Hi friends!

Hi friends! Sorry it’s taken me a bit to send another update. Internet here is not the greatest :-) A special thank you to my brother Brian for updating my blog for me. Blogs are blocked here in Ethiopia, so I have to email him everything and he has been gracious enough to post it for me since I can’t.

We finished our first week in Ambo, and spent the weekend in Addis preparing for another big week. I wanted to give you a glimpse into how our time is spent here.

Typical day in Ambo:

We wake up and meet for breakfast at 8 am, and are out the door of our hotel by 9 am. Before we leave we put on our mud shoes or boots. We walk to the bus and greet Sammy our driver, and his assistant Yeshuas.

We drive a mile down the road to the compound, and before even entering the gates, our ears are greeted with the sound of children shouting and cheering that our bus has arrived. Shouts of, “You, you you!”, frantic waving and running alongside our bus is the typical greeting. The moment we step off the bus we are swarmed by very physically-affectionate aggressive children. We greet them in Amharic (hello sounds like “Sa-Lam”) shake their hands or hug them. There are plenty of them to surround each of us Americans. We often have 4 or 5 children walking with us, grabbing our hands or putting their arms around us as we walk. We spend the morning with them, dividing them up, with the boys usually playing games or doing crafts first, while the girls have English class and then after an hour or so we switch. We have a total of around 200 kids on a daily basis. We break for lunch, go back to our hotel to eat, and then return for the afternoon to repeat the morning routine. When we leave for the day, the children follow us to the bus, saying Ciao (goodbye), shaking our hands, or, very often, kissing us. The girls are fond of kissing goodbye, and they love to grab our faces, kiss us on each cheek, and I even taught some of them the sound of “Mwuah!” as you kiss. They love that and have used it often as they kiss me over and over again. We often have a hard time making our way to the bus, as they all want to shake your hand and kiss you repeatedly before you leave. We feel so loved! :-)

During the week we also spend a few days with the street boys instead of the school children. We usually do a Bible lesson with them and then some stay for English class, while the rest go outside and play soccer, volleyball or kickball. We also feed them lunch when we are there for a half day, and both lunch and dinner when we are with them a full day. We do this because when they are at the compound with us, they are missing out on making money during the day. These are boys that have no families, usually no home and are doing their best to survive on the streets of Ambo. We alternate our time between them and the school children during the week.

At the end of the day, our team then heads back to our hotel where we have about an hour or so to collapse on our beds and rest a bit and then we meet for dinner downstairs in the hotel. We pretty much have the menu memorized as we eat at the hotel for breakfast, lunch and dinner. (some favorites of our team are the “Peeper Steak”, “Fillet Migno”, or the “Mixed Grill”...which the name isn’t funny, but the ‘mix’ is…Jeremiah had mystery meat again but did find out on one occasion he was eating the liver of some animal) After dinner we have a team meeting where we debrief and give our “Highs and Lows” of the day, end up laughing over the experiences we’ve had, and then we discuss what our plans are for the next day. We then head back to our rooms and pass out, only to wake up the next morning to do it all over again. :-)

Is it weird to think one can get used to a foreign country in a matter of weeks? Even thought this marks my 2nd full week in Africa, I’ve grown accustomed to a great number of things already. I am used to riding on our mini-bus with Sammy as the driver and hearing his horn blare at everyone in the road that he’s coming (I like to think of it like Fozzie Bear…wakka wakka wakka…that’s what his horn sounds like).

A few more things I’ve gotten used to:

Vultures flying overhead in the air…all the time.

Roosters crowing…all day long.

Being woken up at night from loud music outside. Or trucks honking their horns. Or the chanting. Some dude chants every night/early morning. Often through a loudspeaker. At first it was weird and annoying. Now it doesn’t even faze me.

Rain everyday and the subsequent condition of being muddy. The first day in Ambo, all of our feet were caked in mud. Oh, and there were fire/biting ants in the grass too. A few of us (myself included) got attacked by the ants. Mine were just on my ankles, but painful nonetheless. Some team members literally had ants in their pants. On day 2 we went and bought rain boots. This was to help with the mud issue but also the ants. We are often stared and pointed at while wearing our boots. Apparently a person in Ethiopia only wears them if they are a plumber and are going to be stepping in crap. So the people here think we are weird to walk around in them. I don’t care, I think they’re a blessing.

