Day 6 Sunday 6.26.11

Today was pretty chill. Thank goodness! I woke up with a sore throat and weakness throughout my whole body. I think I must have caught something from one of the children at little AHOPE yesterday. My best guess is that it was from Joseph (pronounced Yoseph), the little 5 month old baby I held for a good bit yesterday. I think it’s a small price to pay to feel a little under the weather in order to spread some love and care to a baby that needs it.

After breakfast we all got ready to go to church. Today was the first day I was able to actually shave my legs. What a luxury it was! My legs feel awesome! It’s rare when we have running water. For church we went to our translator Sammy’s church. Surafel, Kat, Tiffany, and their friend sammy came with us as well. I’ve noticed there are a lot of Sammys here... and Selams. Selam is also their word for hello. Goodbye is chaio.

Church was wonderful! I didn’t understand a lick of it besides Hallelujah and Amen. Sammy sings in his church with a choir behind him. He’s the worship leader. I looked around the room watching all the people praising and singing to the same God that I praise and know. Such a beautiful sight and experience. Seeing worship in another culture is absolutely beautiful. Worship was about an hour long and then the sermon was about and hour and a half. A woman was the speaker and preached on 2 Kings 4:1-7 and then Acts 4:?. Since I don’t understand Amharic, I just read all of 2 Kings 4. I don’t think I realized or really knew the whole story about Elijah and how much of a tool he was for God’s work here on earth. I need to do some more research on him.... note to self.

During church I started to feel worse getting chills and aches throughout my body. After church was over some of the little kids came up to us (who weren’t already on the bus) and gave us hugs. That is one thing over here that I love. The people here are SO affectionate. You will see men holding hands together and women holding hands together. Holding hands is a sign of friendship. Pals. Best buds. It’s also apparently good luck to them to touch Americans (or foreingi sp?, which means white foreigner).... or at least among the children. That’s why they come and swarm around us when we visit the orphanages. Of course that’s not the only reason why they swarm us. They crave love and to be held and touched.

When we all got on the bus we headed to a restaurant called Antique. I wasn’t very hungry since I wasn’t feeling well. I was in my denial phase of admitting that something was wrong with me, but knew I was heading down south quick. I was quiet most of the day just for that fact. After lunch we got coffee at Kaldi’s, where we went our second day we arrived here. It was packed! A few of us wanted to go to an internet cafe afterwards because the times we had been able to stop by one, our time was rushed. So some of us were dropped off at the house while some of us went to the internet cafe. It was good for me to be able to write at least the rest of day one into my blog for everyone to be “updated” and at the same time not be rushed. I felt as thought I had accomplished a lot.

We came back to the house afterwards and chilled out. A bunch of us piled in the living room chatting and I went to take a nap in hopes to perk up some from this sickness. By this time everyone knew I was sick. Later Danielle woke me up, because Summer (the woman in charge of Project 61 in Korah) was coming to talk to us about what we were going to be doing this next week. Summer has been here for exactly one year. She moved here with her husband and three little boys, to help with the orphans in Korah. They are from Oklahoma.

Before they got here we devised a plan with the whoopie cushion for when Summer got here. Again, we pull out the whoopie cushion. It’s been a big hit with the team and we have yet to bring them to the children. Ha! We even went through several practice runs with our final plan, which was to have me let one go under my blanket and then rush “to the bathroom” and let a few more loud one’s rip in the hallway. When Summer came she brought 3 other girls with her. More audience for the show I guess. They all introduced themselves and a little bit about how they ended up doing what they do. Summer went into explaining the orphanage/school called Project 61 and by the time she was almost done I was getting glances from everyone around me wondering when I was going to put on the show.

I finally got to an appropriate moment and let some air out while I coughed.... Heh heh! It sounded LEGIT! and rushed to the “restroom”. They looked a bit like they didn’t know whether to laugh or ignore it. Awkward!.... and HILARIOUS! Michael tried to explain that I had some bad milk or something. I think they were a bit concerned. Mission Accomplished.

Day 5 Saturday 6.25.11

I woke up to my alarm today with chiming church bells. I told Michael I would go on a run with him before breakfast but the water still wasn't on. We didn't want to get sweaty and stinky if we weren't going to be able to shower. So instead we slept a tad bit later and then went to get eggs for our pancakes we were going to make for b'fast, and also for a girl on our team that is allergic to gluten. She can't eat anything with wheat, oats, barley...etc. and there is a LOT of it in everything we tend to make. It's really hard to keep her in mind when planning meals, so we usually get her something separate. It's kind of annoying but I understand because she can't help it. I'm sure it's really annoying for her as well.

