Cannot believe that we are already half way through, crazy to think of all the memories that we have created and the adventures that we are waiting to embark on. These last few days have been filled with a lot of painting and sleeping, for starters on Monday we began our main project at Abenezer Orphanage, this consists of us painting both the inside and the outside of the main buildings. Surprisingly this project is going quite quickly and tomorrow we will be starting the outside walls, we are enjoying getting to know Alex and learning more about the culture and its customs, he is very knowledgeable and has many stories to share with us. Unfortunately on Monday night we ate some bad eggs and were hit with some food poisoning pretty badly, this led to us having to stay at the guest house all day on Tuesday just sleeping, drinking Gatorade, and trying to get back to normal. We all rested and by the next day were ready to take on some more painting and playing with kids, Tina though was unable to join us because she was still feeling uneasy and pretty weak. Prayers that we would all gain back our energy and be able to take on whatever tasks are thrown our way would be appreciated! As a team we are really starting to get accustomed to life here in Africa, it is a laid back culture that really just focuses on building strong connections between people. We have all felt so welcomed and cared for, especially by our new friend Tilahun who has been kind enough to show us around Addis a little bit and invite us into his home and Church. He is a great example of a young man loving on the least of these and he was able to tell us a little bit of his own personal story of being a street kid who was rescued, on Sunday afternoon after we went to Church with him, he brought us back to his home and we watched a documentary called 'Man Up & Go' half of this documentary was filmed right here is Addis, in a district that is called Korah. This area of Addis is one of the poorest and this is where Tilahun's Church is and where he spent many nights as a young teen. As we watched this is was hard for us to believe that Korah, where many kids, teens, and adults are living was only 20 minutes away from us. An area that is basically a trash dump that these people live in, how we can justify this just astounds me. Our hearts where very heavy after we left but God was so faithful in helping us process as a team and personally, we were convicted in a way that brought us to understand even more so how this trip is not about us but that it is about serving others and serving God with all that we have. We are thankful for this opportunity  though for our eyes to be opened, we know that this is part of us growing and learning.
-Monika