Christmas in Ethiopia!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

This year we spent our Christmas in Ethiopia. How exciting! It is a Christmas we will never forget. We had a great time but of course we did miss our family and friends back in the states. We were not sure what Christmas in Ethiopia was going to be like this year. But is was fun! We bought our first fake Christmas tree, we make homemade ornaments and painted them, we bought Brooklyn her first Christmas stocking, we shopped mostly at bazaars and supermarkets for presents instead of the malls and toys stores. We made our traditional Christmas dinner but with an 8lb turkey instead of a 30lb Turkey. It was delicious but we don’t have as many left overs.

In Ethiopia they do not celebrate Christmas until January 7th. We will be celebrating Christmas again, but this time we will spend it with the children and guardians in our sponsorship program in Burayu. We are really excited. We will also have some visitors from the states coming that will be celebrating Christmas with us in Burayu. We are looking forward to that time.

We took loads of pictures from our Christmas season in Ethiopia, here are a few:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Busy, Busy Bumble Bee!!!

This past month has been really busy.

Rudy has been working really hard at the hospital training colleagues and getting ready for his research to start. He has also been going to the youth meetings at Burayu Church. He has led the discussion several times and has challenged the youth to think about very important issues in their lives. He travelled back to the states for a week. He has a great time seeing everyone and doing everything. He felt like there wasn’t enough time to get everything done, but was happy to be back in Georgia for a week.

 

The boys are still really enjoying school. They have been busy making friends, taking art class and riding horses. They had a week off in October for fall break. So, we took the boys and flew into Nairobi, Kenya and then drove 5 ½ hours southwest around the Great Rift Valley to Masai Mara National Park to go on a safari for a few days! It was AMAZING!!! We stayed at Sarova Mara Tented Camp. Yes, we stayed in a tent…..I am not a tent person but this is not the basic tent.  We saw lots of elephants, lion, gazelles, wildebeest, giraffes, buffalo, rhino, and many, many more animals it was amazing. During that week Lawson turned 6! It was a blast. A birthday he will never forget. Eli has started asked what we are going to do for his birthday!!!

 

The girls are doing great. They are getting big. They love their nanny Tsion. She is great with them. In fact, we left them with her here in Ethiopia when we flew to Kenya for the Safari. Most days the girls hang out around the house and neighborhood, but there are some great parks for them to go to. Unfortunately it is hard to navigate the car in so many places each day.  The boys’ school had a fall festival and the girls dressed up as superwoman and a princess. They looked so cute!!!

 

I have been really busy with guardian training, teaching English classes, learning Amharic and taking horseback riding lessons.  I head out to Burayu three days a week to teach English in 8 classes from KG-Grade and to meet with several guardian groups.  The guardian training has been going really well. Over the past couple of months we have been talking about what it looks like to be a servant model and how Jesus is a perfect example for us. In the next couple of week we will be starting some hands on skills and business training with the guardians.

 

It is great to see the children in the classrooms. Thanks to Sanctuary in Him for the donations for the school. They have been so helpful for me to teach English.  This week I met with the director and teachers to of the school to show them how to use all the teaching tool that have been sent. They were so excited to have these resources to use in there classrooms. They have never had these types of resources.

 

This month our friend Christine from Georgia who is currently working in South Sudan had some R&R and came to visit us in Ethiopia. It was great to have a visitor. We had so much fun! We had a couple of bazaars the weekend she came and drove to the Portuguese Bridge. During the week we went out to Burayu for training and had the opportunity to visit the home of some guardians.  There are many pictures below.

 

The holidays are coming and they will definitely be different this year.  We were in search of a turkey this week and we are out of luck. If we wanted to embassy to get us one we had to order it awhile back so we missed out, the chicken lady (the women order chicken from regularly) had turkey’s but she is sold out (out of luck again). I heard there are other places we could get a turkey but it usually has the head and claws attached…..NO thank you!! So chicken it will be. Black Friday shopping will not be at the mall this year…..but at the German Church Bazaar, NGO Bazaar, and the Tropical Gardens Bazaar. 