Being laughed at/stared at. See above.

Seeing donkeys, cows, goats and dogs walking around everywhere amongst people. At first it was like “Oh my gosh, look at that cow just crossing the street in front of us”, or “Hey look, a bunch of donkeys hanging out on the sidewalk”. Now…we walk down the street and pass a goat and don’t blink an eye.

Losing electricity. It happens about every other day here. The hotel we are staying at has a generator so it’s not out as often as in Addis. I’ve gotten quite good at taking out my contacts by flashlight though, I must say.

Things I have not gotten used to:

Seeing homeless people curled up in the middle of the sidewalk sleeping, looking barely alive.

Watching the street boys fight over food. Seeing their clothes filthy, filled with rips, tears, gaping holes. They wear the same clothes every day, some don’t have shoes, and they are just plain dirty and smelly. It’s hard to imagine their life and how they have to live, yet I go to the bus and my bag has food in it for me, I have plenty of clothes and a home and a family. They have practically nothing. And I have an abundance of everything. Hard to make peace with that. They push and shove each other while standing in line for the injera that we give them for lunch. Want the truth friends? (skip to the next paragraph if you don’t) Injera looks a big piece of a thin sponge that 3 different people pooped on, and all of that was then put on a plate for you to eat. I wouldn’t be fighting anyone over it. Yet they do, and they also go after the younger kids while they are eating, trying to intimidate them into giving them their food. It’s a sad sight.

The smells. On any typical day, I can walk into the classroom and it smells pretty bad…like rain, mud, filth, poop, body odor and mold….all rolled into one. When you first walk in the room it hits you hard, then you just get used to it and its normal. Being around the school and street boys though, you are hit with the overwhelming scent of body odor. It’s still not really something I’m used to smelling.

All that to say, it’s been a very emotional week for me. I have been having a hard time with coming face-to-face with such poverty and despair, and my emotions have been high. I would appreciate prayer friends. Also, please pray for our ministry time. Our weeks are very busy, tiring and emotionally draining. The strength of the Lord is needed. I’ll keep you posted on how this week goes! We’re having a 2 week MC team joining us, just for this week. We are already planning the hazing we are going to do with them…should be fun :-) I’ll leave you with my highlights from the week.

Highlights of the week:

- During one of our days with the street boys, I was hanging out with the younger ones while some volleyball and soccer games were going on, and we were videotaping some of them speaking English (read: forcing them to repeat what we said even though they had no clue what they were saying). In a move of sheer genius, I got one of the boys to say “Go Cubs Go, Go Cubs Go, Hey Chicago whattayou say, the Cubs are gonna win today”. This naturally led to me singing it and the boy began dancing. Pretty soon I had a dance party going on as about 6 or 7 boys surrounded me as we danced in the mud while singing “Go Cubs Go”.

- I’ve asked for prayer for the English classes I am helping to lead, and I am happy to report the Lord is working in great ways and answering those prayers! I ordered curriculum before leaving called “English in Action” and it’s based off of a method called TPR (Total Physical Response) where students learn English through physical movement. I have 5 other team members helping me with this, and we divide the students into 3 groups, so we have 2 of us to a classroom. This has been my ministry with the kids here, and they are flying through the lessons. It is extremely exciting to see them actually learning! Right now they’ve learned things such as: Stand, Sit, Walk, Sing, Stop, Turn, Touch Your…Shoulders, Head, Eyes, Mouth, Ears, Nose, Arms, Legs, Feet, Hands, Fingers, Chest; Jump, etc.

