All About NCF

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February 02, 2012

Everything you ever wanted to know about our partner, New Covenant Foundation:

The New Covenant Foundation was formed in August 2001 as a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization by a group of Christian men in the Spokane, Washington area in the United States.  These men had a desire to assist the Ethiopian people.  The founding principles are driven by the Ethiopian’s vision of achieving self-sufficiency and independence.  Those involved with The New Covenant Foundation view their relationship with the people of Ethiopia as a partnership with a comprehensive approach, which addresses all areas of the peoples’ existence (mind, body and soul).  The organization was established to aid Ethiopia in breaking the cycle of dependence on charity from other countries.  Ethiopia has a desire to evangelize their own people and provide for their own needs.  For years, helping countries in need has been driven by a model, based on charity and aid assistance or put another way - giving handouts to the needy.  This kind of aid creates a dependency that cripples people.  New Covenant Foundation (NCF) provides an innovative and holistic new model for missions, which enables people to become self-sufficient and independent.

The mission of NCF is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, through indigenous people, to break the bonds of dependency on foreign aid by empowering individuals and communities to be self-sufficient and to create mutual partnerships with people that enable long-term sustainability of the economy, their environment and their community.  NCF employs this strategy through seven unique initiatives in two broad areas:  community development, and economic development.  Community development initiatives are focused on church planting; health care; education and assistance.  Economic development initiatives are focused in the areas of finance, innovation and marketing.  New Covenant optimizes timing and impact of this overarching strategy by forming strategic partnerships with like-minded organizations.  These organizations provide expertise and/or financial assistance.

Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest independent country and one of Africa’s poorest countries.  Almost two-thirds of its people are illiterate.

The economy revolves around agriculture, which relies on rainfall.  The country is one of Africa’s leading coffee producers.  Many Ethiopians depend on food aid from abroad.  In 2004, the government began a drive to move more than two million people away from the arid highlands of the east in an attempt to provide a lasting solution to food shortages.  There is little evidence as to the success of this effort.

The cornerstone of NCF’s work is church planting.  NCF feels that the most effective way to spread Christ’s love is to enable people in their own country to minister to their own people.  With this in mind, NCF has partnered with the Ethiopian Kale Heywot Church (an evangelical denomination), Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, Idaho and LifeWind International. 

NCF, in partnership with Real Life Ministries has launched a two-year formal Bible school training program in Ethiopia to prepare people for ministry and to assume leadership of new church plants.  Over 200 Ethiopian Christians are currently enrolled and 65 upper school graduates are waiting for the opportunity to study at the school.  Ethiopian churches currently support 125 church planters and 39 church planters are currently supported by NCF.  In the four years that NCF has been focused on church planting, more than 4,300 Ethiopians have accepted Christ; 34 new churches have been started; formal discipleship training has been provided through the partnership with Real Life Ministries, and Community Health Evangelism (CHE) training has been provided for NCFs strategic partners.

Health Care Initiative

As mentioned above, through the partnership with LifeWinds, in cooperation with CHE, NCF is engaged in seeking preventative versus curative means to work with the Ethiopian people.  They are currently working with CHE on a health care project in the Gedeo Region.  Kale Heywot Church (KHC) provides volunteer workers and contributes funding for the project.  LifeWind provides indigenous training facilitators, materials and financing and NCF provides financing and administration assistance.  The health care issues include:  water purification; sanitation; nutrition, maternal and child care; HIV/Aids education; agriculture assistance; disease prevention and family planning all in the framework of sharing the Gospel.  This project has experienced incredible success.  To date 450 Ethiopian volunteers are trained and working in 105 churches and communities.  Over 250,000 people have received health care information.  These people have experienced a 50% reduction in malnutrition and the infant mortality rate. Over 30,000 new believers will now enter the Kingdom of Heaven and a new program has been initiated for people with disabilities.  The project has been projected to run for a total of 8 years with the desired results as follows:

1. 4,500 total trained volunteers working in 500 churches and communities
2. 1,000,000 people who will have received health care information
3. 50% reduction in malnutrition and infant mortality (among the population of 1MM people)
4. 75,000 new believers in Jesus Christ

Education Initiative

NCF continues to believe that enabling individuals to be self-sufficient by providing formal education opportunities and enhancing the Ethiopian educational infrastructure is critical.  NCF has partnered with Soddo Christian Hospital in Soddo, Ethiopia and Real Life Ministries in this venture.  Their current project is nurses training.  NCF seeks funding for tuition for nursing students in Soddo and Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia).  Graduates are committed to three years of service in a local community and/or any future NCF clinics.  Short-term medical teams (from the US and other countries) provide training and assistance at Soddo Christian Hospital and the affiliated nursing school.