We also have two vegetarians on the trip which I got super annoyed at because I would hear them every once in awhile make snide comments if we forgot to take that fact in consideration, and had no intention of excluding them of meals. I think this is something that I struggle with because I've never really had to deal with anyone that has been a vegetarian and easily forgot that fact about them when I cooked dinner last night....

Anyways, Michael, Danielle, and I went to the market down the "street" to get eggs to make pancakes for breakfast. It was so nice because it was a chance to get outside the house gate walls and walk around without a bus taking us where ever we go. It was good to be in the rawness of the everyday life. Paved roads are a rare sight....except for the main city roads.... and we're in the capital of Ethiopia!

Danielle and I helped cook breakfast and Julia made the coffee..... and holy crap it was strong coffee too! :/ Since the water was still off we piled all our dirty dishes in the sink and left it while we headed out to the bus for the day. We went to a Bazaar this morning which is a market that the Women At Risk sell some of their goods. It was at the Kings College in Addis that Sammy (another one of our translators) goes to. Sammy is almost done there studying seminary. He is super sweet with a shy nature about him.

At the market I bought a beaded bracelet that caught my eye. I usually don't care for market beaded jewelry but this one caught my eye with it's color combo and design. They had some pretty good stuff! I also got a sling purse that is reversible. One side is black and the other side is striped with thick white and blue stripes. The material is flowy.....loved it! I don't know what it is but it feels really good and it was only 55 Birr (55 Birr divided by 17 = U.S. Dollar amount) Everything is pretty cheap here. We looked for the Women At Risk area for quite awhile and never found it. As we went back to the middle area, which is where we started, we ran into Barrett (the founder of Mocha Club) and he helped us find the Women At Risk room.

Barrett is one of the coolest dudes I've met. He is so fun and outgoing and love talking to him. I asked him if they had any jobs available with Mocha Club but there weren't any openings at the moment. Oh well.... just curious! He said although they don't have any openings he still loves to have that conversation with trip members. So we talked a little bit and we are totally going to chat it up more when we meet up with him again. Even though there is not a job opening at the moment, it will just be really nice to have someone to talk to about what I hope to do for a living in the future. He has a passion for helping others and making the world a better place and it will just be good to talk to someone with similar passions. Not that there isn't anyone else I know that has that same heart... but... I don't know.. It'll just be good.

After shopping around at the Bazaar we headed to Little AHOPE (I think for the last time?) for about an hour and a half, and had a scavenger hunt for the kids. While they were having their scavenger hunt, I snuck into the toddler room to spend a little more time with them. Again one of the children came straight up to me to pick him up. It was the same baby that laid that big kiss on my cheek yesterday. He was so precious. He sat on my lap for awhile just chilling out, got down to play with something, and then another child came and sat on my lap. The cycle continued, and eventually one of the girls in there who came from Germany to volunteer passed this 5 month old precious baby for me to hold. Oh my gosh! It was the sweetest and most sad thing today. This little baby had the snots and could hardly breath. It was having a hard time breathing and felt a little feverish. Poor thing, there was a moment where I couldn't hold him anymore because of how sad it was, but then I had to remind myself that the best thing for that child is not to be sad for him, but to love on him and hold him.

(5 mo. baby Joseph)

After awhile, I handed him over to Danielle and went outside to play with the other kids. Eventually, I ended up sitting next to a boy named Emanuel who is 6 years old. He was naming the colors of my bracelet and teaching me to Amharic words of them too. I just sat there next to him just he and I watching the other kids play out in the driveway area and play yard. I think he was just enjoying sitting there with the comfort of my arm around him. We didn't stay but only an hour and a half and headed back to the house to chill out and relax until dinner in which Surafel cooked. It was SO GOOD!

It was traditional Ethiopian food like we had at that restaurant we went to earlier this week. I have noticed a pattern with their food though. It gives me GAS! The kind that hurts! It's really good food, but man! Watch out! I've been writing in my journal since we got back from Little AHOPE, and Christy came to get me for dinner when it was ready. When I came out of my room for dinner I saw some new faces I'd never seen before. Surafel brought over some friends of his including his girlfriend Kat. It was Kat, Tiffany (who is from texas), and another Ethiopian named Sammy (not our translator sammy.). I enjoyed talking to them and really got along with Kat.