- Seeing Yeshuas get to play games. He is a teenager and our bus driver’s assistant. According to one of our translators, a bus assistant is a pretty low job in Ethiopia and he doesn’t get paid much. But if you had the privilege of meeting him, you would interact with the most joyful boy you could find in Ethiopia. He always has a huge smile on his face and is so happy. We love being around him. However, his job is to guard our bus while we are doing ministry or overnight while we are sleeping in the hotel. He even sleeps on the bus. At one ministry sight the bus was parked outside of a gate. They had the gate open and Yeshuas would sit on the bus with his hands on the window panes and a huge smile on his face and watch us play with the kids and women at the compound in Nazaret. All day long he sat and watched us play. But here in Ambo, we park the bus inside the compound, so Yeshuas has been able to play volleyball and some other games with us. He loves it! And we have loved watching him get a chance to have fun! But he is the cutest thing, he would be playing volleyball, and would hit the ball and then immediately look over to where the bus was parked to make sure it was ok. We love Yeshuas.

That’s all for now friends…I’ll write again soon!

Blessings,

E

Black boogers, mystery meat, and redemption

Hi friends!

Our team just headed back to Addis today, after spending nearly a week in a town called Nazaret. We’ve officially been in Ethiopia a week, we can’t even believe it! Our team has already bonded, it’s really been great…cause you know if we didn’t get along it would be a miserable month. Our youngest on the team is sweet Emma who’s 16. I come in a close second to being the youngest ;-)

Anytime you travel with people, you get to know each other pretty quick. We are together nearly 24/7 and because of the size of our group, our eating adventures take over an hour every meal. Experiencing that 3 times a day along with our travel time on the bus and ministry time together, well let’s just say we’re getting to know a lot about each other. It’s been a lot of fun though, thank goodness there’s a lot of people on the team who like to laugh. We also have 3 amazing translators on the journey with us. Sarafel heads up the team and he is one of the funniest people I have ever met. No matter who is near him, you can bet they are laughing. He’s a little off the cuff, so him and I get along great. Nata (I call him Nati, pronounced Knotie) is super sweet and relatively reserved, and he’s a fitness freak so we get along quite well J. Thadius (I call him Tadie, pronounced Tottie) is the youngest of the 3, he loves to dance and does a great Michael Jackson impersonation. We have been blessed to be around them and couldn’t ask for better guys to be in ministry with while we are here.

I’ve adjusted already to our living situation…which is basically living out of our suitcases. We spent a few days in Addis before traveling to Nazaret, spent 5 days there, came back to Addis for one night and then are heading out to Ambo for the week. We will come back to Addis every weekend, but will stay in Ambo during the week. I’m tired just typing all that.

Culture shock hasn’t really been a factor (for me at least). I’ve been on other trips and have seen extreme poverty, heartbreaking situations and desperate people. It doesn’t mean I am not affected by it…quite the contrary. It still is a battle inside me to witness life in such horrible circumstances and think on all the things I have in America and wonder why I was born there and not here. May God move in all of our hearts, though, to be a light to all people, especially those less fortunate than us.

On a lighter note, traveling through the towns is kind of like looking at a “Where’s Waldo” book. There are a ton of different things going on, it’s fascinating to witness, especially for a people watcher like myself. Window seats on the bus are my preference. People are everywhere and are doing somewhat strange things. And I'm not talking about the public urination, nose picking or food throwing at our bus. And the goats... I won't even tell you what I've seen on that end, but ask me sometime and I'll share.

This last week we went to Nazaret to spend time at a center called Women-At-Risk. This is a ministry that rescues women out of prostitution and gives them training (mostly in baking skills) so they can support themselves and their children without having to go back to prostitution. In Ethiopia, women are considered second class citizens, and if they have no husband, there is often little work they can do, so many turn to prostitution. This ministry gives them hope, a second chance, and completely exemplifies Christ’s love. The center provides counseling for the women as well, but the center can only take 11 women at a time because of the lack of counselors. We were told that there are about 5,000 prostitutes in this one town. 5,000. And they can only help 11 at a time.

We began our week by taking a tour of the compound and meeting the women and their children. The women come during the day and bring their kids, and then they leave before dinner and go back to their homes. The typical stay at the compound is 9 months. The center owns a café in town and many of the graduates of the program work in the café. There were about 10 children there, ranging in age from 2 years to about 12 years old. They stay at the compound during the day, so we were able to spend a lot of time with them along with the women.

