Help us Buy a Van for Embracing Hope Ethiopia
With the growth of our work in Ethiopia, the time has come where we need to bite the bullet and purchase a van. We’ve made it this long with hiring taxis and using public transit, but it is becoming increasingly challenging and expensive to hire taxis all of the time.
Now with almost 200 children in the project, the hopes of adding another 40 this year, the Day Care, the School, the Ministry Center, doctors appointments for Moms and children, hospital runs, staff commitments and the need to buy supplies weekly – the time has finally come.
The problem is that vehicles here in Ethiopia continue to be extremely expensive. Vans here hold their value and it will easily cost us close to $30,000 USD to buy a van and a couple thousand more to get it on the road. I know it sounds expensive. We agree. That’s why we’ve put it off for so long. For the price of a luxury car in North America, we can buy a 15 year old Toyota van here. I guess it doesn’t have to make sense – some things just are as they are.
But, we do need your help. Every little bit that you can help us raise will help us to get a van on the road soon. We’re at almost $2,000 raised so far. Would you help us raise the additional $33,000 we need? Maybe your youth group is looking for a mission to fund raise for? Maybe your office has a special event coming up that could help raise the funds? Maybe you love having yard sales and this would be a good cause to give proceeds to. Help us with your creativity. Recently, a friend of EHE, Kim, raised over $1,800 for the van by asking people to donate $40 for her 40th birthday. It all comes together and makes a lot.
You can give either online at our Giving site by clicking here. Just choose EHE VAN FUND as the designation and we’ll make sure it gets put in the right place. Or you can also give at our CrowdRise page. Please also ask you to share our Crowd Rise page where we are putting the word out far and wide about our need for a van.
Could you give us a hand?
A perfect example of success leading to greater challenges! We are so happy the ministry is growing. I am wondering would it be cheaper to by a van in the US and ship it? $30k buys a beautiful used van.
Hi Ed. I love how you think 🙂 We shelved this idea for a few reasons. One is that it really would need to be a Toyota Diesel van that would have parts available in Ethiopia. Unfortunately the Toyotas that end up in the North American Market are typically different than here in Ethiopia. Then we considered the shipping costs (probably in the neighborhood of $7,000 – $8,000 to get it to Ethiopia) and the fact that we could be taxed at 150% of what the Ethiopian officials would set the value of the van to be upon entry into Ethiopia. This would all be after the van was held in customs for what could be months. With all of those factors we decided we should start looking locally. The tax and the shipping cost is much of the reason why cars here retain their value in mind boggling ways. I know it seems totally ludicrous.