Love Does

Today we started the day with breakfast at 8 (which seems to be one of the few things that happens fairly consistently on time). Since we weren’t planning on leaving for Bright Hope until 10, we decided to make some more barle(bar-ee-la)(think stretchers) to use at the school. Joe and I walked down the street to the local “lumber yard” and bought some eucalyptus wood(from a tree that was apparently imported from Australia). 160 bier (about $9.50) bought enough wood for 3 solid barles. When we showed up at Bright Hope the workers praised our work by saying, “Ariefno! Gobez!” “Nice! Smart work!” Then it was digging up rocks from the ‘playground’ and hailing them to the trench with the barles until bunna (coffee) break just before lunch.

After a lunch of beans and rice, it was back to hauling rocks. Soon ofter the zinabe(zi-nob) (rain) started to fall. From there on it was a mix of working when the zinabe let up, playing in the rain, and sitting under the eve of the classrooms when the zinabe let up. The games ranged from throwing rocks at various things on the playground to puddle stomping. At one point when the rain was light enough to work in, I accidentally broke a pick ax to which Michali replied, “Gobez, abbess” (Smart work, lion!) They handed me a different pick and it was back to work.

Besides the rain, which was a welcome break from the heat of the last few days, it was also different because the students were taking a bunch of end of the year tests. There weren’t a lot of students around when we arrived at 10:30 and practically all the students were gone after we finished lunch. It was so strange to be the only people at the school. Usually we are swarmed with kids until the teachers or other Habeshe (ha-ba-sha)(Ethiopians) literally drive them away. It’s a hard balance to keep because you want to meet the kids and not ignore them, but sooner or later, someone is going to shoo them away. In a way, it was nice to get a little rest from the constant “What is your name?” “How old are you?” “Wife? Kids? Girlfriend?” “YOU! YOU! YOU!” “Camera?!”(please take my picture!), hand holding, and thumb wrestling. Even though it is really cool to meet the kids, it can become overwhelming in large groups. It didn’t take long to figure out that the garden was off-limits to the kids and that it was a sort of safe haven if need be.

Sitting down with a few kids or talking to the Habeshe workers can be very rewarding. They are always curious about who you are, what you like, what you do, etc. And practicing saying things in Amharic is almost guaranteed to bring some good laughter. In devotions one night we talked about leaving behind pride and embracing humility. Being willing to humble yourself and try and learn things from the people opens so many doors. You can’t come a a cross-cultural project thinking that you know everything and have all the resources. You have to come at it thinking that one culture isn’t better than the other, just different. The Habeshe are very good at getting things done with limited resources, my favorite example being an ax one guy was using. It was made from the end of a truck leaf spring with a forged edge. And all the pick, rake, and shovel handles were made from eucalyptus wood.

Back at the Amazing Grace Guest Home, the staff had prepared a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony in honor of Trecie, a sort of goodbye party as she was leaving to go back to the States that night.Before we left for dinner, Kate T. found a 6 week old puppy that looked like a golden retriever. There are stray dogs everywhere around Addis so the locals usually want nothing to do with them. They all have fleas and some have rabies, so it is best to avoid them. The puppy, which Kate promptly named Wusha (‘dog’ in Amharic), was covered with fleas so Kate and Trecie gave him a bath before they had to let him go again.

Dinner was pizza at Chocolate with the whole bunch, the team, Joe, Aki, Yasen, Tare, Lajara, and Yoeseph. By the time we got our pizzas, it was almost time to head to the airport so we downed the pizza in a record 7 minutes and were off. It was sad for the team to say goodbye to Trecie at the airport, but we have thoroughly enjoyed the time with her. She always had a smile on her face and was usually one of the first to laugh.

On the way back from the airport someone decided that they needed donuts, so of course we went looking for some. We stopped a at a cafe and all 10 Americans piled in just to find they don’t serve donuts at 8 PM on a Thursday. This process was repeated several times until we gave up after “Real Coffee and Donuts” failed us too. Oh, well. As usual you just have to roll with things as they come because they rarely go according to plan.

