Day 4

Note: This has not been proofread at all!! Please forgive typos. Also, we have very rare and unreliable internet access and it's extremely slow I'm not able to get any pictures up at this time. Thanks! :)

It’s Friday at 1:30pm here in Africa and I’m sitting on an airplane leaving Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and headed into Entebbe, Uganda. We’ve been travelling around like crazy and haven’t had internet for the past 2 ½ days so I’m trying to catch up while I have some time. I’m sad to leave Ethiopia. I have fallen in love with this country and its people. In many ways it feels like I’ve been here a very long time and in other ways it feels like we arrived yesterday.

I’ve been processing lots of emotions and spiritual questions over the past few days. Seeing so many orphans can be very overwhelming at times. It is so hard to comprehend how so many children can be fatherless. It think is especially difficult for us as Americans because most of us are not surrounding by orphans in our daily lives. I’m the kind of person that likes to fix problems for people. There is no way on earth I can fix the problem of 143 million orphans so this becomes a very challenging task for me. I want to rescue each child. I want to love each child. The reality, however, is that I can’t. What I can do is make difference in the lives of the child or children that God puts in my path. I can’t pretend I don’t know there is an orphan crisis in this world. I can’t become apathetic toward an epidemic that is far too large for me to comprehend. I am responsible now. I am responsible for the things that I have seen. I will one day be held accountable for what I did with the things I have seen. But I’m not responsible for solving the problem. I’m responsible for listening to God and obeying Him. His Word tell us over and over how much He loves orphans and that we, as Christians, are called to take care of them. I have definitely been challenged during this trip and I challenge you to ask yourself what are you doing for the orphans of this world.

So after arriving at the Negesh Lodge in the pitch black and pouring rain the night before, we awoke to a peaceful clear morning greeted by the sound of hyenas and monkeys. Yes, I did say hyenas and monkeys. The weather was so crisp and the air was clean, a welcome change from the exhaust-filled streets of the city. Our lungs thanked us. The Negash Lodge was wonderful. We all stayed in perfectly constructed huts spread out along a stone path way. It almost felt like somewhere you would stay for summer camp, but way cooler. Monkeys were running around and seemed to not be bothered by us. After breakfast we piled in the cars to begin another 1 ½ drive to Kidmia.

The countryside of Ethiopia is such a sharp contrast to the city. Just about everything is different. Most of the homes are huts created out of tree branches, manure, and straw. Electricity is available, but only in certain areas. The roads are not paved and are in such a terrible state, we even had to leave one of our cars behind in the middle of the journey because it wouldn’t survive the trip. We’ve coined the term “POA” which stands for Part of the Adventure. Whenever something crazy happens, we all just say “POA!”

Kidmia Orphanage was so wonderful. As far as orphanages go, this seems to be an amazing one. It has pretty nice facilities and tons of rooms for kids to run and play. This orphanage is very young so there are only about 30 kids in it right now. It is funded by Gladney Adoption Agency I believe. I’m not 100% sure about this, but I know Gladney is the agency contracted to do adoptions there. The kids were amazing! They told us that currently none of these children have families and all are available for adoptions. We played with these kids, painted varnish on the pavilion and had a great time. We tried to teach them the game “Simon Says.” It was hilarious, especially since Amanda’s husband’s name is Simon. We had him lead it and then they a few kids tried to lead. One kid in particular, Abraham, who was about 8 or 9 years old, did a great job. He was an amazing kid. I would have loved to take him home as well as Selam and Habibah. Actually, I could have taken them all home!

We stayed at Kidma most of the day, and then began the long drive back to the guesthouse. On our way back, we had to stop to pick up the car that we left on the side of the road. Holly wrote a little snipit about what happened when we did this. Here is what she had to say:

A Story from the road…A crushed “sole” by Holly Willis

Driving from Gaunchir back to Addis yesterday afternoon we stopped to drop 3 people off at the car we left behind when we entered a “rough road”.

When we got back to the car about 8 hours later there were swarms of people and kids “waiting”... The reason: when we left the car earlier in the day, we had given 2 or 3 kids a pair of shoes.

The kids had apparently told the whole village of the gifts and called for their friends and families to wait by this small, red car for the Americans to return.

We actually had about 100 pairs of shoes in the trunk to give away (thank you Soles for Soles!)…Though, 100 pairs was generous, it was nowhere near enough. Many children were turned away and the anticipation of our arrival turned out to be a disappointment for some.

In particular, a boy about 6 or 7 came to me wearing an extremely old and worn pair of men’s Nike soccer sandals that had the back end cut off so they sort-of fit. I told him we had nothing left and reached to squeeze his hand…He bent down and took off the shoes as if to show me again how tattered and much, much too big his shoes were. Again, I had to say I had none left to give. Two huge raindrop tears rolled down his cheeks and he walked away. More than 2 tears streamed down my face, too, and I walked back to the van to continue back to Addis. Along the way I prayed that somehow soon the boy would get new shoes, and that he would feel God’s love and peace in a way that was much more satisfying than even the nicest pair of new shoes. Yes, this story evokes a twinge of sadness, but we know in our heart that God’s love is far bigger than anything tangible from the back of a little red car.