ETHIOPIA

Salam! That is Amharic for "hello"! For the past month I have had the most amazing opportunity to travel to Ethiopia, the second most impoverished country in Africa. In Ethiopia I taught 9th grade English in Tach Gayint - a small village in the middle of "no where" Ethiopia.
God really used this experience to teach me many different things. One of the the things that I learned was just how BIG our God is! I felt completely overwhelmed once I reached this village and had to figure out why in the world these students even have the desire to learn English. I felt like it was a pointless idea, but as I spoke to the students and the teachers I discovered that it was not only English that they wanted to learn, they wanted to develop their country. This seemed like an impossible thing for me to help with. As I stood on top of one of the mountains and looked down on Tach Gayint and realized how small it actually was and how little I was compared to that. This is when I realized that any change that I was going to bring to this place was going to have to come from God. I taught 2 classes and helped with starting up an English club for the students to develop their English better. Also, I taught computer skills to teacher. That was an experience, many of the teachers did not even know how to double click a mouse. But my friend Scott, another Go-Ed practicum student, helped and together we taught them to surf Encarta- b/c they had no internet! They really loved it once they got it figured out! Also, Scott and I helped with revising papers for some local Food for the Hungry projects. The picture to the top left is me with some of my students.

To the top right there is a picture of a beggar girl that lives on the streets of Addis Ababa- the capital city of Ethiopia. Many of the children are forced by their unemployed parents to beg for money. The children work all day asking anyone for change. I had a difficult time with this because I know that money will not solve there problem because they will just spend it and be righgt back to the same place. So, when I could I offered food to the families. Many times they were very grateful, but there were times when the children would just look at me and continue to beg for money. This was very disappointing. The children were only focused on money, they have been taught to accept only money. Please pray for the children in Ethiopia and all over the world that live difficult lives as these.

In this both of these photos above you can see just a little bit of the wild life in Ethiopia. There are wild camel that just travel in herds and then baboons. I also saw pelicans and hyenas. It was very cool. This was the Africa that everyone talk about when it comes to the scenery and animals. It is beautiful here, but it is very hot and dry. You can probably imagine just how excited I was when I saw all of these animals.

In these next photos, there is just a little bit of the scenery of in Ethiopia. At the left I am standing in the center of the two men, in the middle of a potato farm, directly in the middle of a beautiful valley. You can see the sun peircing through the mountains. On the right, I am standing in the middle in front of the Blue Nile Falls- just like what I imagine The Niagra Falls to look like. Here we saw some university students having a mud fight in the pools of the falls and decided to join them. They welcomed us in without question and we got as muddy as ever!!!

All in all I learned so much about my self and my relationship with God during this month long adventure. God is continually molding my heart and changing me for the better. I am so excited to now be back in Kampala, Uganda with Leah. We have been sharing all of our stories and we are excited to be with eachother again. Tomorrow we both leave for Rwanda, by bus, for 9 hours. It will be long and tiring I am sure, but praise God for this experience.
Continue to pray for both of us and we will try to stay in contact the best we can. Thanks and God Bless!!!