3 Short Videos from Ethiopia

Here's a video of the waitress serving our dinner the first night in country (Injera & Wot):


Here is a video from a Cultural Dinner Show we attended where they performed local & traditional dances. Using their shoulders is the most common dance move:


Here is a video from the church service we attending while in Ethiopia at Beza International Church (this is from the worship time):

Ethiopia in Pictures

A photo-blog post of my travels in Ethiopia...

Melissa, Shara, and Camilla evaluate (apprehensively) our first night's dinner before digging in: traditional Ethiopian food of Injera & Wot.
The kids at Kids Club showing off their Jesus & Zacchaeus drawings.
These two boys from Kids Club were my little boyfriends.
I spent most of my time at Kids Club with the teens who couldn't decide whether to like me or think I was weird.
Melissa enticing a little girl into her arms for some T.L.C.
During lunch at Kids Club, when I sat too close to these girls they would scoot over (I think they thought I would try to share their food).
Making plates of peanut butter & honey sandwiches, bananas, and fruit punch for Kids Club lunch.
Women from the mountain side who came to the parenting class.
This is an 11 yr old X-prostitute we met at the transitional home for women trying to escape prostitution. (that is not her baby)
At the home for X-prostitutes, some of the women shared their very hard stories with us. Although my effort did not compare, I shared my photo album from home so we could have a sense of knowing each other.
This photo hangs on the wall of the prostitute transitional housing. There are about 15 girls living in the house as they get job skill training to be nurses, hair stylists, computer techs, etc.
The group of women from the prostitution transitional home we visited. They glowed with praise for Jesus for rescuing them from their pasts!
This is Birukti and two of the Street Boys that she sponsors. One night during our trip, we joined her on their weekly dinner date (her and about 20 Street Boys that she cares for go out to dinner once a week-- she treats them to a feast!).
The boys crowd around some of the women on our team for a group picture at the end of dinner. At first they were unsure of us but by the end we were all buddies.
Because many of the Street Boys didn't speak English, we got creative in order to bond with them... above: Shara plays "thumb wars." And below: I played the "sneaky slap" game.

The team leader for the weaving project shows me a bag of the days work, lots of spun cotton.
The ladies here are spinning cotton in order to make fabric. A "small group" from the church we worked with had the idea to create this job opportunity for the women who otherwise would haul 85 pounds of timber down from the mountains on their backs.
One woman tried to teach me how to spin the yarn. I was terrible at it, but she enjoyed laughing at me.
This is a photo of one what the yarn-spinning-women used to do. It would take all day to gather the wood and walk it down the mountainside, for 50 CENTS a day.
When we visited homes on the mountainside, we met some of the children of those with HIV/AIDS.
This is the doorway into a small 10 home "compound" community on the mountainside, which HIV/AIDS families live and grow small crops of food to eat.
Inside the "compound" doorway, there are 3 buildings like this, with several one-room homes in each building. This is 3 different families' front doors.
These are 2 ladies whose homes we visited on the mountainside. On the left is a married woman who's husband is in his final weeks (she too is infected). On the right is a 23 yr old widow who also lost her child (all to the same disease she also has).

This is a sample of traditional Ethiopian food.

Ethiopia Invented Coffee

Ethiopians say that coffee was invented in their country. They are proud of coffee and brew it strong! Here is the process of making Ethiopian coffee (backwards, sorry the pics uploaded in reverse order). And fun fact: they serve fresh popcorn with their coffee.
After boiling the water & grinds they pour them into your cup. Then, as an American, you might fill at least half your cup with milk to cut the PUNCH Ethiopian coffee has.
Once you grind up the coffee beans, you add them to a pot of water and boil it.
After you roast the coffee beans, you them grind up by hand. They hold these sticks and smash them into the little wooden pot until the beans are just powder.
Once you pick the coffee beans from the tree, you roast them over a hot flame until they turn from light to dark brown.
This is a coffee tree. The red & yellow berries are the "beans". When they turn red they're ready to be picked and cooked.

"Small Groups" Impact Ethiopia

(pictured above, our team visits the home of a young HIV widow living on the mountain.)

On my recent trip to Ethiopia, our team got to partner with a church in the capital that is really getting things done. Not because they have these big outreach "programs" or church wide service "projects". They are reaching their city because the people, the everyday believers in their church body, are living out their faith to those in their city that are hurting, hungry, sick, unemployed, and homeless by building relationships and serving them with love.

Our team visited several different "small groups**" from this church, and each one had a different heart and different vision to serve a segment of the local population (usually unchurched people).