After dinner we all sat in the guest house's living room sitting and chatting. Some played the guitar and some kicked the soccer ball around to each other. I had the bright idea of taking out one of the whoopie cushions I brought and hid it under the blanket that was covering me. I waited for a quiet moment to let one rip. Success! Tiffany thought it was Surafel because apparently it's pretty common for him to let one rip, and he was standing up showing some dance moves. HA!

Sitting around awhile we decided to go to the movies further into the city. Surafel and I thought it would be a great idea to bring the whoopie cushion to the theater and use it during a quiet or awkward moment. So we brought it. We ended up seeing "Bad Teacher", and I think we all regretted that decision for many different reasons. Surafel and Kat sat behind me, Alex and Carrie were to my right, and Steve and some others to my left. Kat wanted to use the whoopie cushion to trick Surafel so I snuck it around to her. She ended up not doing it and fell asleep during the movie.

After that we all came back home and crashed.....

Day 4 Friday 6.24.11

The day started out with corn flakes and some kind of chocolate cereal Danielle got at the grocery store the day before. I’m actually a little disappointed in the lack of Ethiopian food we’ve been eating but hopefully that will not be the case as more time goes on. I do know that Su is cooking for us tomorrow night, so I’m really excited about that.

We went back to Big AHOPE to do some more activities with the children. The English lesson went a bit better this time. I was with a group of kids a little older than yesterday and Steve (one of the co-leaders of our team) teamed up with me. We all got in a big circle and kicked/threw a soccer ball around to each person. When each person got the ball they had to answer the question of choice, in a full sentence. The kids that were with me this time were more excited to participate in the activities.

We came back to the guest house to eat lunch and it started to rain outside while we were eating. When we came back to Big AHOPE there was a river of rainwater and mud outside the gate to the orphanage. Thank goodness I had brought rain boots on this trip. As I was stepping on the bus to go to Big AHOPE the translators were pointing and laughing at my rain boots speaking to each other in Amharic (the Ethiopian language). I knew they were making fun of them..... haha.

When we got to Big A. orphanage and saw that river of mud water, two translators Hannah and Selam understood why I was wearing the rain boots. They were both wearing regular shoes and asked to borrow my rain boots after I got into the orphanage. So Christy, who was also wearing rain boots, ran back and forth from the bus to the orphanage carrying my rain boots to Hannah and Selam. HA! Who has the last laugh now! :)

This time we planned on doing centers with the kids instead of doing everything all together. Everything went a lot smoother this time and I think it was great for the kids because the ratio of kids to one of us was a lot better than getting one person to explain the activity and having a lot of helpers afterwards. We decided to incorporate my origami box as one of the centers this time. It went a lot smoother than yesterday because I explained Christy how to do it so that she could help me. It also gave each child a chance to learn how to do it in a small group rather than a rally of kids playing survival of the fittest.

To give you an idea of what these two orphanages look like (little & big AHOPE)....... They king of remind me of the YMCA in Alabaster (my home town in Alabama) minus the pool out back and with additional buildings beside it (all in the same compound) made out of rusty time walls and roofs. It was a very well kept orphanage (is what I had been told by Danielle) compared to the one we will be going to next week. I’m trying to prepare myself in what is to come next week. I was told it is going to be a difficult week. I am preparing to see children naked covered in dirt or mud with runny noses and scabs with only sticks and rusty walls for shelter and having only a mud field to play in. It will be interesting to see how accurate or inaccurate that assumption will be.

After we finished up at Big A. we headed over to Little AHOPE. That was our last time to visit at Big A. I stayed at Little A. with the group for about ten minutes until Su, Danielle and I went to the store to go get food for dinner and the next couple of days. I volunteered to cook dinner for everyone tonight with curry chicken and rice on the menu. One of my favorites to make.

After we got back to Little A. we only had a few minutes left to spend with the children and it looked pretty hectic when we got there. So I snuck into the toddler room which is basically a closet stuffed with colorful baby beds and a little block of crawling space for about 6-7 two year olds and under. When I came in the room and all the little ones saw me, the ones who were able swarmed up to me reaching up with big dark eyes in a look of desperation to be held and loved on. Picking up one, another would cry in disappointment that it didn’t get picked up. Completely heart breaking.

