Back to Canada...

Well here we are, back in Canada. It's very bitter-sweet. We love those kids and the people of Ethiopia, yet it is nice to be home too. And of course the climate is a little different. Thank you all for all your support in prayer and donation, we could not have done what we did without you and most importantly without Jesus by our side every step of the way. He has taught us a lot through this trip and I can only hope we left a lasting mark on the people we met there, as they did on us. Now to return to CLBI and debrief. Yet we will always remember our time in Ethiopia and the people there. I pray we never forget the valuable lessons we have learned. Hey, maybe one day I'll go back and visit!
Grayson

Harar

Harar! And Awasa!

So we did not bring our laptop on our trip to Harar so sorry about the lack of blog in the past week. For those who don't know, Harar is about 5 hours east of Addis and is a very old city with remnants of a castle in it. We got to see the epic countryside of the Rift Valley and Harar, as well as a national park called Awash and lake called Awasa. So we started by leaving early on monday and driving the long trip to Harar. The next day we visited the orphanage there and got to see a good amount of the city and the ruins, as well as a couple other historical sites. Wednesday we started painting and got a lot of it done, and during the evening we got to feed hyenas by holding a stick in our mouths with meat hanging off of it! It was pretty intense, they're like fat coyotes on steroids. Thursday we finished painting and played with the kids. We gave them a ball from Canada and a bunch of pillow case dresses. Friday we went to Dire Dawa and visited the orphanage there and then drove to Awasa. Then today we got up and saw the lake, took a boat tour and saw some hippos, and got to eat freshly caught talapia! It was so good! One guy gave Erik and I some raw fish and it wasn't that bad except the spices on it was probably the rankest thing I've had this trip. It was so spicy it felt like someone had driven a stake through my tongue. It's so sad to think it's almost over...but God has shown us so many cool things and I can only hope we have done as much as we could have while here. Thank you so much for your support! We're taking lots of pictures so here's some...
Grayson

Painting and Cornrows and Crowds, oh my!

Well, these have been a crazy last few days! Thanks to everyone who was praying for us; after our bout with sickness, we're all feeling back to normal - well, as back to normal as you can in a foreign country! I took a little longer to recover than everyone else, but by Friday we were all back at the orphanage, painting away.  And in between all the painting we got to spend more time with the kids there. I would have thought at first that the language barrier would make playing together difficult - and once in a while, it definitely would be nice to understand the stories they tell us! - but it really doesn't. Turns out, hide and seek comes in lots of languages, and the kids absolutely love it.
Our main contact at the orphanage, Alex, is always very adamant that we do lots of cultural things so we will have "lots of stories for home!" And they have a hairdressing school connected with the orphanage that teaches women so that they can support their families. So what to do in Ethiopia but try some traditional hairstyles? Good life choice or not, Erik, Monika and I all got cornrows. I had no idea how difficult they are to put in! There is a LOT of skill involved, and the ladies did an amazing job.
Then, to round out our cultural experiences for the weekend, we went to the Epiphany celebration that the Orthodox churches here put on. It started on Saturday with a huge parade - Marcos said there were more than 40,000 people there, and that was just one church! All over the city, other churches were doing the same thing. The next day we went to the ceremony with their holy water. We don't know much about it, because we went guide-less, (and we're not quite fluent in Amheric yet!) but there was a huge crowd there too. Everyone, for the most part, was gathered around the priests, and then everyone was trying to get even closer when they started spraying the crowd with the holy water. It was very cool to go and see, especially because this celebration - which celebrates Jesus' baptism - is one of the most important days in the Ethiopian calendar. So it was a big event!
What we're really looking forward to now is our trip to Harar, where we'll be hopefully for the next week. The sister orphanage to the one we're working at now is there, and we're going to keep going with our painting skills...or keep trying to get painting skills... :) So if you could pray for that trip - for all the details working out, and for all the experiences we'll have, and that we would stay healthy - that would be wonderful!
Thanks so much for following this crazy journey we're on!
Tina

Painting!

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