 

 

As usual I have included some pictures. We hope you enjoy them.

Sunday School for The Child Sponsorship Program!!!

Two weeks ago we went to Burayu to see the children in our child sponsorship program in Sunday School. We had a great time watching these children get so excited about the Lord. They were eager to answer questions and sing songs of worship. Take a peek at the pictures of these children.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Ethiopia is a Beautiful Country!!!

Ethiopia is a beautiful country and as a family Rudy and I would like to explore as much of Ethiopia and the surrounding countries during our time here this year. On the weekends we have started exploring the surrounding towns/villages within 5 hours of us.

So far some of the places we have visited are (See a lot picture below):

• Lion Zoo-The lion Zoo is a local lion zoo with an area with rides for children. We had a great time, but I will never go on the Ferris wheel again (I think it might literally fall apart).
• Melka Kuntoure-is a place where there is an archeological dig near the awash river. Here were able to see two-edge hand-axes, scrapers, and fossil bones of a hippo, rhino, elephant and many antelope. Check out the pictures…it was a lot of fun they boys have some digging tools with them.

• Adadi Mariam- is a rock hewn church/underground church.

• Hawassa-is a town/village about 3 ½ to 4 hours south of addis. It took us about 5 hours to get there….most of the ride was beautiful and calm…..then the sunset, the rain came, and our drive drove like a lunatic, but we arrived safely and had do desire to get back in that van. We stayed at the Haile Resort….it is a modern hotel on Lake Awassa. We had a great time. We took a couple boat rides to see the hippos, played mini golf, played on the playgrounds, and saw little of Hawassa.

• Langano-On the way home from Hawassa we stopped at a resort on Lake Langano. We had a great lunch and got to see the beach and the lake that the kids can actually swim in. The water was very brown and the sand was not pretty but it was a great place to stop. Many of the expats in Addis love this as local get away.

• Africa Park-Today we took the kids to a park here in Addis. This park is fenced in and positioned in the middle of a major road it town, but it is a beautifully maintained park that you need to pay to get into. Usually I do not see many people using this park but today it was really busy. The kids had a fabulous time…..we will definitely be going back!!!

We are having a great time exploring Ethiopia and can’t wait see more of the country.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Guardian Training!

Every Tuesday I am going to be heading out to Burayu Church so I can help lead the guardian self-help training. I can not praise these women enough. They have made a very strong commitment to be part of this program and are determined to change there life circumstances. Each of them work very hard as laborers for very little money, and many of these women are saving some money and putting it into the bank account that were opened for there group. After each training session I have been able to talk to some of the groups and ask them some questions. It was it was so exciting to find out that many of these groups have goals of raising enough money to start businesses as a group. One group wants to be trained to open a Tea House, another group wants to open a shop selling items such as spices to hotels. Yesterday, I started as series on leadership skills with them. Simplifying it, we discussed how God created them and has equipped them with skills that can be used collectively to accomplish their goals that are congruent with the plans God has for them.

I have posted some pictures from the past two weeks of guardian training below!

Genesis 1:26 Then God Said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Romans 12:6-8 ” We have been different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, them prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, them serve; if it is teaching, them teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generaously; if it is leading, to it diligently; if it is to show mercy, to it cheerfully.

Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your path straight.”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

What Will We Be Doing In Ethiopia All Year!!!

Since we arrived in Ethiopia we have been mapping out what work we will be doing here and what that will look like. We have met with both the leaders and staff at SVO and the leaders of Burayu Church. We feel blessed to be serving in so many different ways and we can’t wait to tell you about what we will be doing. Here is the initial plan:

1) Help Develop and Implement a Children and Youth Ministry Programs at Burayu Church
Rudy and I will be working with the leaders of Burayu Church and the members of the church to develop a Children’s Ministry Program. Over the next few Sundays, we will be sharing on the importance of making disciples. We hope to raise up and empower members of the congregation to become small group leaders. We hope to impress that they are not just Sunday school teachers; we hope to challenge them to invest in the lives of their small group members. Our goal is to get this programs structure and training in place so that when we leave they can continue the program for their children and youth.