Michael, one of the only males on this trip, Looks like he could pass as Ethiopian. He said that yesterday he went into the toddler room for awhile and some of the babies called him Papa. Oh the starvation for a male figure in their lives! It is so heart breaking knowing what they don’t have, yet heart fulfilling to be able to show these little children love that they deserve if even for just a short while. One of the children that I held in the toddler room pressed his pretty little lips and chubby cheeks to my right cheek and gave me a big long kiss. That was the sweetest moment of the day by far!

After a minute or two he noticed I had a raincoat on and tried to take it off of me so that he could put it on. I helped him out and rolled the sleeves up on his arms to where he could move his arms around. It was so funny because of how huge it looked on him. He giggled at himself in it and soon it became as much as a bad idea as the first attempt of the origami box yesterday. They took demanded turns trying it on. Not very long danielle came in to get me because we were leaving to go back to the guest house and cook dinner. It was sad to leave because I only got to spend about ten minutes with them before we left, but good to know we were coming back tomorrow.

When we got back to the house I pretty much started on preparing dinner in which Michael helped. He was an excellent su chef and it was a lot of fun getting to know him during that time. Some times the kitchen is the best place to get to know people. Michael is 24 and from Oregon, half black half mexican, and has a speech impediment that makes him sound Jamaican or from some other country. It’s a lot of fun hearing him talk and sometimes it takes more concentration than normal to understand what he is saying. He went into the military at age 17 and stayed in for 6 years. He did some college work while in the military. He’s only been out for about 6 months now....I believe. Now he works with mentally retarded people helping them to live life on their own or as best they can and be happy. Michael is a very fun and interesting friend.

Everyone loved dinner and afterwards I took the best hot shower I’ve had since I’ve been here. Probably the first shower since I’ve been here... After my shower we all sat down to talk about the day, our highs and lows, and listen to Michael’s testimony. He had pictures to pass around from back home in which I completely forgot to bring when I share my testimony. After all that, Christy went to take a shower and as soon as she started to rinse the soap out of her hair the water throughout the entire house shut off, leaving her with shampoo all in her hair. It never turned back on..... Welcome to Ethiopia!

Day Three Thursday -6.23.11

Christy and I woke up a bit annoyed at some of our teammates. Two of our teammates came into our room "quietly" leaving the door wide open to the bright lights of the hallway at 4am. They decided that instead of using the shower right by their room, (which worked probably better than the one in our room) that they would use our shower because it looked nicer. Looks can be deceiving. SERIOUSLY?! I AM TIRED! DON'T WAKE US UP FOR STUPID REASONS! I didn't think we were going to be able to fall asleep again but we somehow managed.

After waking up for the day, we all had french toast with nutella, honey, or peanut butter for breakfast. We had our morning devotion together and are going through the book of Mark. Then we all got on the bus and headed to Big AHOPE which are the children with HIV/AIDS 8 years and older. We started with a craft of making pictures out of torn up construction paper. A lot of the children knew a bit of english but you couldn't really tell sometimes because I sensed they didn't enjoy speaking it or like leaning it. Hmmmm..... I don't really know what to do for them with that area of things. I feel as though we are just another group to come in and pass by in a few days, unable to establish solid relationships. Isn't that how Christ is really shared? Relationships? But then again, the woman on the plane. I will always remember that and how God spoke through her to me. I'm afraid of the jadedness of theses children with groups like ours coming in that we will not be much purpose or shine bright for His glory. I think if I had to do this all over again I would just go with one or two other people and focus on one ministry and build relationships with the people. Probably staying longer than a month.

After Big AHOPE we had lunch at a place called Island Breeze. I was debating on what to get and eventually settled on pizza. Danielle who had come to Ethiopia before said that they had really good pizza there. Apparently Ethiopians really like Italians and Italian food. At the restaurant I sat next to Surafel (we call him Su for short). He is one of our translators. This was the first time I really got a chance to talk to him and thoroughly enjoyed it. Su works for TOMS shoes here and manages? the production site here in Ethiopia. It's where they make the shoes that are donated. He has a dry sense of humor and is very sarcastic. He was a lot of fun to talk to, and his favorite T.V. show is 30 Rock. That automatically puts him in my friend box. He also has a beautiful story. Su is 27 and has an adopted daughter who was a product of a rape. His maid was the one who was raped and she didn't want the child so he took her in. What is so beautiful about it is that Su was also a product of a rape. His mother was a maid in his father's house and he raped her. His grandmother (on his dad's side) secretly took her in and took care of them. His mom left and left him with his grandmother and father. He has never met his mother and doesn't even know if she is still alive.