~Drga

Monday begins another work week for us after a wonderful and interesting weekend. As always, it starts out with breakfast and a little soccer ball slamming against the magnificent gate to Amazing Grace Guest House as we await our ride to Bright Hope School.  Today we shall carry on our work of moving rocks. We carried bag after bag of rocks from one pile to another, closer to the ditch for the wall.  We worked on this all day, minus the two hours or so for our normal “bunna” (coffee) break and lunch.  It was like the five loaves of bread and two fish.  Just when you thought there was only a few more bags worth of rocks left, we just kept filling up more and more. Where were the rocks coming from? We were like ants walking along, back and forth, on the same path, “yIqrta” (ee-qer-ta) “excuse me,” till all the rocks were moved. Tare and Jossie made us practice counting in Amarhic so we could tell them how many shovel scoops to put in our bag.

I feel a little bad distracting the kids. As you walk by, they holler your name out the window.  Kids are hanging out the windows and the stairwell of the tall classroom building; two or three of them hanging out one window. You think if you wave to them, they will stop and get back to their work, but no.  They just keep calling you.  You can wave 20 times and it isn’t enough.  They swarm around; want to know “what’s your name?” write their name on your arm and write yours on theirs.  I had a notebook I wanted to get the correct names of those who talked with me often so I could learn their names, only EVERY kid wanted to write their name down.  Just as every kid wants to take a picture or be in a picture.  And they all want to take a picture of you, not that you need a hundred pictures of yourself!  I now have a sheet of paper with a ton of names on it that is just as confusing as them shouting their names out to me.  Soon an adult comes after the group with a switch or rock.  The kids want to be around us, and help us, or maybe just have us “dance, dance, you dance like Michael Jackson,”  and then they get in trouble and chased after by the adults, or even some of the other older students. So what do you do??

 Some of the older kids, around 13-14 yrs old, are hanging out the windows by the rock and sand piles; “you, you, you..I love you.”  The workers Aweke, Mamaru, Mechale, and I joke around now, “you, you, you, I love you.”  Denkee grills me with Amarhic words while we carry cement. Even they like to see themselves in the photos!  They call for me, in between my rock runs, to come haul cement. I feel blessed to be able to work with the workers, we joke around and dance and laugh, all the while the wall is moving along.  Very impressive.

What a treat we got to go to the market this evening.  The moment our van arrives, street vendors mob us.  Because, of course, we want maps and necklaces and whatever!  (Ok, so I did buy a map of Africa.)  We all spent time walking up and down the shops, fending off “very good prices,” in search of our perfect buys.  Bargaining for a price becomes the challenge.  Back at the van we compare our goods and prices for confirmation of a quest well done.  Ending the day with dinner at a wonderful restaurant (we all got home-cut French fries!), we got to experience electricity coming in and out (pretty much a norm); captured, of course, with a photo that showed nothing but a pitch black screen…gee, who’da thunk?

– Kathi

“Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.  Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.  Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically.  Rejoice in our confident hope.  Be patient in trouble, and keep in praying when God’s people are in need, be ready to help them.  Always be eager to practice hospitality.”

