christian Hospital and the Mossy Foot project in Soddo, Ethiopia. We also became aware of the Ethiopia Family Medicine Residency Effort, which will be starting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 

We are currently feeling that the Lord is leading us to Ethiopia and we are praying about these different opportunities to see where God is directing us. We will be going to Ethiopia on a Vision Trip this October 2012.

Our tentative plan is to leave for our international mission field (likely Ethiopia at this point) in Fall of 2013 and we are so excited to be walking with God in this process. Our only desire is to be led where He desires to use us for His kingdom- to love, bless and serve others.

Please pray with us as we seek God's will for our lives and ask Him to open our eyes to see what we need to see to walk forward as He desires. And that if Ethiopia is where He wants us- that He will confirm this and confirm which city He is calling us to and what work He desires us to be involved in. Also, please pray for our children's hearts- that they will also be open to God's leading, be kept safe and will be excited and have a good experience in this process.

With Love,
Kavi, Taylor, Elias and Asa Simpson

Planning, Visioning, Exploring

We are currently building our website, which is one of many planning efforts underway.  We currently are planning a vision trip to Ethiopia for 2 weeks in October to explore partnership with Soddo Christian Hospital and The Mossy Foot Project and the Ethiopia Family Medicine Residency effort.