When Su grew older he volunteered with Mother Theresa's hospital and worked with the women that had breast troubles and needed to breast feed their babies. They had trouble breast feeding because of mild build-up making milk clots (i think). Regular breast pumps wouldn't work so Su was the one who had to hand milk these women. He said it was the best job ever! with a mischevious smile on his face. HAHA!! Su has a girl friend from New York. "she's white." Su said. He is definitely a funny character to be around. One of my favorite people.

After lunch we headed to a coffee shop for some awesome Ethiopian coffee. It was like an Ethiopian version of Starbucks, but way better! I got a Machiato.... Delicious! Ethiopia is the birth place of coffee so you know it's good....

Grabbing coffee and getting a little rejuvenated we headed to the next orphanage under the same organization (AHOPE). It was Little AHOPE. These children are all under the age of 8. Many toddlers in the baby room.

Again, all these children are infected with HIV/AIDS. It is very sad when realizing the hard life they have to face, yet as young as they are they don't understand what they have and why... or why they have to live life the way they do. These kids at this particular orphanage lifted my spirits a bit because of their excitement to see us and learn.

We did and English lesson with the kids teaching them the words sit, stand, and jump, getting them to act them out and spell them. It was so fun and refreshing to see their enthusiasm after having to experience almost the complete opposite from the older children at Big AHOPE. As a group they learned these words and then each of us took three children and spent some time with each child individually (sort of) to see and help them with what they just learned.

While I was working with the three kids I grabbed, (or more like they swarmed up to me and grabbed me) there was a kid that came up to me wanting to show me the paper plane he was making. That gave me the idea to make him one of those Chinese origami boxes that are flat and then turn into a box when you blow air into them. He LOVED IT! It was definitely a hit and so much a hit that a swarm of kids came up to me waving paper in my face to make them one too. It became a rally of children around me starving to be the next one to get an origami box. Then it became a violent rally of children... haha... some of the kids were so angry if they weren't next that they would throw their piece of paper down and stomp away yelling.... coming back later to try to be next again. Not much patience in these kids. It was so stressful because of the amount of children fulling and tugging on me, and the fact that I was the only one in our group that knew how to do it.

The rest of the group had to pull me away from these kids to get me back on our bus to go back kto the guest house. We had a little bit of down time when we returned to our resting quarters, which was nice because it was the most down time we had during our whole trip so far. We had some exciting dinner plans to come after we rested up a bit.

For dinner we went to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant. The food was absolutely amazing and we got to watch traditional Ethiopian music and dancing as we ate. SO FUN! We were front and center with the stage they had, and men with instruments I'd never sen before were just jamming away chilling out. Then after awhile a group of men and women came out onto the stage dancing and beating on drums. The dancing was unbelievable! They did the shoulder popping thing that was unreal and could put "so you think you can dance" to shame. They did something with their necks and heads that looked ridiculously hard. The whole Ethiopian dinner experience was just amazing and left me craving more for culture. You're probably thinking it was one of those touristy restaurants..... probably. but it was still cool. Everyone in there seemed to be Ethiopian besides a few and us. There are a lot of Asian people here too.... which I thought was kinda weird... but I found out apparently the Chinese send their prisoners here and put them to work... huh... I thought that, that was interesting.

Day 2

We finally landed in Ethiopia about 830am (1am eastern time) went through customs and got our visas. By the time we went though everything we needed to get through to get to our driver and finally head to where we were staying, it was already about 1030am

The place we are staying is in Addis Ababa, in a guest house. There are three different rooms and me and a girl named Christy got lucky and got the room with two beds.... instead of like the others where they are packed with bunk beds. The two guys on our trip (Steve and Michael) sleep outside of the house in a little hut out there. I kinda felt bad for them... Another perk was we had our own bathroom with our room, which I later learned was not so much a perk. That will be explained later...