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6: 7)

We have chosen to help implement a curriculum developed by Children Desiring God. (http://www.childrendesiringgod.org/curriculum/). This curriculums aim is to impart to children a vision of God, who He is, and who we are in relation to Him, and to establish children with a foundation of doctrine and truth. They want children to be biblically grounded, seeing God as the hero of every story, with a God-centered world-view and a faith that will hold them when the days of testing come. They want children to love the Lord their God with all their heart, and to delight in Him forever.

2) Leading Self-Help Guardian Training Sessions
We will be spending a lot of time training and empowering the guardians this year. Here are some of the ways we will be doing that.
a. Self-Help Training: during this time we will be encouraging, inspiring, and equipping the guardians to continue improving there standards of living.
b. Lead Like Jesus: Interwoven into the self-help training sessions we will encouragement to the guardians to become leaders like Jesus. We will be using the Lead Like Jesus Series to inspire these women to be the leaders God has created them to be.
c. Bible Study /: Spiritual Discipleship Training: Most of these women have not heard the word of God before. This year will be diving into the book of John with these women. Our heart is the same as Johns: “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20: 30-31). We love these women and pray that each of these women will accept Christ as their savior.

3) Teach English Language Classes at Burayu’s School
Many of the children in our sponsorship program attend the government-funded school on the Burayu Church Compound. We are excited about having the opportunity to teach English in some of their KG-3rd grade classes.

4) Write Grants and Form Partnership that will Generate Project Funding
Rudy will be writing several grant proposals and developing partnerships with churches, corporations, and other organizations to generate project funding.

5) Develop and Conduct Research Projects
We are working on so many child and guardian projects that need further scientific research to be conducted. We will be developing hypotheses, and research designs to be implemented this year.

6) Ambo Child Development Projects
We were looking forward to starting our second sponsorship and self-help guardian training program in the Ambo area. This program will model the program we have started in Burayu. To see more about our sponsorship program take a peek at the information packet on our website:

http://www.becauseofkennedy.org/Because_of_Kennedy/Child_Sponsorship.html

As soon as we get 50 sponsors for the Burayu Child Development Project, we will be able to start this new project in Ambo.

7) Ambo Sharon Child Development Village
God had impressed upon our hearts to build a Child Development Village in Ethiopia. Several months ago we discussed this with SVO. Together we will be partnering with them to develop a model culturally appropriate and to raise financial support for the village. In June our Mission team had the opportunity to pray over two plots of land where we would like to develop a village. Our vision is to nurture and equip children as they grow to be spiritual and successful leaders in their country.

8) Continue Developing Burayu’s Child Sponsorship Program (Child Development and Family Empowerment Program)
The Buray Child Development and Family Empowerment Program (child sponsorship program) is our first sponsorship program. This year we will continue to develop and refine the programs so that the children and guardians receive the best training and supplies needed to empower them to be successful members of there families and community.

Keep and Eye Out For a Post On Way You Can Get Involved!!!! We Need Your Help!!!

A Normal Day in Ethiopia with Pictures!

We are settling in to a routine here. Today Lawson starts his extended days and we are hoping Eli will start soon. They boys love their school! Tomorrow is come see my classroom night. We are enjoying our house. We have great courtyard at our house to play soccer with the kids in the afternoons. (See a few pictures below)!

Last Thursday we had dinner with our partner here is Ethiopia, SVO. We had a great time catching up and talking about what we can do together for this year!!! On Sunday it was planned for us to greet the congregation at Burayu Church. As we arrived on Sunday so many of our friends, children and guardians were standing there waiting for our arrival. I loved driving up seeing their smiling faces and hands waving at us. As soon as we got out of the car they come over to give us hugs and shake our hands. Lawson and Eli were a little overwhelmed at first and could not wait to get into the church…….but for Lawson that quickly changed. I have to admit it was really nice to be at the church to see our extended family, but I have to tell you the highlight for me was watching my boys play with the other boys there. Eli was definitely overwhelmed when we were surrounded by large crowds but Lawson was not. In fact, at one point we were in one of the classrooms with a lot of the children and guardians and he just wanted to walk through everyone to look for Guta (the child he chose to sponsor). It was 3:00 by time we left, I was having so much fun I had no clue it got so late. Below are some pictures of Sunday. I have included a pictures of the church building in June when there were no windows and one now with the window. What amazing progress!!!