Paul

Today we left our $3.50 per night hotel, in which we all called our rooms the honeymoon suite because of the nice silk sheets (of a sort) with embroidered hearts.  literally.  As usual we started off with our normal 16 or so order of macchiatos.  The coffee here is something our team has grown to like, and more so turned into a favorite.  Our original plans to go to Ankober, a historical palace that is now just ruins, changed because almost everything around here is closed on Sundays.  After some recouping from the long, yet fun, journey the day before we were on the road again back to Addis. On the way back we had quite the experience when we pulled over on the side of the road for what was supposed to be a 5 minute break.  This 5 minute break turned into about a half hour break for various reasons. One, we caused the little village of people in the vicinity to stir because of our foreign “color”. Rightfully so. Mind you we were still on the countryside were the towns/villages were spaced apart. It started by a few little boys running towards us yelling “you you you” which  essentially means “hey hey hey”.  In no time we had people coming towards us from all directions to see what was going on.  Soon enough, they were all laughing at us because of our lack of skill with the bull whip in comparison to the little boy who had it mastered as he tended the goats and donkeys.  A few of us gave it a try but it never got much better, it actually got dangerous.  It had been a running joke that Dylan and Troy wanted to ride a donkey before we leave, as it is common to see donkeys all over here.  During this half our break that joke actually came true for Troy, he indeed was able to ride a donkey.  After a much needed break, we were back in the van bonding or sining songs that is.  You name it, we sang it. Sunday school songs, secular songs, worship songs, and amharic songs that Aki taught us.  Although this 2 day journey was long it was a great time for the team to be “packed” together and bond.  Because it is Sunday, when we returned to the guest house it was our rest day.  Some napped, showered, played soccer or pingpong, simply rested by reading, or went and bought some soccer balls, sweet bread, and cappuccino biscuits (all popular things to buy around here).
While the journey on Saturday and today were long I couldn’t help but think of God’s grandness as we drove along the countryside.  As we drove through the countryside I was amazed at the landscape and all that it encompassed.  The trees of all sorts, farm land, animals, villages/huts, and of course the beautiful people.  The thought that God is so big that across the world from Montana, His creation is receiving praise.  The fact that he spoke this beautiful creation in its entirety into being and that it is without fault. In the midst of this amazement, He looks down on mankind and forms the hearts of all and considers all we do.  He uses ordinary people like us to bring glory to His kingdom.  He uses ordinary people like us to: carry his compassion, love a world thats broken, be his hand and feet, give with the life we have been given, to go beyond religion, and to see the world be changed by the power of HIS name. God is grand my friend, his creation is perfect, and it can be seen anywhere you look.  I couldn’t help be but ponder the question posed in Isaiah 40. “To whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to?  There is none to compare Him to, the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth and He alone is worthy of all our praise and worship. Such thoughts were derived from the captivating countryside of Ethiopia.
I will end with this, our team will be memorizing Micah 6:8 and processing how it will strengthen our faith in our daily life and how it will help our service as a team during our time in Ethiopia. Let us “work out our salvation” as we have been called to this mission at Bright Hope School.  We want to revive the hope inside these young peoples lives by showing them God’s abounding love for them.
Esus Yewodehalo (Jesus loves you)
-Brew

Today started out not knowing what was going on other than having to wake up and be ready to go by 7. We were told “take a fresh pair of underwear and your toothbrush because we might have to stay overnight”.  We were then told we were going to an Ethiopian prison, and we would be able to see the Ethiopian country side. Aki (owner of the guest home) was in charge, and we found out we were going to visit his brother. He explained that in Ethiopia there are different prisons for the length of time you need to spend in prison. This particular prison was for people serving a 6 month term. Aki explained that in Ethiopia you can go to prison for 6 months for fighting. (guess I wont be doing any of that here) He also explained that his brother was in prison because he was with a friend that had stolen something. Yikes, in prison for 6 months due to association. Let me rewind this a bit for you, and tell you what we really did MOST of the day. After driving for about 3 hours the Ethiopians said 20 kilometers more. A few HOURS later we were again told we had 20 kilometers more. We are now a 6 hour drive from home when we arrived at the prison. All I could think to myself was, what was this ‘might’ have to stay overnight thing. We had driven through A LOT more countryside than I had anticipated we would. (It was interesting and glad we got the opportunity, but a van with 14 people some sitting on wheel wells for 10 hours today???) I’m just glad we have some good singers in our group, because that’s what we ended up doing most of the day. Ok now for the 30-45 min of what we drove all this way for… the prison. We walked around the walls to the visitation area. The walk was my favorite part because there were monkeys in the trees. We were patted down before ‘entering’/aka walking up to barb wire fence where the prisoners were held. I found it interesting that we just had to tell one of the prisoners who we were here to see and they would go find them.  Aki’s brother and one of his brother’s friends came out to talk with us/Aki. We sat on a bench and he came out and stood by a wooden fence (maybe 4 feet hight) and not behind glass like american prisoners.  Actually family and friends are able to bring food, money, clothes, or whatever to the prisoners. It seemed funny to hand a few bags through a fence like it was no big deal. We stayed for maybe a half hour and it was back on the road again. Yipee I could hardly wait. In all honestly it was great to see why Ethiopia has the most diverse landscape in Africa. We went through mountains and even through a few tunnels. The driver literally was weaving through goats, cows, sheep, and people walking on the road.  So we ended up staying in a hotel. The hotel cost the equivalent to $3.50 per night, so it didn’t break the bank.  I was  just happy that we were able to get out to the van, and thankful that no one got sick or had bad gas in that very long van ride. It was a bonding experience for ALL of us whether we wanted it to be or not. In all seriousness though, today AGAIN made me think about how fortunate we are and how many ‘things’ we have. By things I mean material things, friendships, opportunities etc. For example a young boy washed my shoes for me today and I couldn’t help but think about his childhood and how it was very different from mine. Here he is washing people’s shoes for money to live off, while I at that age was playing basketball with friends in my driveway after school. I can’t help but feel like his childhood is being robbed from him. I wonder how different his lifestyle will be by the time he’s my age. (he is working for a reason at a very young age) Does he have family problems? Is he saving money for school? Why is this young child taking his own initiative? He is forced into being a responsible person at an extremely young age. I respect this little guy for working for what he needs rather than maybe begging for it.  I probably wouldn’t have chose to sit in a  packed in a van for 10 hours, but feel like the relationships built is more important than going to see hippos for example.  Our group continues to enjoy the “black gold” or as we know it as coffee. Tibs (almost like lamb fajitas) is almost a daily meal, but I really like it.  Over all today was a good day of rest for us. I think by the end of the day everyone is feeling healthy and rested.