After we settled in for a bit we went to the internet cafe to write home to let everyone know we made it safe and sound. Then we all went to get lunch. We had pizza at this little restaurant near by. By this time I think I had been up for three days not including the sleep I got on the plane, but that doesn't really count because they were short naps. After lunch we went ahead and jumped into things and went to little Ahope. It was just an introduction to the school basically. The man who introduced us to the school and showed us all around talked for a long time to all of us in his little office.... I felt a little bad because we were all so tired that it was almost impossible to keep our eyes open. It was way past the point where we could pretend to be fine and act like we weren't about to pass out.

Once, we were done hearing his whole talk about the organization he showed us around the school and where all the children sleep. None of the Children were there while we were there except the 2 year olds and under. We stopped in and played with them some. They were so cute! A lot of them were fascinated with our water bottles, screwing the lids on and off and eventually guzzling the water out of them. Haha.... it was funny to watch them. But then again it was probably sad because they are too little to say when they are thirsty... and I think i heard them say they really don't get a chance to get much water. One of the toddlers just came to me and plopped down in my lap.

I think that time with those babies was the only time that I didn't notice how tired I was. When we were done there we hopped back on the bus to head back to our guest house and had a meeting and also later the founder of Mocha Club came by to talk to us. He and His wife are here because they are in the process of adopting a second child from here, and also for work with the new addition to Mocha club called Fashionable.

We were going to all go out and get dinner but we were all too tired and decided to skip it and head straight to bed.

Day 1 (Part two)

On the plane from Charleston to D.C.....

The woman I was sitting next to was an instant answer to prayer. I was still nervous and just in that place of not knowing what this adventure will hold. Boy has the adventure already begun. She was a beautiful young woman sitting in the window seat, I in the Isle seat. I was already seated and she comes up, I help her with one of her bags after she sat down. It just didn't make sense for her to get up again and do it since I was already right at the overhead bins. (I have to apologize if I write too much detail, I'm just trying to write everything that I pictured and remembered so I will remember looking back at these notes.) I asked her if her destination was for D.C. (it wasn't) she had a connecting flight for R.I. she asked me where I was going... I said "Ethiopia" with a big nervous smile. She asked why I was going there and I told her it was mission work and that I would be over there for a month. She gave me a big sweet smile and said "I knew it! I knew it! I knew you were doing mission work! God told me, I knew it!" She laughed and continued saying "He does this! He does it on purpose. He puts people in my path for a reason! you know?" We both just laughed in agreement. We both had senses about each other. She was able to discern it better than I could though. I think too many times I just dismiss senses I have and don't recognize God is telling me something. He used her to yell it to me. That He is with me. That I AM following Him where He wants me to go. He is trying to communicate with me. Marissa was her name. She was on her way back home for the same reason... not really sure why but knew He was telling her to go home because she needed to be in a place of rest so that she could recieve the miracle God had waiting for her in the next couple of weeks. She has no clue why, but she is expecting big things from God. I think we were already blessed by each other on the plane talking about how big our God is and different spiritual gifts, as we both take a journey in seeking our Holy Father to where He has us go. The coolest part of our interaction I think were the moments she had words from God for me.

She had the prophetic gift! SO COOL! She told me she sensed the Lord was telling her that I was going to be a world traveler and that there wasn't some specific occupation, that it was just to love people. That I would be traveling just to love on others! Not just one specific place but all around.... why, I know she was genuine with her words and her listening to the Lord was because she told me not to just take it and believe it but that I should pray about it and see what the Lord tells me as I pray about it and seewhat the Lord tells me, and that also that prophetic words can be heard wrong sometimes and that's why they need to be prayed over. Not only just that, but that has been a desire of my heart for years now. Just to love people, all different kinds of people from different walks of life. People that need to be loved and shown love.

We talked the entire flight and was SUCH a blessing. No doubt, God has already shown Himself to me on this journey. There was just so much said in that one hour that gave me enough to sit on and process this whole month.... and I think that was just the door looking into what more he has to reveal about Himself on this trip. WOW!

When I arrived to D.C. I had no idea where to go and eventually found an information station. The lady helped me find where I needed to go. Literally all I had to go by were my recipts to my checked baggage which had no information on it besides the fact it was going to Ethiopia. HA!