Every morning we would meet there and have a devotion with the women, a time of worship (Amharic worship songs are amazing) and then share testimonies. Two women each day would give their testimony and then a few of the Americans would. (I gave my testimony the first day along with another girl from our team) I loved the mornings there, it was a beautiful time to hear stories of what God has done and how he has changed lives. Our American testimonies didn’t even come close to the trauma that these women have experienced, but the wonder of it all is that regardless of who was sharing about their life, He is the main character, always at work and weaving experiences together to show His glory. His redeeming power was apparent…for both Ethiopians and Americans.

It was a blessing for these women get up in front of us, and share of their past…and there was often not a dry eye among us (or them). We heard the women tell stories of being abused daily by their husbands, or being raped by their employers, or becoming pregnant and being kicked out of their home. We heard stories of their ‘previous’ life, where they were angry, evil (one woman said she had a knife that she used to threaten people with, claiming there were evil spirits inside of her), afraid, alone, and doing things they never thought they would.

But we also heard stories of grace, unconditional love, of meeting their Savior…and freedom from bondage. It was bittersweet. Such pain, trauma and abuse that they experienced…but such wonderful love that was victorious in their life. Every one of the women ended their story proclaiming the goodness of God, of His love for them, and how powerfully He has worked in their life. And to watch them worship? Unbelievable. Such joy on their face singing to the Lord, their love for Him so apparent. They often cried in their worship, no doubt thankful for the One who redeemed them from the life they once lived apart from Him.

Our week consisted of learning about these women and just loving on them. I got to wash their feet and paint their nails...they loved when we did this! We took pictures of them and made frames that they could take home and printed out their pictures right there. We did crafts with the kids, played a lot of games, and I even learned how to cook injere. We baked a lot with them and even played ping pong...they are really good at it!

It was an amazing week and I am so thankful that I met them, hearing their stories made me fall in love with the Lord even deeper...who doesn't want that? Please continue to pray for our team, we need them and feel them. And please pray for the people we are ministering to, the Lord is at work!!

To end this blog, I'll fill you in on some fun stories so far...

Highlights of the week:

- After lunch one day we were walking outside and a little beggar boy attached himself to me, promising that whatever he gave me he would share with the other little boy that appeared out of nowhere and was now walking next to me. They were incredibly persistent but we had been told by our team leader not to give anything to beggars. So as I walked onto our bus the first little boy continued to stay outside of it, calling out to me. I went to sit down and looked out the window at him…and he was standing there, with a sweet look on his face…giving me the middle finger.

- Internet access is not always available, and when it is, the word ‘slow’ doesn’t begin to describe it. A few of us, along with a translator, walked to an Internet café to try to get online (our efforts were fruitless and frustrating), and as we were making the walk back a little beggar girl came up to me going “You, you…Yes, You!” I was impressed she knew English so I looked down at her (somewhat of a no-no because if you give them any attention they don’t leave you alone). She looked up at me with her big eyes and said, in broken English, “You, give..me…money!” I looked back and said, “Uhh, no.” She tugged on my sleeve, so I looked down at her and she said, in the greatest Italian accent, “But I luv-a you.” I patted her head and said, “I luv-a you too…but I’m not giving you any money.”

- The food here is, umm, interesting. Yeah, let’s stick with that…interesting. We’ve eaten at our hotel’s restaurant for almost every meal, and let’s just say the majority of the team has now defaulted to ordering a side of rice and soup. We like to call some of the meat ‘mystery’, because we legitimately don’t know what its made of. Very often, if someone asks another team member what they ordered/what they are eating, the response is often “I dunno, some kind of meat”. The sweet Ethiopian people seem to try to be like America, but they often miss the mark just a bit…we’ve passed a Burger Qeen (trying to do the opposite of Burger King, but spelling Queen wrong), an Olives Garden, on a menu for breakfast they call Cornflakes, Cornflex, on a salad you can get dressing and ‘crutones’, and for dinner one night Jeremiah got the “Chicken Gordon Blu”, but after much digging and cutting, it was discovered there was not a single trace of chicken in his meal....and he still doesn’t know what the meat was that he ate.

