Elevate Ethiopia Mission Trip

July 3-12, 2026

This will be our fifth year partnering with Elevate Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Lincoln Vallett grew up at Hermitage Hills Baptist Church.  He is now the Co-founder and Executive Director of Elevate Ethiopia.  Their mission is to work with families through empowerment and education programs to help them become self-reliant and positive impactors in their families, communities, and country.  They provide education resources of after school tutoring, summer learning, spoken English class, computer lab, school materials, individualized academic follow-up and field trips.  They provide mentorship resources of life skills class, individual/group counseling, Bible study class, motivational speakers, vision building/goal setting activities, and counseling/training for parents.  They also provide for parents economic empowerment resources of micro-business grants, business/financial management training, savings program, and family medical support.  Students and families in the program receive food provisions each month.  You can explore more at elevateethiopia.org.

 

Last year, the trip was absolutely wonderful.  The team was able to go to church with Lincoln on Sunday.  They enjoyed having lunch and watching a traditional coffee ceremony at the girl’s home that Elevate started that afternoon.  They visited the new Elevate Ethiopia site in Debre Birhan on Monday.  They were able to connect with the families that received the food donated by Hermitage Hills.  They also saw the library that Elevate is opening soon.  They had a day of planning for VBS on Tuesday and fun at a local arcade with some of the students from the program.  Then there were three days of VBS fun.  The students were taught about Joshua and Caleb, Jericho, and Joshua’s encouragement to continue to follow God.  They had a blast during rec time which included games reinforcing the Bible story for the day.  The team learned a new tug of war game that they plan to share with our kid’s ministry.  The students also enjoyed craft time where they decorated journals, made sand bracelets, and beaded keychains - all of which were reminders of the Bible stories.  The send off ceremony and summer camp kickoff on Saturday was a lot of fun.  Thank you for praying for the trip.  The team saw God at work in many ways and is excited to give more updates in the weeks to come.  Our next trip will be in July 2026!