africa: day 4

Tuesday 11.10.09

Kale Heywet Church has identified 29 families where one or both parents is HIV positive. Since these families have been outcast from society, the church is helping support them by getting them involved in various projects. Two of the projects we got to see and hear about are a garden and a chicken farm. The garden has already been planted, and the families tend it and sell the produce to support their families. The chicken farm has the building for the coop, but no chickens yet.

Lameck (Fountain of Life/World Orphans) & some of the women

We met the most perfect and adorable baby on earth, and I wanted to bring her home.

Mary

After visiting the site, we visited the homes of some of the women we had just met. Tiny, 1-room homes that were so dark because they had one light bulb (if that). No toilets. But often the walls were decorated with magazine clippings, pictures from newspapers - anything to make them more "homey".

...

Our group got back to the designated meeting spot for lunch a bit early, so we had a little bit of time to walk around. We had been laughing about how much fun it would be to go on a mule-driven cart, so we paid a couple drivers who weren't busy and went for an approximately 2-minute long ride, but it was awesome! Here's our driver, trying to act like he doesn't love me & isn't totally thrilled that I wanted a picture of him.

We also went inside a little shop...

After lunch, we went out for macchiatos with the pastor and then had a strategic meeting at Kale Heywet to discuss the vision of the church and how Charis Foundation can partner with them in their efforts. It was just so cool to see the global church at work and experience the Gospel in action. After our meeting, we said goodbye to everyone in Woliso.

Then we drove back to our guest house in Addis Ababa where we had homemade pizza for dinner! We packed our stuff in preparation for Kenya and ended another day in Africa.

africa: day 3

Monday 11/9 - Woliso, Ethiopia

Started the day with an "egg sandwich" for breakfast and of course, an amazing macchiato. After breakfast, we went to church for a medical clinic. The church had organized the whole thing and was offering it to the community for free. There were so many people, and by the end of the day we discovered the doctors had been able to see 200 people.

Front of the line.

While people were waiting, we tried to talk to some of them and did a yarn bracelet craft. We started out showing it to the children, but women and even men were quickly interested.

I met a girl named Tegis who was waiting with her grandmother. She was 11 years old and spoke a tiny, tiny bit of English, but we managed to communicate a few things. She was such a beautiful, sweet girl. As we were talking, she gently pulled me out of the sun into the shade, made me take her place on a bench and stood at my side with her hand resting on my shoulder as she talked to me, periodically stroking my hair or my arm.

Tegis & her grandmother

Ethiopian culture is very intimate - there is no sense of "personal space". Men will hold hands while they walk with a friend, or even just rest their arms on one another while they talk. I'm sort of a "huggy" person, so I really loved this, but I could imagine it might be a struggle for an American man to get used to!

We took a quick break for lunch and continued doing the same thing throughout the afternoon, only playing sports instead of doing crafts.

As the medical clinic was underway and we were entertaining children and teenagers, contractors were busy continuing the construction of the children's home (infrastructure seen in above picture).

I met two little girls named Jitu and Fayva who spoke excellent English. I talked with them pretty extensively. A few of their school teachers came over and began trying to teach me and Sara the Amharic alphabet.

The med clinic closed down, and a few kids straggled to continue playing "football".

That evening we took Pastor and his wife out to dinner. I ordered "Woliso Chicken" - amazing. It was sort of like fried chicken with gravy, but then again, not really. We returned home, did a quick debrief & then turned in for the night.

welcome back...

... to the year 2009.

Apparently I was more jet-lagged than I even thought, as my previous header had taken us back to '06...

africa: day 1 & 2

I am neither caught up on grading nor laundry, but here's the start of our trip... I took over 1600 pictures, so you're just going to get a sampling.

Our team consisted of:

-Kevin & Janni (founders of Charis Foundation)

-Jamin (their son)

-Travis (his friend)

-Ellie (Director of Outreach at our church, Sara's mom)

-Sara & Dave (our friends, youth directors at our church)

-Scott (World Orphans, trip leader)

-Me & Doug

~

Friday 11/6 - Depart from Detroit @ 5:55pm.

Saturday 11/7 - Arrive in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia @ 10:10pm (6hr time change).

This is the girls' room in the guest house we stayed at while in Addis:

Sunday 11/8 - We left early in the morning to drive 2 hours to Woliso for church. Here is my first taste of an Ethiopian morning (from inside the van):

On the way, we stopped at a little cafe thing and I had my first taste of Ethiopian macchiatos. Sweet, sugary bliss. Ethiopia has the best macchiatos in the entire world.

We arrived in Woliso and attended church at the Woliso Kale Heywet Church. Before church started, we tried to get to know some of the children playing outside. The native language of Woliso is Amharic... there are 33 letters in their alphabets with 7 vowel sounds each, which totals basically 264 letters. So yes, communication was a little interesting. We got really good at improvised sign language.

Scott (who works with World Orphans and led our trip) gave the message while Pastor Teshali (the pastor of WKH) interpreted. The church has about 1500 attenders each Sunday. Here's their choir singing.

And here's the children's home that they're building on the property.

After church, we went to the hotel where we were staying. Well, "hotel" - it served its purpose. The bathrooms were really interesting because the shower was just a tiled spot in the corner - with no curtain, which resulted in water everywhere after each shower. We got lunch and then visited two church plants that WKH has started. Both were literally in the middle of fields and would be able to hold about 50 Americans comfortably. The first church regularly holds 300 each Sunday, and the second, 200.

Pretty much everywhere we went, children flocked to us...

Then we went to the location where they're going to build a Bible school.

We went back to the church and played with kids.

That evening the women of the church made us an authentic Ethiopian meal. The rolled up things are "injera" - moist, sponge bread that tastes like vinegar. The other dishes are different sauces for the injera - usually spicy beef or sheep. It wasn't too bad, but I don't think I'd be able to eat it for every meal the way Ethiopians do.

After dinner, we had a "coffee ceremony" - our friend Sisai (not sure if I spelled it right - it's pronounced "see-sigh") roasted coffee beans and everything! We had a bonfire with sugared popcorn and barbequed lamb. The elders of the church were all there, and we sang songs and danced around the fire - it was so funny to see these reserved men loosen up and just "hang out".

Afterward, we went back to our hotel, worked on preparing crafts for the next day, discussed theology, showered & crashed.

africa tales & pictures...

... are forthcoming, once I get over the jet lag and catch up on grading and laundry.

For now, all I know is that my heart is missing 37 enormous pieces.