The Story of Life Center Ethiopia

Below are the words Tamrat Layne (Mulu’s husband) spoke at the 10th Anniversary Celebration. They share of the heart and hope behind the mission of Life Center.

Ever since she became aware of her dad’s absence from home, who left her when she was only a month old, she had been asking her mom every time,

“Mama, when is Baba coming home?” (Mama and Baba the Ethiopian way of saying Mom and Dad).

Mulu’s escape was, “Uhhh…He will join us when we go to America.” Tired of waiting for her dad for five years, she wrote a letter in 2001 from a refugee camp in Kenya, engulfed with tears of anguish and longing, hoping that somebody, maybe an angel, would mail it to wherever Baba was.

The letter says: “Bab! How are you? I am fine. Bab, I love you. Please come to me. I want a Dad. I miss you. Love from your daughter, Tigist Tamrat.”

Two more years passed, and Tigist entered America, but Baba was not coming. After a while, she pursued her inquiry, “Mama, you said Baba will come when we get to America.” Mulu had no escape this time but to throw the bombshell right on her face. She told her that Baba had been in prison and he probably would not come. Little Tigist erupted into a volcano of grief: a shock of loss, a scream of helplessness, and a realm of darkness muddled with an unstoppable flood of tears. The spear of fatherlessness pierced her little innocent mind and subdued her fragrance. The situation was unfathomable for Tigist, except for the heartache of twelve years. Her brother Bilen also burst into tears, cried, and dived into the same volcano of grief.

Mommy, too, joined the quire of cry. The pain of being a widow settled into the bottom of her soul, ringing the bell of uncertainty in life and a commitment to raising her orphans simultaneously. The three of them clasped to each other so that they would survive this relentless world without Baba.

Mulu sheds drops of tears when she remembers that moment even now. She says it reminds her of twelve years of her widowhood and twelve years of our orphaned children. That is why she loves the word of God that says, “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”

That is the “when” and the “how” of the pregnancy of Life Center. Mulu calls our riverine journey “The Pilgrimage of Resilience,” and rightly so. Resilience needs survival. The main reason for Mulu’s survival was to rescue her orphaned children from the relentless jaw of a refugee camp. She did, like a mother chicken guards the chicks under her wings. Resilience entails recovery, whereas recovery needs a “Metanoia,” as the Greeks say it, a shift of mind and a change of belongingness.

The breakthrough of her recovery happened when this wonderful person called Jesus found her after years of hunting and shifted her mind from Communism/atheism to the Godly/Biblical worldview. After God gave her his eternal love to share with others, she decided to belong only to Jesus. Mulu swam across the vast, scary, absolutely alien ocean of American opportunity to pass over the daunting canal of recovery.

And finally, the apex of resilience should be thriving. It needs a conducive environment and intentionality to a renewed purpose in life.

Mulu the widow, with her orphan children, breathed the spirit of Life – Liberty - and the pursuit of happiness in America via her voyage towards thriving, only though burying a magma of vindication throughout her journey. She found the security of her life. She started enjoying the freedom. She gained a glimmer of hope. Mulu is vindicated by the excruciating pain throughout her pilgrimage of resilience from which abundant blessings overflow.

Pain may not always mean death; it can also be a new life. Pain may not always mean a wound; it can be a scar, out of which forgiveness grows. Pain may not always be a reminder of victimhood; rather, it can be a power that sheds away guilt and shame. Pain may not be allowed to cultivate hate; instead, it can be allowed to ferment Love. Pain can be a nuclear energy unleashed for a germination of renewed vision and a sense of affirmation. After all, isn’t it true that Jesus’s excruciating pain on the cross sprouted eternal life for humankind?

Mulu’s vindication has become the birth of Life Center in 2013 out of the womb of her pain and became the mother of hundreds of Tigists and a sister to hundreds of widows. Life Center became the offspring of Mulu’s painful but blessing journey of twelve years as a widow. It is the offspring of her/our children for twelve years. Life Center is the pictorial representation of victory over pain and suffering.

Oh, by the way, Mulu, as one of the youngest freedom fighters in our guerilla warfare during the early 70s and 80s, was known to be called “the mother.” Every men and women guerilla fighters used to call her “mother.” In Life Center, orphans and vulnerable children have received love and compassion; distressed widows have seen hope and built confidence. Life Center has become the home of the fatherless/motherless, the marginalized, the forgotten, the despised, the hated, the uncounted, the neglected. It may be a drop in the ocean of more than 6 million orphans and many more poor women; nevertheless, it is like an oak tree that spreads its roots slowly but surely through the communities.

“We share Love!” is the emblem Mulu introduced and it became the Life Center community’s seal and sign. During her years of guerilla warfare, she shouted, “Freedom comes out of the barrel of a gun!” With Life Center, her language has become “Love Heals, Forgiveness Endures!” she hugs and loves the children; she cries and cheers with the women. They call her Mom. Life Center harvested the fruits in the last ten years. It has indeed been the center of life. Helpless children from the streets have become university graduates, young businessmen, and women. Widows and distressed women living with HIV and starvation came out of ramshackle, began their businesses, engaged in gardening, small-scale agriculture, drinking water-well projects, sent their children to school, and became community leaders and influencers in fighting poverty and dependency. They are singing new songs of hope. They are making the impossible possible.

Life Center is not done! Neither is Mulu. The goal is to multiply it all over Ethiopia and beyond. That is why Life Center wants more support, more partnerships, and more prayers.

The joy of helping and blessing others is the ultimate mission of those who follow the footsteps of Jesus, as it says in the word of God: “The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller. The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed; those who help others are helped.” Proverbs 11:25-26