Our Story
Back in 2008 marks the beginning of this journey for my mom and I. The opportunity to go on a mission trip to Ethiopia came up and after talking about it with each other, we decided that we felt that we should go. This was a pretty big decision for us considering neither of us had ever been out of the country, but this sparked something within both of us that just would never seem to go away.
Fast forward through what felt like many years of school for me and we’re at the beginning of my college career. During a tour at one of the colleges we visited, I decided that I wanted to be a nurse. I also just felt this calling that somehow, someday, I would help run a clinic in Africa. During my time in college, my mom and I both had the opportunity to go back to Ethiopia (finally!) in 2015, and this sparked the wheels turning even more for me about what could possibly be done with this vision I had in my head.
After the trip in 2015, we felt the pull ever stronger to get back to Ethiopia, so we organized another trip for 2016. It was on this trip that our good friend, Mesfin, introduced us to Simret and her orphanage, Yekebere Zigba Kenbet (YZK). We went to visit YZK on this trip and were fortunate to meet Simret and hear her story. It was so inspiring to us to not only hear her story but to also see her heart for children and the community. It was once we got back from this trip that Mesfin mentioned that Simret also had some land in the village with an empty clinic built on it.
Now, a couple things you should know. 1) We met Mesfin back on our very first trip to Ethiopia. He was one of our interpreters and we became very good friends and have kept in touch ever since! 2) During all this time, I was in nursing school and I had decided that I wanted to be an obstetric nurse.
Mesfin tells us that Simret wants to use this clinic for mothers and babies! It is then, like a spark of realization, that I know that this is what I was meant to do and that we were meant to meet Simret. So, what do we do then? Well, organize another trip to Ethiopia, of course!
Now we’re in 2017, and we are back again, visiting Simret and becoming even more sure that what we should do is start a non-profit to start helping, not only Simret, but wherever we can when the time comes. On this trip, we are able to visit the clinic site and when we returned, we decided to go ahead and form Generations Beyond and do our best with this dream.
Now having been around for a couple of years and learning as much as we can throughout this process, we have come to a point where we need your help! We have multiple giving opportunities throughout our site and we appreciate anything you can do!
We are so thankful to have you along for the ride with us and we look forward to sharing even more giving and serving opportunities with you!
Blessings,
Kenzie