Harbu visit- the site of burned church

Thursday, August 27

Our travels today took us to the village of Harbu which is a few miles up the road from the Yerer Preaching center and the market place. Today was market day so it was full of food, animals and people. They were butchering meat by the roadside waiting for people to buy the cut they wanted. What they were butchering? Beef, lamb and goats. 

Again we left the van and took off over the hill and down the valley. It was a 2 mile walk there. We meet with the congregation members for 1 hour. We had a great talk about differences between cultures. The parents only asked us to pray for two things: the church would grow and the kids do well in school. Like all parents they wanted their children to be successful and have it better than they have it. 

Many of the single families are sponsored by HMCHA. 

This church and community experiences daily opposition from the witch doctor and the Copic Christians. The church has a guard that locks the church and sleeps in it at night to protect it. Three years ago the original church was set a fire while a service was going on and everyone escaped. We visited this village on our last visit. 

We prayed for these people and played with the kids. We were told by the social worker/evangelist that these kids have no toys to play with. So we gave them all our toys- balls and flying saucers. 

It was a very satisfying day! 

Holes dug and an airport run

Wednesday, August 26

This morning we headed back to the community center to supervise our hole digging! The holes were dug well and quickly with a pick axe and shovel by 5 Ethiopians.  It was amazing to see them dig in the heavy wet soil.  

While they were digging, we played with the kids.  All of them loved the balls and running. The area is large enough to so we can divide up into sections so all can play. At times we had to break up a fight over something. Then we broke out the crayons and paper. It was surprising how they sat on the grass and colored for 30 minutes. There was some excellent drawers. Each child was so proud of their masterpiece and wanted their pic taken.  They love it when you take a pic of them and they want to see it. 

At noon we left the site and headed to Addis.  We had couple of stops to make- a Christian bible bookstore for Bibles and a coffee run. We had an excellent dinner at a sports bar and then left a team member at the airport to return to the USA. We will miss Micah! 

Visiting Dire

Tuesday, August 25

We started out for our journey to Dire . Dire is on the northwest corner of Addis in the Turkish Industrial park. But to avoid traffic of the big city we took the "back roads there. Because everyone has the right-a-away to the roads traveling is challenging to say the least! The roads are full of cows, horses, goats, sheep and donkeys. So one is always honking the horns, weaving in the road and trying to avoid the bumps in the roads. At times it is like a three ring circus trying to drive. The animals graze the sides of the roads so they are always see something looks greener on the other side! It takes time to drive here.

Once we got to Dire, we visited some sponsored children and their parent. We had another coffee ceremony and they popped popcorn for us. They added a little sugar to it went it was hot. It tasted great! We were blessed by our visit with the families. We were able to see how valuable a sponsorship is to a family. 

It was a long day- we spend 11 hours in the van or with the families. 

Visiting the new community center

Monday, August 24

Our morning was spend at this site where we walked it with the blueprints for the buildings. It is about 3 miles from the bridge site. It is a sloping piece of land overlooking the river and hills. A beautiful site. 

So we divided up in groups . Some played with the kids and others marked the sites for digging to be done the next day. While the negotiations too a while and the locals refused to do it for no less than 200 dollars. To make a long story short, we found someone else to do it but not until Wedesday 

We played with the kids, painted fingernails, and had a soccer game. Right before we left we did the drama .  

From this site we walked to the bridge for our lunch- peanut butter sandwiches and trail mixture. After a peaceful lunch, we did a baptism of a team member. It was neat because there was animals all around us. 

Yerer preaching Center and Sunday services

Saturday, August 22

It was our mission today was to teach teenagers about making healthy choices. So we went to the Yerer Preaching Center which is very hard to get to in the rainy season. We drove for an hour then got out of the van and walked to it. The natives say it is a 45 min walk while it took us Americans 1 hour 45 minutes. It was a very taxing walk which was up and down hills, valleys and over little streams. We had mud all over our shoes and pants! As we walked there our group grow large because we had kids join us. They helped us and practiced their English. We heard all about their schooling and dreams.

The walk was hard but very beautiful. The countryside is very green and lush with all the rain. The soil is  very heavy and sticks to our shoes. The farmers are planting their wheat, teff, tomatoes, cabbage and chickpeas. Their methods are very similar to biblical times- oxen, one shovel plow, hand seeding and spraying. It is not the productive ways of the American farmers! We have seen two tractors here but nothing to do with people. It was used for hauling people in Addis. 

We were greeted at the preaching center with drums and kids singing for us. We listened to their program and did ours. We were amazed who attended- young to old! The topics were:

Good Godly decision making

Sharing Gods love

Financial decisions

The talks were well received and they even asked a question or two. 

After play time with the kids and giving our drama play, we headed back to the van. Yes it was over the hill and down the valley. It was not as wet because the sun dried up some water. We found out it was a 8 mile hike for us!  We celebrated with pizza!

Sunday 

We visited a Lutheran church in town. It was a wonderful service which was 3 1/2 hours. It was a service with lots of singing, praying, two offerings and a very loud sermon. The preacher had the speakers on loud and kept everyone awake. The theme of the sermon wS the church need to be cleansed of their sin and to be holy. He spoke with passion and energy. There was 300 people there. Afterwards we had lunch at a local restaurant which served traditional dishes. All of us had a"sheep" dish which was excellent. We think we had goat.

Revisited the completed bridge

Friday, August 21, 2015

All of those that had there luggage were given the morning off to rest and get our bodies on the time zone! The others went to the airport to get the "lost" bags. All bags got here and everyone was pleased that they could change clothes! 

In the afternoon we drove to the bridge site to visit the completed bridge. It was a very muddy walk since it had rained the night before. Once we got to the bridge we walked across the suspension bridge which was full of mud and rocks left by the animals and shoes. I was very moved with gratitude that the bridge was available for animals and people so they have an alternative way to school and the market. No lives have been lost in the last year. Praise the Lord!

On our way back to the bus we played games with kids and adults that live by where we parked it. I am amazed on who the kids and adults love to throw a ball, football, or play soccer with us..normally they don't have play things and kids work in the fields and tend to the grazing of the animals. 

Once we got back to the hotel we walked next door to the shoeshine vendors for them to clean our shoes. It cost us 7 bier to get the cleaned which is 40 cents. 

After a good supper we headed to bed for a good night sleep.

Ethiopia here we are!

August 20, 2015

We arrived in Ethiopia yesterday morning. Our flight was a good one and we processed though customs and received our visa's without much work except for standing in line to allow them time to hand process the visas. It is very hard as an American to understand a cash and limited technology society. We are so used to everything fast. We went to pick up our bags and found out that most of our luggage did not make our flight from Toronto due to our being late. We got three out of four bags but it was Mike's with his clothes. The luggage is in Toronto and to be here tomorrow morning. Time to be graceful that we have clothes and shoes to wear! 

We visited the HMCHA office and were treated to the traditional coffee ceremony and popcorn! This is my favorite and the coffee is wonderful. They roast the beans over an open fire then grind the beans very fine and place it in boiling ceramic pot. The allow it to sit for 10 minutes and u have espresso coffee. Mmmmmmmm...... Then back to the hotel for dinner and early bed call.

After a good night sleep, we were off to visit the community building site that will be build later this year. We were able to meet the neighbors and played with the kids. We had balls and frisbees with us. Most of the time the kids don't play or have toys. They were fascinated with digital cameras and phones. They got great enjoyment our of having their photo taken and then seeing it right away. We performed a Christian drama for them. After this we walked to two homes that were the Christian leaders for the area where we had coffee again and we were able to pray for them. It was a super day. 

Above are two photos from the coffee ceremony.