- The air pollution here is incredible. I accidentally opened my mouth one time while riding a very tiny car (see picture provided….it was super small, like a clown car) and inhaled something that sent me coughing for a long time. Also, a few days ago, I discovered the joy of black boogers. Everything we (I’m saying this happens as a team, seems less embarrassing) blow out of our nose is black because of what we breathe in. Pray for my lungs ;-)

- Our translators went out at night while we were in Nazaret. I begged them to take me with, I wanted to see the night life of the city, you can't blame me, right?! However, white Americans stick out like a sore thumb, and we are constantly stared at. So as I asked them to take me with, our translator Nati looked at me and said, "No, we can't take you with us...because you will cause a crowd because you are strange." I gave him a hurt look and he goes, "I mean strange looking." That didn't make me feel any better.

So I'm in Africa!

So I’m in Africa! And I already met the little boy I want to adopt. Aaaand I’m not even kidding. Some might blame it on the jet-lag-induced exhaustion I’ve been experiencing since I arrived. Some might chalk it up to just being crazy…sometimes I am. Some might say I’m being dramatic (who, me?). I don’t drink the water here so you can’t blame it on that. But I have always, always, for as long as I can remember, had a heart for Africa and a heart for adoption from Africa. So put those two heart thingies together and you get a girl in a country she’s dreamed about, surrounded by orphans who don’t have a home, and you shouldn’t be surprised.

The trip, already, has been incredible. Stinkin’ incredible. I met up with my new team (Danielle, Katy, Stefanie, Emma, Jeremiah, Funmi, Derrek, Amanda, Eric, Elizabeth, and Michelle) at JFK airport, after having an 8 hour layover there before our next flight. We boarded the flight to Dubai and spent the next 13 hours falling asleep with our mouths wide open, eating more food than we had ever seen served on a plane, and playing around with the individual tv’s we had before us that had a bunch of new movies on it. Michelle and I convinced Eric to watch “He’s Just Not That Into You”, you know, to get in touch with his sensitive side before our adventure. The fact that he also watched “Twilight” after that is no fault of ours. Once we got to Dubai we were taken to our hotel and after settling in, decided to take a 2 hour bus tour of the city. The one thing realized after that 3 hour tour (the bus drivers didn’t seem to care about time frame) was that Dubai doesn’t do anything mediocre. Every single sight we saw was bigger, taller and prettier than the one before. We stopped at the beach and I was able to swim in the Arabian Sea. Ok, I put my feet in it, but still. I then proceeded to take some really awkward pictures with 2 other foreign guys on the tour. They didn’t speak much English but somehow managed to convince me to stand in their pictures with them.

We got on our flight to Ethiopia the next morning, and it took us almost 4 hours by plane to get here. But we were just excited to finally be in Africa!! We have been staying for a few days at a guest house and have already adjusted to the usual state of life when in a country such as this. The electricity goes off about every other day (eating dinner with the team by candlelight is actually fun), you don’t flush the toilet unless absolutely necessary (if you know the phrase “if it’s yellow keep it mellow…if its…”, you will catch my drift), and you don’t drink the water…ever. We have been, in all seriousness, absolutely exhausted. Yesterday the entire team took a 3 hour nap in the afternoon, sleeping until almost 7 pm, then we still went to bed around 11 pm for the night. We have desperately needed sleep! The Lord has been good to provide it to us!

We have visited a few orphanages already and are preparing to head to a town called Nazaret tomorrow to work at a hospital. I’ll post more soon, but so far this is all I have time for!! Much love to you all!!

~ellen

It's 8 am and I leave in an hour for the trip. I'm exhausted already :-) This last week has been a whirlwind. Trying to get ready to live in a country I've never been, trying to see as many people as I can before I leave, and seeking the Lord fervently. Truth be told I was entirely overcome by emotion last night. It was a great mixture of things, but nonetheless, I was overcome. I am excited to go, yet nervous. Anticipating great things, yet still giving into fear. But through it all I have been surrendered (even though I have to keep telling Him/reminding myself that I am) to the Lord. So I just know its going to be ok. Please pray as I have been, that His will would be done, and that He would receive much glory from this trip.

Blessings,
E