Mission Trip "Changed 2011" Part 5

BreAnna's Journal from Tuesday, Jan. 18 :

“A Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, He leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.” Psalm 68: 5-6

-That is a beautiful promise and comfort when I’m here in Ethiopia. God cares. God sees. God will bring justice.

-AM: We headed back over to CFI this AM. It was nice to be able to return to the kids and build friendships. It will be hard to leave them on Saturday. It was especially touching today because we had the opportunity to give shoes to all the kids. I was among 4 people who were privileged to hand-pick the shoes and fit them perfectly to each child. They were SO excited. Their faces would light up and their smiles were ear-to-ear. I love how content the kids are with small things. It’s humbling to me.

-PM: We headed off to Kechene (Kah-Chen-A'). Kechene is an extremely poor part of town; within the town a man named Nicodemus and his wife have started a drop-in center like CFI. This area is MUCH poorer than anything I’ve been in before…after a while it is all relative, the poverty is hard to grasp. The school has about 130 kids. The teachers were so great; you could tell they really loved the children. They sang “Father Abraham” for us, and then we played with them for a few hours…and it was rough. I mean, they were SO desiring attention and wanted us to give them money and candy. I can’t get mad at them. They HAVE to be like that to survive. I hated the fact that I was a rich American coming in for a couple of hours and then leaving without giving them anything to help. (Our team did bring totes of donations for the leaders to distribute/use) I know giving them anything I had right then would have been bad because it would start a mob and it wouldn’t really help in the long-run; but you still end up hating yourself for it. There was a girl there who was glued to my side and she would kiss me and hug me and play with my hair. Oh, she had a headful of lice, but I’m sure I’ll be fine, right? I’m not really concerned about getting lice or malaria. They can be dealt with and either one would be worth what I’ve experienced here.

-Later PM: After Kechene we drove forever up to Bole Bulbula, a village with a church. Daniel leads a ministry there for orphans and for widows. He is helping the widows learn a trade and support themselves. He is all about bringing Jesus to the people. Once again, I am just super humbled by the leaders here. They have nothing themselves, yet they have a vision for Jesus and work hard to achieve it. We played with the kids after Daniel shared about the ministry…it’s true, kids are kids wherever you go!