January 11, 2014

I have slept all night and don't wake up until 7:30.  We are going to No Ordinary Love Ministries today, but don't have to leave until 9:00.  Breakfast is eggs, toast with peanut butter, and donuts.  Delicious!

David is here to get us and we begin our day.  It is our first look at the city in daylight.  People are out and about.  The hustle and bustle is everywhere.  The shops are open with their colorful wares displayed and the men are pushing their wheelbarrows of fruit.  The bus station is full of people.  They pack the platform and cover the hillside.  The day is already warm.  NOLM is not easy to find and our directions are vague.  We ask on the street and finally find the gate.  The children are already at play in the ward when we enter and there is another group there already.  They are from Kansas City, MO.  Jimmy takes us to the living room to tell us about their ministry.  They are doing amazing things for the people here.  Clearly they children love this place.

 

 

 

 

They have prepared a play for us and do the Christmas story.  This is their Genna celebration.  They sing praise songs and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".  They have slaughtered a sheep yesterday and are cooking it on a large griddle in the far corner.  The smell of charcoal and meat is heavy in the air.

We help to serve the Christmas meal - lamb tebs, wat, and injera.  Everyone is given the same amount: a huge plate to feast on.  Even the 2 and 3-year-olds clean their plates.  I am amazed at how much they eat!  They they are given a pop to wash it down with.  We ask for one plate to share so we can try our first real Ethiopian meal.  It gets mixed reviews.

 

 

 

A set of 3-year-old twins catch our eyes.  They are eating and waving with sticky hands.  Their mama sits close at hand to help them and smiles as they charm the Ferenge.  When they are done they come for hugs and to try on our sunglasses.  They are precious.

Our time is almost over, but I have a few minutes to push the boys on the merry-go-round.  They smile and hold out their hands for high fives.  One-by-one their mamas collect them and they wave goodbye. 

 

One 2-year-old girl remains.  She is holding on tight and will not let go.  Her mama is getting frustrated.  I ask if I can help.  I tickle her softly and hold out my hands.  She lets me pick her up and I hold her just a minute while her mama waits.  I hand her off and they are gone.  Two-year-olds are the same in every corner of the world, it seems.

Then it is our turn to go.  We are going for lunch first - pizza!  A welcome change from the lamb we sampled earlier.

We had to sample a little wine, too!

After lunch we are going to Mark 10:14 boys shelter.  They come out to greet us and take our bags.  We have two heavy bags of clothes, shoes, and balls for them. 

Their home is an old school and has been painted with "parts of the flower", "parts of the body", and Richard Scary cats.  We are given a tour of the rooms and meet the boys.  They introduce themselves and tell us their ages, grad, aspirations, and names.  They dream big dreams: pilot, doctor, engineer, prophet.  They are learning to plan for a future they never thought they would have.  They are all in school and learning to live after years alone on the streets. We sit in the small room for a long time, asking questions and hearing their stories.  They have been through so much and they are still so young.

They keep their Bibles close by.  This one is under a pillow.

 

Salam has made us dinner.  We are not hungry, but we have bought them two sheep and they have already made one into wat for us.  The second is grazing in the corner.  We have not seen the last of him.  We have a large try of lamb and crusty bread for dinner.  We wash it down with coke from a bottle.

The boys have all prepared a Bible verse for us - 10 verses from 10 boys.  We read the one we have picked from the basket out loud and share what it says to us.  They have been so thoughtful in choosing them.  We take pictures with "our" boy and vow to pray for him after we leave.  The boys find balls in the bags and begin to play both soccer and volleyball.  We have bought 3 balls on the street earlier.  The basketballs are Bison balls, but they don't have a hoop here.  We add that to our wish list for them.

 

We were showing them pictures of snow.  They were horrified!

We play until it is getting dark.  We have loved our time here.  These boys are so full of potential. 

What???  You don't know exploding knuckles?  Let us teach you!

 

At home again, we sort our bags for our trip on Monday.  We have church tomorrow so will be up again and on the road early.  I am very tired, once again.  I fall asleep praying for George and the boys we met tonight. 

*Read more about Mark 10:14 HERE

January 12, 2014

Today, Sunday, we were able to worship at Covenant Church with our friends.  David came at 9:30 to bring us to church and we were ready to go.  We had had pancakes, oatmeal, and banana bread for breakfast, which we hoped would hold us until lunch, since church services are around 3 hours long, here.

The church is one big open room with wooden benches.  A sign on the wall tells us to turn off our phones - in Amharic.  The band and choir have started by the time we get there, though not many people have arrived.  We sit and watch as they sing praise songs and the people sing along.  The woman in the choir - 4 of them - are in white robes with pale yellow stolls.  The songs are not as upbeat as I expected, but quite calming.  People continue to file in as the time passes.

 

When the pastor comes to the pulpit he holds a time of prayer and blessing for a man dedicating himself to ministry then there is another song - this one more upbeat - and he begins his message.  Tez has come to sit with us and write the English translation in a notebook as Pastor Yonas speaks.  We are thankful to have the translation.

He teaches on sacrifice for the Lord and gives an excellent message.  We get the main points on paper.  The service concludes after about 3 hours, the time has gone more quickly than we expected.  As we wait to find out what is next, Krysta and I explore the grounds a little bit.  We find the offices and the Sunday School rooms.  This is a large compound.

 

We visit some and are introduced to David's wife, Mekanus, and daughter, Kaharium.  We have brought a gift for her from our bags.  We have included one of Kaili's teddy bears.  It seems right to give it to this special girl.