Troy

oh, how i missed hauling rocks on my back in a potato sack.  seriously.  today, as far as manual labor goes, that we all we did… rocks.  back and forth.  we would walk the trail from the pile where our ethiopian friends would ask, “sint? (or “how many?”) and we’d tell them 2, 3, 4, or 5 scoops from the shovel (as you can probably imagine by my physique, i routinely asked for 5).
one time on our way to fill up our sacks my friend (and team member), trecie told me the life motto she had developed.  she said she could either choose to look to the left and make her life about that, or she could look to the right and make her life (or day) about that.
as we hiked the path back to the pile that was slowly (very, very slowly) depleting you could look to your left and find a 100 yard hedge of thorn bush lined with trash, dead roots, and even a bone or two.  or you could look to your right and take in Bright Hope’s garden brimming with green vegetables shooting up through the dirt, neat rows, and freshly watered soil.  trecie said it’s her goal to look right.  i like that.
maybe this whole comparison is a tired cliche or maybe all of us are traveling our own path with the option to look right or look left (or maybe we get to choose our own cliche).  sometimes my american self has a tendency to focus on the trash, all the death and decay.  and it’d be easy to fall into such perceiving here in ethiopia because you can always find signs of death and decay.
but personally, i’m going to start looking at the garden, because in the garden i see life and growth and opportunity and beauty.  when we look to the garden we see what God intended and we see that there is always hope.  hope for growth.  hope for something beautiful.  hope for new life that’s vibrant and captivating.
joe dirt (from the movie, joe dirt) says, “life’s a garden.  dig it!”
i’d say the ethiopian people (at the least those i’ve met) spend the majority of their time in the garden, living the growth and beauty and life of something hope-filled.
i want to follow that example and choose life, not the death and decay of a trash heap where all we see are the remnants of life that’s been thrown away.  images of what could have been.  this choice is mine and it is yours.  the garden or the garbage?  and remember, God intended the garden from the beginning and Jesus came so that we might “have life and have it to the full.”
join me in choosing the garden, whatever path you might find yourself on, and let’s start digging…
-chris townley

There is an energy here like no other. Let me take you on a walk with me down a dirt road filled with music, hope and heartfelt greetings. In the distance there is a smokey shadow that hovers over the hillside. Shepherds herd their sheep on the same streets and children light up when they see our China faces. Bananas hang from the shopkeeper’s window with perfectly lined avocados, onions and lemons below. Inscents and dust fill the air.
We are safe. We have everything we need because God is here. We have all learned the best lesson of all: that WE is better than I but nothing is better than the laughter of an Ethiopian child…
May 12, 2011
Trecie Wheat