Assistance

NCF feels that it is critical to address the unique needs of widows, orphans and the homeless.  Doing so calls for unique solutions.  Currently NCF is partnering with Christian World Adoption, headquartered in Charleston, SC; Children Cross Culture in Soddo, Ethiopia and Soddo Christian Hospital in this effort.  The current project is to provide financial assistance for the operation of two partner orphanages in Soddo.  Recently, the owner of the building of one of these orphanages told NCF that they have one year to vacate the building.  Therefore, NCF has undertaken plans to build a new orphanage to replace the one they must vacate.  Pending projects in Soddo dependent on funding are: building a women’s and orphans home and training facility; well drilling and launching a food distribution program for widows that will be run by the local church.

Finance

Short-term financial assistance to individuals or organizations is necessary at times to promote economic development when local funding is unavailable.  NCF’s strategic partners in this work are individual investors and skilled workers and the Christian World Foundation in Charleston, SC.  Through these investors, NCF has launched Dominion Trading Company a plant purchased and financed by NCF partners.  The current project is a food production center (micro-business) that will be capable of producing a food supplement called MITTIN (Malnutrition Intervention ProTein ForTified EthIopian Nutrition) to help malnourished infants, children and adults, as well as individuals preparing for or recovering from surgery.  NCF will assist in providing the following resources:

1. Building construction and equipment finance
2. Operating capital

Business plan

1. Business plan development (the summary is complete and Dr. Doug Lahr, independent consultant and former faculty member in the School of Global Commerce at Whitworth University is handling this work)
2. Preliminary building design (in process)
3. Manufacturing equipment and process flow consulting
4. On-site construction supervision and training

Fortunately, the government of Ethiopia has granted NCF the land needed for the MITTEN plant and in February 2010 during the President of NCF, Mike Stemm’s visit, the government also granted NCF property on which to build the replacement orphanage.

Innovation

The Dominion Trading, coffee company where the beans come from a coffee plant in the Soddo area of Ethiopia, is committed to innovation.  Creative technology and creative solutions increase productivity and enable long-term sustainability for the people of the area. 

NCF is currently in partnership with USAID, headquartered in Addis Ababa (the capital); with Fintrac that has administrative offices in Washington, D.C. and Addis Ababa and with a group of international consultants.  Recently NCF was able to reduce the water usage at the coffee washing plant from 60,000 gallons per day to 80 gallons per day.  Current projects include:

1. Improve coffee quality through process control and cupping
2. Improve coffee yield (training in pruning, stumping and composting)
3. Implement product and process traceability and transparencey
4. Launch the MITTIN processing plan (MITTIN is an ancient wheat grain-corn nutritional supplement).  Of note: the MITTIN project has been approved to move forward by the Ethiopian government.  MITTIN costs approximately 3.5 cents (US $) a serving.  For every $60 in raw materials after manufacturing, this amount will feed 3400 meals for adults.  The MITTIN product will be used to feed the children at the three orphanages in partnership with NCF and the people and staff at the Soddo Christian Hospital.

Marketing

The economic engine of NCF’s work is Dominion Trading.  The President and founders of the company are currently engaged in developing an export market for a local coffee.  This enhances product quality, insures a competitive price, leads to economic growth in the area as well as to economic independence.  NCF has created a for-profit partner in Dominion Trading which partners with impoverished, Ethiopian coffee farmers in the Rift Valley who produce some of the best coffee in the world.  Dominion Trading is a vertically integrated company that connects from the farmer to the end consumer.  Dominion Trading currently sells “green” (unroasted) coffee, to coffee roasters in the USA, as well as, roasted coffee to individuals and organizations throughout the USA on a wholesale and retail basis.  Again, Dominion Trading's stated business purpose is to be an economic engine for the New Covenant Foundation.  Sixty percent (60%) of its annual net income is returned to Ethiopia as profit sharing to the local coffee farmers and to support New Covenant Foundation initiatives.  Life Center uses Dominion Trading coffee in our Commons area with the donated income returning to the church to support the mission work of Life Center.