 

We head for lunch after church and have invited the pastors to join us.  Yonas, Bazabe, and Menalik as well as Yonas' wife Rita.  We have a lovely lunch.  They are so kind and like to joke with us.  Yonas shows us his wonderful sense of humor.

 

We don't have a plan for the rest of the day.  We need to relax after several busy days.  David brings us back to the house and goes home to his family.

We want to walk around the neighborhood so we head out to do that.  The street nearby is busy and has many shops and cafes.  There is much to see, but we don't go far.  We are looking for a few things to bring with us to Ambo tomorrow, but we don't have much luck.  Ferenge get charged more than we are willing to pay. 

We weren't sure what these things were.  Some kind of breaded, fried meat. 
When we asked Hanna about them she gave us strict instructions not to eat them!

 

 

All we bought was some sprite for the fridge

 

Back at the house we ask for popcorn and smoothies for dinner.  we have had a late lunch so don't need much.  As we eat we talk about our day and read through the notes Tez gave us.  We have many laughs over our basket of popcorn. 

Jen and Kristen enjoying their popcorn and mango smoothies

January 13, 2014

We got a rushed start when our alarm didn't go off this morning, but were ready when David and Pochi got here.  It helped that they were a half hour late.

The road to Ambo is beautiful.  There are fewer people walking, but those that I saw were working.  They seemed to have more purpose, here.  The terrain is more lush, with hay fields and streams.  Also, the land is getting more mountainous heading west.  It was a beautiful area.  We stopped for coffee and met up with Hanna, Tez and Elemu. 

After coffee, we had stopped on the street at one of the shops to buy soda and flour.  While we waited, many children came up to our windows.  We had life savers for them.  They mostly seem to just want to look at us, though a few asked for money.

This boy ran off and came back only a few minutes later with some new English
"Give me a dollar"  Nice try, kiddo.

After we had our supplies we went to the compound where we met with the children.  These are older than the Shone children, mostly 12 and up.  We greeted them and Pochi shared a message - she didn't want it translated but she said "Jesus" a lot so I got the basics.  Someone had prepared two large pans of bread.  This is thick and dense with a thick crust.  It is cakey and delicious.  David sliced it as we all stood watching and waiting.

 

This sweet girl gave us a lovely welcome.

 

Cheers!

 

Once we had passed out the bread and soda, we handed out the bags we had prepared.  They all got shirt, pants, underwear, socks and stuffed animal.  We added a Bison Buddies shirt as a bonus!

Kathy had balloons and I had rainbow bands.  They played with balloons for a while and Tina and I taught them to make bracelets.  They loved it!  They crowded around and asked for help.  One of the older girls sat next to me and held the bands.  She asked if she could have the one I was making.  She is a beautiful 16-year-old with a wrap on her head and clear soft skin.  She was clearly a leader in this group.

These grandmas loved the stuffed animals!

 

 

As we were taking some group pictures, we noticed that there were people slipping in through the gate.  There were small children and mothers with babies strapped to their backs.  It was immediately obvious that these people were desperately poor.  One boy was in a wheel chair, which we were told he received from an American aid organization.  He had no legs and only 2 fingers on each hand.  He never smiled.  He had the saddest face of any child I have ever seen.  This was true of most of these children.  There seemed to be very little joy in this place and these people.  It spoke a lot of their circumstances.  It made this town so much different than any other place we have visited. 

We had some extra soda, which we shared and we found some clothes and things for them in our bags.  Someone observed that if we brought an entire walmart store, there would still not be enough to go around this town.  Their needs seemed so vast. 

As we left the compound, a boy was standing by our van.  He was about 15.  I don't know how long he had been standing here, but he had not been inside the gates.  His eyes showed such desperation, but we had given everything we had away.  He didn't ask for anything, but he looked as if he would cry if we didn't notice him, as if we were his only hope.  I wanted so badly to help him, but had nothing left to offer.  As we drove away from that boy my heart broke.  The look in his eyes will always haunt me.  This is why we came, but I could not help everyone today.

We visited two homes after we left the gathering.  They were in an alley behind some shops.  They were row houses, made of mud and painted the soft green that has become so familiar here, and many people lived there.  The alley smelled of urine and we stepped over puddles left by the wandering donkeys as we walked.  It was clear that this place was the among the most poor areas in this town.  The women in the first home wanted to make us coffee, but we weren't planning to stay long enough so they insisted on buying us soda.  I don't know how much they spent on these bottles, but we knew that they were sacrificing in order to give us this treat.

We left there and went to eat.  It was not an easy transition to go from this poverty and desperation to a lovely restaurant just a few minutes drive away.  Again, the contrasts strike us.

After dinner we headed down a very rough alley to another development: low income housing.  These were row houses, too, but not as dirty or as cramped as the last.  Pochi wanted to visit her friend who was making us coffee and popcorn.  She had a little baby and we loved on him as she boiled water and roasted beans.  This was the first healthy baby we saw today.  Alem had pictures of children on a shelf in the corner.  I recognized them as children adopted around the time our children came home to us.  These were her children.  As her story unfolded we learned that she was HIV+ and had made a plan for her children when she thought she would not live to be a mother to them.  Her story spoke of miracles and Jesus' redemption.  She is now married, with this healthy baby boy.

This woman was making baskets outside her home.

By the time we left it was nearly dark.  It was a quiet ride home.

Today was my hardest hard day.

*Read more about Alem HERE
*And another HERE