On Tuesday the boys had off from school so we went Digging for Dinosaur Bones!!! Before we left the States we bought the kids safari vests and “tools”.  Lawson and Eli found a Dinosaur tooth (a horn of an animal) on our Digging adventure. Take a look at the pictures!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We Are All Unpacked!

It has been a busy couple of weeks for us, but we are finally settled in. We are in our house and we are all unpacked. We have hired a nanny, someone to cook, clean and do the wash for us, and a guard for the house. It feels nice not to be living out of a suite case and to have all our stuff put in place. There are a couple minor things we still need to get but all the major items have been bought. This post is long but we wanted to catch you up on what is going on.

School: The boys love school! They stared there second week today and were very excited to go. The campus they are on is very large; it has a lot of green space and several playgrounds for them. The classrooms are great. The first 2 weeks are shorter days for Lawson; his day ends at 1:00. After that he will go until 3:20. Eli’s day ends at 12:00; we are hoping they start their extended day program in September. He would love it and it would give me more time for to dive in to work with Because of Kennedy. The campus is parent friendly. In fact, I am there now using there wireless internet to catch up on emails, etc now. Their track, library and cafeteria are open to parents as well. We can also come on to campus on the weekends with the kids. Lawson has made friends already and want to have a playdate. Eli is doing great, starting an art project of tracing his body and playing with his classmates. At 12:00 we pick up Eli and have been having lunch with him at ICS (the boys school) and it is great watching all the children from countries from all around the world eating lunch together and hanging out together. What an amazing experience!

Shopping: Shopping in Addis requires patients, and some days I think I might explode. Each time we buy something it takes at least double the time it would take in the State. We have been doing a lot of shopping around town for furniture and food. Food has definitely been an adjustment for us. The biggest challenge is finding milk that the boys like that is pasteurized and homogenized. We are still working on it but I think we have found one. We found one supermarket that has some US products that we like (fruity pebbles, pancake mix) and the US Embassy has a commissary with stuff; I can’t wait to shop there. The embassy also has a pool, playground and gym that you can become members of. That should be fun.

Beggars: Everywhere we go there are beggars. This is one of the things Rudy and I were concerned about for the children. We did not know how they would respond. We thought they might be fearful and uncertain, but they have been doing really well. Whenever they come up to the car or we walk by, Lawson kindly says “no” or nothing. Eli just looks at them. The only comment we got yesterday from Lawson was why are these people always begging. He does not quite understand the poverty of this country yet. It will be a conversation for another day. I tried to quickly explain how hard living is for them, but the car was not the best place for that conversation.

House Staff: We have hired our house staff and they are great so far!!! We have hired a guard he watches the house and takes care of maintenance needs we have. His is so sweet, very kind, old man and speaks no english. Lawson loves to kick the soccer ball with him. We call him apapa (father in Amharic). We have hired a nanny mostly for the girls, and occasionally for the boys. Her name is Tsion. She if very nice, quite and a little shy, but the kids love her. When we went shopping the other day Lawson wanted to hold her hand every time we went into a store. We also hired someone to clean, do our wash and cook dinner for us. She is sweet and made us a great dinner last night. It is very weird having all this help, but it is very nice. The back our house outside has several enclosed rooms for the guard and nanny to sleep, they have a small kitchen, and a bathroom (not with a US style toilet).