One "small group" we worked with told us how they heard about a group of people, infected with HIV/AIDS, that move to a mountain outside the city because of rumors there is healing water there. Many of those infected with the disease become outcasts in their families and villages, they lose their jobs along with their ability to provide for their own needs, so moving to the mountain seems like their only choice. When they move, they are not only hoping to be cured, they also just seek to disappear, believing what society tells them: they are unworthy of love, care, or help.

(pictured above, our team visited homes of several HIV/AIDS sufferers up on the mountain to hear their stories and pray with them.)

When the "small group" heard about these people, numbering around 4,000 at the time, they began to pray-- asking God how do you want us to help them? For a year all this "small group" did was pray, research the needs and situations of the people on the mountain, and BUILD RELATIONSHIPS with them. Every person in their group would go to the mountain top a few times and week and just meet the people, spend time in their homes, bring them a decent meal, listen to their stories, and love them. During that year, the "small group" even held a feast on the mountain top, where they cooked for several hundred people.

After a year of knowing and understanding those they sought to love, this "small group" banded together to try to create sustainable, tangible ways to impact and better these peoples' lives. First they started a small business in order to employ those adults battling the disease. Many of the people infected with HIV/AIDS are refused work or are too sick to keep regular jobs. So the "small group" started a jewelry making business to provide work for the HIV/AIDS friends they had made. They give each person two 3-hr shifts a week and pay them several times the average wage in the city. The "small group" taught them how to make the jewelry, they provide the supplies, and they sell the finished products at NGO bazaars, local churches and to international teams that come through the city. This is a job they can do while they are weak or strong.

(pictured above, our team visited some of the jewelry makers hard at work.)

As they started the business, they decided to rent a small house on the road to the mountain top to make it easier for the sick people to get to work. This home quickly became not only a place for their job, but also a safe place to come and hang out. Like a small community center.

Once they started this new jewelry making business, the "small group" noticed many of the people brought their kids with them to work. And the kids would just sit around. So they decided to start helping the kids too. Now, every Saturday, they hold a Kids Club where they teach music, art, sports, and English (using the Bible and Bible stories). Plus they feed the kids a healthy meal while they're there.

(pictured above, Shara & Melissa from our team taught a lesson from the Bible about Zacchaeus & Jesus to the Kids Club.)

(pictured above, Birukti & Melissa join the kids in a game of jump rope during the sports class.)

With the Kids Club underway, then the "small group" started noticing that the parents would come with the kids on Saturdays and just sit around. So they started teaching a class for the parents during the same time-- different topics each week like health classes, parenting skills, computer skills, English, and a ton of other stuff.

(pictured above, a nurse from our team taught the parents' class health tips for HIV/AIDS sufferers.)

While we were in Ethiopia, the "small group" was gearing up to implement their latest idea to serve the HIV/AIDS population on the mountain. They are starting a library where adults, kids, or families can come and check out books to practice reading and learning English.

All of this started from one "small group"-- literally a few dozen believers who knew each other from church. They are sacrificing their own money, they are spending their own time, they are using their own ideas, they are investing PERSONALLY in the lives of those they want to serve. They are not waiting for the Big Church to help, they are simply being intentional themselves. They are meeting the needs of this HIV/AIDS community together, as a band of believers who love the suffering people in their town.

It was really neat to witness and really inspiring when I think about the "small groups" in my own church. I hope we are as visionary, bold, willing, and intentional as the pockets of believers I met in Ethiopia!

** There are so many buzz words for what Stone calls "missional communities"-- like small groups, community groups, home care groups, cell groups, home groups, core groups, etc.-- but for this post, I'll just call em "small groups". What I mean by that is a group of 10-30 Christians from the church that meet together weekly, outside of a Sunday church service, to share prayer, encouragement, service, Bible, etc.

Africa in the Rear View Mirror

I have been home a week now from my time in Africa. I am fighting a nasty and uncomfortable intestinal parasite and avoiding any internet research that will only make me even more uncomfortable. And last night, all I could think to say between my sighs of discomfort was "Jesus is worth it!"

That's not a conditioned Christian response, it's just genuinely what my response was. From my gut, literally. For 2 weeks I traveled through Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia to investigate on my own what crazy things Jesus is up to in that part of the world. Let me tell you, HE IS PRESENT...

He is present in the pain,
in the poverty,
in the healing,
in the community,
in the heartbreak,
in the sickness,
in the church,
in the hunger,
in the orphanages,
in the widow's home,
in the recovery of alcoholics,
in the life of Birukti,
in the X-prostitutes' eyes,
in the mosque (trust me, He's THERE...),
in the homecomings of refugees...
JESUS IS PRESENT!

Whether we know about it over here in America, whether we participate in it (from home or while abroad), whether we ever believe it is even possible... Jesus is CONSTANTLY transforming broken lives in these countries. Jesus is hard at work moving, engaging, stirring, and above all LOVING the people in this corner of the world. As a witness, I testify that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever... a surrendered servant who loves the "least of these".

