2OOO
Grace Center Co-founder and executive director, Marcie Erickson, spends her first year in Ethiopia at just 19 years old. She first heard God calling her to the missions at age 17. This first year was in the middle of a major famine, and she would see hundreds of starving children daily. Many did not survive. Marcie’s main job was teaching English to about 300 students age three to middle aged adults.
2OO5
Marcie returns to Africa after three years of college knowing God was calling her to be a missionary for life. She spent time in many different countries seeing if she would be able to live out God’s call to foster and adopt children in the various countries. She then visited Ethiopia and God made it very clear that He wanted her in Ethiopia.
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Marcie received her first three children through adoption. After seeing the horrific conditions in orphanages in Ethiopia and even throughout Africa and more people kept asking Marcie to take in more children, God gave her a vision of having a center and how it could be properly run. She prayed asking God to give her the people to help her run this center and God answered the prayer in less than five minutes. Board was formed in the US. Debbie Graham joined the board becoming board chair shortly thereafter.
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Marcie received her daughter Tigist when she was five years old. Grace Center began with five foster children. By the end of 2007, Grace Center is serving over 350 individuals with school sponsorship, medical care, feeding program, children’s home, women’s empowerment, after school care and special needs program. Grace Center also started the first infant day care in all of Ethiopia, a free program where the moms are able to work while their children are loved and provided for.
2OO8
Marcie Erickson and Sefinew Birhanu Mengistu get married. Grace Center goes from serving 350 to over 500 people, with over 100 employees, operating the best childcare and children’s home in Ethiopia. Grace Center also continued to focus on temporary care so that a mother would have a solution for her child temporarily without being forced to fully relinquish her child. Grace Center is again the only project in the country doing this.
2OO9
Grace Center goes from helping over 500 people to nearly 1500 because of the global recession. Most adults especially women in Bahir Dar were unable to get work. Nearly all construction work stopped. Grace Center expanded its business starting program and also taught women how to make jewelry and started the basket weaving co-op.
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Grace Center acquires two and a half acres of land, otherwise known as Graceland. Currently renting eight buildings to accommodate the various aspects of the program, this land was an answer to pray. It was underwater six months out of the year, so much work needed to be done just for preparations of buildings. Construction begins including building roads around the land.
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A flash flood hit Grace Center. Miraculously, all people survived even though they didn’t know how to swim. Grace Center was able to dig drainage throughout the neighborhood and surrounding areas so that this wouldn’t happen again. Grace Center celebrated its first graduation with 30 families becoming self-sufficient. These families were all able to afford to continue sending their children to private school and give their children a good life and even reach out and help others in need.
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Prison ministry begins after Grace Center is informed about children growing up in prison. The children leave the prison walls for the first time. One young boy was seen running through the weeds along the outside wall of the prison. He said his entire life, he dreamed of running in the grass. He was a baby when they went to prison, and he had never left. Grace Center began ministering to these women and children and also sending all the children to school.
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Grace Center is now helping all the children growing up in prison throughout the region. Amy Minard comes to Grace Center as our on-site Director accompanied by her two children. All buildings are now on the land. Grace Academy School begins its pre-school and kindergarten programs.
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Grace Center starts local adoption program after international adoption is mostly closed. Grace Center writes all the protocols adoptions by families in Ethiopia including follow-up visits as these children grow with their new families. Grace Center also continues to reunite children with families when they have been separated.
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Grace Center is awarded by local and federal government bodies responsible for women and children as being the number one charity in all of Ethiopia, population on 110 million. Grace Center went on to win this award for the next three years. After Covid the government stopped allocating this award, but Grace Center has received more awards than likely any charity in Ethiopia.
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Grace Center is feeding thousands in response to Covid closures. Grace Center is the only project in Bahir Dar, a population area of half a million people, still serving those in need. Grace Center was able to continue to the great work of helping those in need despite the fear that enveloped the world at that time.
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War in northern Ethiopia intensifies beginning with militia group in the north firing missiles into Bahir Dar. Over a two-week period ten missiles were dropped in Bahir Dar many within a mile from Grace Center. Many refugees came to Bahir Dar. Grace Center provided for hundreds including a group of over 20 young boys who were without their families. Grace Center took these children in as foster children, covering all their expenses and when the situation in their villages was again peaceful, Grace Center facilitated in reuniting these children with their families.
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Grace Center starts the child abandonment hotline by sending out a text message to over 5 million phones in the area urging people not to abandon their baby but instead to call this number. Over 500 people called within the first few days and hundreds more lives have been saved. Grace Center digs a deep well and opens it to the public as water in the area is turned off 90% of the time. Hundreds start coming daily for water.
2O23
Sadly, Grace Center’s board chair passes away shortly after going on a mission trip to Ethiopia. Over 1000 come daily to the well, known throughout the city as the only place to get free clean water. The war starts in Bahir Dar and surrounding areas. Grace Center is the only program that continues to operate during the war. Grace Center has groundbreaking on new land in Debre Markos, a city of 350,000 about a four-hour drive south from Bahir Dar.