Day One: Addis Ababa, Ehiopia

We arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at about 4pm. The flight was great. No problems as all. Once we arrived, we breezed through customs and met the guys that came to pick us up. We piled our luggage on top, piled in 2 cars and headed to the Ethiopian Guest.

The Guest Home is so nice, significantly nicer than I expected and the people that work here are wonderful! We actually eve have internet access, but it is SO slow. Since we lost a day because of our flight delay we have changed up our schedule a bit. We were supposed to be going to Kidmia in Wosillo today, but it looks like we will be heading out there Wednesday evening, spending the night there and staying there all day Thursday.

I have one really cool story from today...

As we drove to the Guest Home, a few of us noticed a man on the side of the road that had collapsed. Some people were around him trying to help him walk. It was really a sad site. Once we arrived at the Guest Home, we starting brining our bags upstairs, meeting together, taking pictures, etc. Shortly after, we noticed the sick man was across the street with about 4 other men around him. I could see from the balcony that they were trying to give him water. He tried to walk, but immediately collapsed again. He was obviously extremely sick.

The guys decided to head out there to pray for him. One of the guys on our team, Dave, is actually a surgeon. A few minutes later they showed back up at the Guest Home carrying the sick man. Amanda and I went outside to check out what was going on. Nathan, another guy on our team, told Amanda that they actually knew the sick kid. He was the bus driver’s aid and assisted them during their entire trip last year. Can you believe that? Out of the millions of people in Ethiopia, the random sick guy happened to not be random at all. He knew exactly who we were. It was even more miraculous because he doesn’t work for the bus driver any more so had absolutely no reason to be anywhere near the Guest Home. Dave thought he probably had appendicitis and had been sick for a while. He was in terrible pain and had a very high fever. Amanda gave the staff here at the Guest Home some money to make sure he got the necessary treatment he needed and a few members of the staff drove him to the hospital.

Normally his man would have just died on the street. Although the hospitals here are not very good, we’re hoping and praying he will recover. Maybe the reason our plane was delayed was so that we would be here at the exact moment that he was across the street. If we would have arrived last night, we would not have been here to help him. We would have been out doing other things.

I’ll try to update some pictures later, but the internet here is EXTREMELY show. Everyone is well, but very tired. It’s 8:45pm and we’re all preparing for bed.

Tomorrow we head to the AWA Transitional Home and then to play soccer with street kids. Wednesday will be a very full day. Hopefully I’ll be able to update again tomorrow.

Blessings to all.