Rainy Season: Rainy season is no Joke!!! It rains everyday really hard and saturates everything. Rudy laughed at me when I bought me and the boys rain boots, but I have worn them almost everyday! It is winter here so the temperatures are much cooler. It is in the low 60’s in the mornings, but then it warms up in the afternoon so that we can wear t-shirts in the afternoons. The nice thing is that it does not rain all day. It usually rains in the morning and is sunny in the afternoon or the other way around. Rainy season goes thought September. I am not a big fan of the rain so I can’t wait until it is over. The cooler weather is refreshing since when we left Atlanta it was in the 90’s. The key is to layer each day. The school has several playgrounds for the kids, but the grass playgrounds are off limits during rainy season because they are so saturated. They have a nice playground that with a large sandbox and slides, etc that is on concrete and cushioned for rainy season.

The Car: Most cars here are older Toyotas and have no seat belts. Our drivers are GREAT. Dere we met when we came to bring Isabelle home, and Biruk is a friend of Dere. The car is small and seats 4 plus the driver, so when it is 6 in the back it is really tight. Yesterday we went to lunch and to run a couple of errands and it was the Gleason’s and the nanny and we were jam packed. The boy’s love rolling down windows and looking out at everything as we drive around town. The girls love to move around. Driving is crazy. There are very few traffic lights, and lanes don’t always exist. Cattle, goat, and donkeys are often on the road, crossing the street and slowing down traffic. There are several nicely paved roads, but there are still many that are not paved. The road in front of our house is not paved, but the crossroad is.

Internet: Sometimes they make things so much more complicated here. We have great internet at the house and at the boys school. For our personal internet you have to go the government office with your computer so they can register you and then you get a flashdrive that connects you to the internet. That is not such a big deal, the part that is more difficult is that you have to keep buying time to put on your flashdrive. So unlike the US where we set up our wireless internet for unlimited time and pay our monthly bill, here we set up our internet and have to keep buying time. We can buy time just about anywhere around town. The great news is that is really fast and we have not had any problems with connection. We can also have our computers linked so that we can get free wireless internet at the boys school and at the US embassy. It too is very fast and seems great.

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

Things are goings really well. As we have been preparing our house and getting settled we are also excited about the good works God has prepared for us to do here. We feel like this week is going to be our first week that we will start our routine. Rudy went to the hospital (Black Lion) today to start getting everything rolling. We will also be meeting with SVO this week. There have definitely been some challenges like the boys getting sick, and shopping with the kids, but we feel so blessed that things have been going so smoothly so far.

How We Found Our House: “Dere Knows Everyone”

On Thursday after we looked at a house we not comfortable living in, we asked Dere to show us some more; some newer homes. As we were driving out of the development he stopped to talk to someone working on the street about houses that may be available for rent. They talked for a few minutes then Dere told us that this guy knows of a house that is available to rent. So we of course trusted Dere and said okay lets go see it. This is the second house we told you about in the previous post. The house was nice and we really liked it and the development. When we were done looking at that house we talked with this guy about finding out how much and if it is available. After about an hour and several conversations that Dere had while we were still at the house Dere told us that there is a Girl and she has 5 months left on her lease and she will let us live here if we pay her xxx amount of dollars. Then after the 5 months the person who owns the house would decide if he wants to rent to us and for how much. We agreed with Dere that is would be best to talk with the owner and figure it out for the entire year now. Were drove to this women’s orphanage and discussed it with her. However, this woman preferred for us to go through her. We were not very comfortable with this idea for several reasons and told her we would think about it over night. By the time Rudy met with Dere on Friday morning. He had worked it out for us to talk with the women then with the owner. When it was time to meet with the owner of the house Dere found out that he new the person that owned the house. Wherever we are in town Dere is always saying hello to friends and clients. We always tell him he knows everyone. And once again Dere knew the owner of the house. Rudy, Dere and the owner of the house met for some coffee and discussed all the details of us moving into the house. Tomorrow (Saturday) we will finalize this and start arrange for us to move it!!!

Day 2: The Boys Were Sick

Today did not start out so good. Both boys were sick with a stomach bug. They started throwing up within seconds of each other this morning. At 11:30 Rudy took the girls to continue working on finding a house, and I stayed with the boys who were at that moment sleeping. The goal for today was to work out the house situation. We weren’t sure what was going to happen, but of course our friend Dere made it all work out. By about 5:00pm the boys were feeling much better and were able to hold down some water and cheezits. Praise God.