Book Review: There Is No Me Without You

Tonight I finished a rough, but awesome, book: "There Is No Me Without You" by Melissa Fay Greene. It is the story of Ethiopia, as told through the lens of the AIDS epidemic, the sharp increase in the resulting orphan population, and how the country-- and specifically one woman-- responds.

This is not an easy or light book to read, but it was penetrating and thought (and emotion) provoking! At times I was so mad and frustrated, disgusted with the blanket failure our world has settled for in the fight against this horrible disease. Other times, I was so moved and hurting for its victims and those who sacrificed everything to love & care for the abandoned, rejected, outcast segment of the country's population.

The author does a great job of sharing statistics, history, and hard, sad facts in an interesting way. She also tells an amazingly human and painful story of a widow who loses her own daughter to AIDS, and ends up (literally) stumbling into a ministry of care for AIDS orphans in her country. It is not a saintly portrayal, but an honest one, which reminded me that God uses the weak & the sinful to accomplish His great purposes.

Finally, in Parts 3 & 4 of the book, the author tells the "continuation" of the story through the lens of adoption. Which was really touching, even though it's not something we feel called to. The author & book have a website that has info on what's become of the Ethiopian Foster Mother, picture slide shows of the children, and information on adoption. Check out www.thereisnomewithoutyou.com

I definately recommend this book if you are interested in reading about obedience to a call, mercy ministry, AIDS/health related crisis', Ethiopia, Africa, or adoption.

Do You Remember AIDS?

I first remember hearing about the AIDS pandemic when I was in elementary school in the mid-80s. During a conversation over dinner with my family one night, my dad was trying to teach me and my older sisters about AIDS (with what little information we had back then). He told us he heard that 1 in 3 people around the world would end up getting AIDS and dying from it. To illustrate the point for us he said, "so basically that means one of the three of you (me and my two sisters) will get it." I was too young I think to separate an illustration from reality, so I took the comment literally.

So from that day, I started paying a LOT of attention to news about the disease. The school I attended through 12th grade did a lot of AIDS education and I was increasingly surrounded with information about it. I even remember asking my parents in high school to donate the money they would spend on my Christmas presents to AIDS research, hoping for a cure. Then, I went to college-- UT-- and stopped hearing much about it. Stopped meeting people with the disease. I naively assumed it meant that the global AIDS pandemic had improved. I knew they hadn't found a cure, but had invented plenty of meds to fight it. I also assumed that because it appeared as though the U.S. had stopped having as many victims, that it must be the same across the world too. I am just beginning to understand how wrong my thinking was.

I am reading a book right now in preparation for my June trip to Ethiopia called "There Is No Me Without You" (by Melissa Fay Greene). It is the story of an Ethiopian woman who starts taking in and caring for children orphaned by the AIDS in her own country. The book weaves back and forth between this woman's story and the story of AIDS from its beginning up until now. Her personal story is tender and compassionate. But the story of AIDS is just making me plain mad, and broken for its victims.
"The numbers of AIDS deaths in the U.S. and Western Europe plummeted just as the numbers of AIDS deaths in Africa were exploding. With the falloff of mortality in the northern hemisphere, the public engagement with HIV/AIDS diminished. ... The wealthy nations lost interest, once they understood they had escaped the worst." (p. 190-191) No wonder I started hearing about AIDS less and less.

The author wrote a chapter about all the drug advancements that have been made, but about how few of them ever reach Africa. As for Ethiopia, "In 2004, a quarter million HIV-positive Ethiopians reached the critical stage of the disease requiring (drug) treatment to avert rapid deterioration and death. Only 4%-- 10,000 people-- had access to the medicine, which restored the lives of patients in wealthy countries." (p. 184) The rest were left to die. And "there would be no anti-AIDS drugs for children in Ethiopia until 2005." (p. 142) That is just 4 years ago!

She writes that most doctors (even as late as 2006, when the book was published) in Ethiopia are afraid to see patients they think might be sick with "the slim" (Ethiopia's slang reference to HIV/AIDS). They refuse to serve/treat them-- as though they had treatments to even offer. And they are scared to even touch them. The disease has slowly wiped out a generation and a half of parents. Leaving behind over a million orphans... some infected, some not yet.

As I read this book, I am realizing that I almost forgot about AIDS. But even in 2009, it is still VERY MUCH an issue in Africa, and our world. Even if we feel more insulated from it here in America. If Americans get it (which plenty still do), they can treat it. What happens to those outside America who get it and have ZERO options but to wait out their death, leaving behind children with no one to care for them?