Sometime in the night of May 8 this year, Pat Hornberger was awakened by a dream in which she saw an automobile accident. She was so concerned, she spent the rest of the night praying for 16 members of her church, Solana Beach (Calif.) Presbyterian, who were on a two-week trip to Ethiopia. Two other members of the same church also woke up that night and were moved to pray for the team.There had, indeed, been a car accident involving the Ethiopia missions team, one that injured three people. And this accident, it turned out, became a turning point for the trip, for Solana Beach's 55-year history, and, we trust, for a little-known people in East Africa, the Afar.Short-term missions had always been a part of this affluent United Presbyterian Church of 2,000 members in north San Diego County. Teams had traveled to a Presbyterian hospital north of Nairobi, Kenya, to rebuild its maternity ward. Other teams went to Malawi and Mexico, while young people traveled on longer mission opportunities. But this was not just another missions trip: it was a long-term, highly focused, investment in an overlooked people group.The trip to Ethiopia was the culmination of several years of prayer and planning by the staff of Solana Beach Presbyterian Church. Our missions pastor, Tom Therault, has been keenly interested in isolated peoples. As the newly installed senior pastor, and having served 20 years on the board of World Vision, I was convinced of the urgent need to meet both physical and spiritual needs of all the world's people, especially the poor.

The church's missions committee appointed a sub-committee to research and pray. They selected the Afar, whose 1.7 million members claim to be descendants of Noah's son Ham. Mostly ...