Today we went to Great Hope in Korah in the middle of Addis to begin our work at the camp. When we pulled up to the church there were twenty or so kids standing around the van and the second we got out they swarmed us bursting into incredible smiles their whole faces lighting up and grabbing our hands to hold them and touching our skin and hair. They asked us our names, our ages, and where we from in accented english so that each question had to be repeated sevral times.

       We were introduced to Kayla and her friend from New York they were working there all summer running the camp. They asked if we had any plan about what we wanted to teach that day at the camp which of course we did not. They just laughed and guided us into the sanctuary. The kids grabbed at us and guided us to places to sit delighting in our smiles and attempts at amharic. We began a game of guessing where Doug drew a picture on the chalkboard up front and the kids tried to guess what he was drawing many of the things that got easily such as monkey and house other things only a few of the older kids knew such as ocean. When they began to tire of the guessing game we switched to singing which Maddie and Avery led up on the stage with animated hand gestures. We sang Jesus Loves You, Row your Boat and then the kids took over the song selection singing some english church songs and many amharic songs. When they ran out of songs Avery told Bible stories saying two or three sentences then Yosi would translate. Some of the kids listened others asked us questions. I had three girls all nine or so braiding my hair they would make a braid then promptly take it out, one girl had a hair clip which she took out of her hair and used it to brush through my hair. Kim had like five three year old girls playing with her hair. The kids seemed confused by Mellissa’s hair which is very short they could not seem to decide wether or not she was a boy or a girl. Mellissa would put her hat on and she would ask boy girl boy girl and then pull it off and yell GIRL and the kids would double over laughing.

      When Avery finished her bible stories we headed outside and just played with kids. Maddie rocked a clapping game with many of the seven and eight year old girls while Collin weight lifted with children. Thayer had a clan of boys surrounding him all learning the hang loose sign from him. Avery never stopped taking pictures. Doug had one little girl Mellat who would not let him go she turned him into a jungle gym climbing all over him. We ate our lunch at the school then headed to market. Collin and Doug both purchased a “man scarf”. From the market we headed to a cafe then home to the guest house.

lizzy