Through Jeff's Lens - Part 2

There's nothing like starting a busy day of travel with a morning cup of Ethiopian coffee...

Dark, strong and oh-so-good!

Jeff said he ate and enjoyed the local cuisine. What is pictured below is a bit of a delicacy - most Ethiopians don't get meat often, if at all.

It's called "tibs" and is beef cooked over a coal fire. You can also see the rolled up injera and a dish of chopped chilis and salt for dipping.


There are two villages in Ethiopia where Adoption Ministry has sponsored children. One is the village of T'ede (Teh'-day). It is a 90 minute drive south from Addis Ababa. There's always something to see along the road.

As the team arrived in the village, lots of children spotted the van full of white faces and came to smile and stare.
 
 

Here, Pastor Zerihun lives and ministers to many widowed women and their children. 
 
 

The parsonage

 

The church in T'ede

Adoption Ministry has sponsors for nine children in T'ede and when one of our teams goes to Ethiopia, they get to deliver gifts from the sponsors to these children. I thought it was so sweet how each child bowed as they received their gifts of new clothes and toys.

Next was a visit to the village of Gutumuma. 
 
 

These are the evangelists who have brought the Gospel to this area.
 
**Very cool side story: The young man pictured above with the glasses is Jason Sanchez, one of our adopting dads who was in Ethiopia with his wife Jackie to meet their baby daughter for the first time and attend their court date. His dad was on the pastoral staff with Jeff at a church in Redmond, WA back in the late 80's/early 90's. Jason was a little kid then but we both remember those days with great fondness and we're still all shaking our heads over how God brought us together again - via Ethiopia!

As you know if you've been following this blog, the government gave a beautiful piece of land to these people and Adoption Ministry has been able to raise support for water to be brought in, a fence to be built to surround the compound and found sponsors for twenty children there. A little school has been started, playground equipment supplied and the children get lunch - an egg, a chunk of bread and a cup of milk. For most it is their only 'meal' of the day.
 

Jeff and I sponsor a little girl in this village.

Jeff got to meet her and though he's sure she didn't understand who he was, I'm not so sure. It was a highlight for him, I know!

You know how often you hear that a trip like this changes you forever? Well, my husband is the type who avoids any hint of exaggeration or cliché so he hasn't been saying that he has a whole new outlook on everything. But after seeing what he saw and meeting the people he did, there is certainly conviction and renewed desire to be asking God how he should respond. As we've talked, we both feel that the thing that makes the biggest impression is the people there who are serving Christ. They live in leper colonies, in tiny mud huts or in homes where the widowed and desititute are taken in and taken care of. They are joyfully determined to live out God's word.

So we ask ourselves, "Are we?"