I finally get a bagel to eat for breakfast and also just to waste some waiting time and arrive at the gate. The waiting area was pretty empty and I didn't recognize any to be one of my team members. I thought maybe stalking some pictures of some of the people I was meeting up with on facebook would have helped me out, but it didn't. At least none were there yet that I had befriended. I just waited until I finally saw a face I recognized. In the midst of waiting though, I met and talked to a man heading home to Sudan. He needed to borrow my phone to call family members in Seattle. I began just talking to him and found out he came to America to study Bible. He is a farmer that grows many different crops on his land back home to help feed the people who don't have food. Apparently, a church from TN had started a ministry in his home land that had built a school, church, and agricultural farm lands. He said that when war broke out everything fell apart and the people had to flee since there was no food available after awhile. He came here to study the bible and now he is going back to replenish what was lost. His farm is growing in hopes to bring the people back. His farm feeds the ones who go to school during the day. The school has no food so he feeds them. What an example of what a community is! A community that works hard for each other to be together to work together, to learn together and eat together. It was a real blessing to run into him and talk with him. His name was Kauhlkaum Keir? or something like that.... he showed me his passport to show me how to pronounce his name haha...

After checking in to get my ticket at the gate for my flight to Ethiopia I saw some of my group assemble and sat down with them. Chatted up some and joked around. It's fun to see the different personalities face to face instead of over the phone.

After a few minutes an ethiopian man sat down next to me and saw I was looking over and trying to learn the Amerhic Language (the Ethiopian official language) in this book I got from Barnes and Noble. He got all excited and helped me learn a bit of it and how to pronounce them. So fun! He didn't speak english too well to when I finally understood something he was teaching me I got all excited! :) Haha...

Other than all that I've just been boarding a plane and now I am just a few hours away from reaching our destination. It's probably already the next day so I shall save the rest for Day 2. By the way the Ethiopian people are absolutely beautiful!

....I was going to try to type up day two but I just got the "only a few more minutes" signal.

Day 1

It has been a long several hours already. I didn't get much sleep because my procrastinator self decided to wait until 10 o'clock pm to pack for a month long trip. I always seem to forget to add in the time that I dilly dally. Yeah.... I didn't get to sleep but 20 minutes before my sister took me to the airport... which we had to leave by 4:45. Went to the ATM to get some cash before hand and then straight on to the Charleston Airport. So, to be honest... I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to ball my eyes out. Weird. Don't ask me to explain completely why it was like that but it just was... I don't know? funny.... hmm. It was the same feeling I get when life changes take place. (not that this is a huge life change or anything...I mean it's just a month trip.) The only way I can compare that same feeling is... to when I knew I was getting older and knew things were going to be different... Like when I started my period for the first time... or when I found out I was growing boobs HAHA! There is a funny story behind that one and all I'll say about that is... the doctor assured me I didn't have cancer but instead was just in puberty. HA! With all that said, those feelings of "sick to my stomach, and I wanna cry" there always follows a big change in my life and I think God uses that as a sort of warning sign or waving of flag. Maybe not... It's funny though, do yall ever get a funny feeling when big changes take place in your life? I think it's a sign of stepping up into maturity and getting older.

Ok, so, enough about my feelings while making my way to the airport.

A big prayer for my trip has been just to know God on a more personal deeper level and to experience Him in a way I never have before. To grow spiritual in him. To witness miracles and see his hand at work in a hands on way. Too many of us have blinded ourselves in recognizing that He is still the same God in the Bible working miracles on an everyday basis. In America we have been blinded by just things and wants for ourselves, "getting ahead", making money, getting a house, the newest car out on the market, getting married and having children, the next goal we have on our agenda... We are so busy with our own plans for our life that we don't allow room for God to be Jehovah Jirah... He will provide. It's even manifested in my own life and I think that is why he is calling me out to Ethiopia for the month. He knows I am craving to see Him in a way I can't in Charleston/or America ...or whatever. He is calling me to reach higher for Him! It's so hard to do but soooo sweet in my heart knowing that hie is leading me through this journey and called me. ME! It's taken me almost 25 years to get to this point in my relationship with Him. But in the end He is in control of all timing.

Already in my trip I have experienced the awesomeness of God and how gentile He is.

Travis, I think today I realized for the first time what the gentleness of our father feels like. I would always hear you talk about how gentile he has been with you lately and now I completely understand what that means and feels like. First encounter on this trip with God about to leave the Charleston airport to head to D.C.....

and that is all the time I have right now and I will have to tell you that story next post....

Exciting stuff peoples!