Ambo

The Sanctuary team just left after an awesome 4 days in Ambo!  The team was great – when they first got here, Brittany and I had no idea what our role would be for the week.  The team was made up of 2 high schoolers, 4 college students, and 3 adults.  They were all from the same church and had gone through some pre-trip training together, so we wanted to be careful not to interfere with team chemistry.  Everyone turned out to be INCREDIBLY welcoming, and they did an amazing job at taking us in as their own (We got team t-shirts and everything).  It was really fun getting to know a group of people in Ethiopia who I can still maintain a relationship with when I go home.  It was also cool to see the impact that short term mission teams can have. Lately, I’ve developed the opinion that short term mission trips do more harm on the country than good.  I made a point to talk to some Ethiopians (students, teachers, and pastors) about what they thought of Americans coming in for a short time, and I was surprised to hear that they LOVED it.  The teachers learn a new style of teaching, the pastors learn a new style of preaching, the kids get to be loved like CRAZY for a week, and everyone gets to experience what it actually means to be brothers and sisters in Christ.  I’m interested to see how the after-math plays out, but I was really surprised (in a good way) with the impact that one group could have in a week.

Anywho... here’s a summary of the past couple days! 

Thursday/Friday: No one was excited to be in Ambo.  Burayu is “home” for a lot of the team (most of the team had come at least once, and each of them had some connection to a sponsored family in Burayu).  Because Ambo was started a year after Burayu, we haven’t had as much time to invest there.  So naturally, the team wanted to stay with Burayu for the week because that’s where they were most connected.  So Thursday was tough for them.

BUT the guardian meetings on both Thursday and Friday were INCREDIBLE.  In both meetings, when we asked for feedback, at least 4 guardians stood up and shared their stories of victories and frustrations with the program.  The coolest part was on Friday – one of the women stood up and expressed concern that the program wasn’t providing a valuable education for the kids (there’s been some trouble with the government getting the school workbooks).  Before Rudy could respond, another woman stood up and said that her daughter had been to a different government school.  She switched schools so that she could participate in the program and was very challenged in the new school.  A year later, her daughter was at the top of her class, and it was because her mom had supported her and played a part in her education outside the classroom.  It was just really cool to hear the women encouraging each other with their success stories – it was incredible evidence of the transformation that the program is having on entire families.  One of our biggest challenges has been getting the guardians to open up, so the sheer fact that they would stand up and voice their opinion, let alone encourage each other, was awesome to see.

We also got to go on a couple home visits.  For the most part, the houses in Ambo are smaller and more crowded than the ones in Burayu.  One lady who we visited paid 100 burr/month for rent… that’s a little more than $5/month for a 1 room house made of mud.  She started crying when she told us what a struggle it was to pay rent – she sells injera (traditional “bread”) and weaves some baskets, but she still struggled to pay each month.  When we asked her what she thought about the program, her attitude slowly changed from desperation to hope.  She talked about what an incredible community she had gained, the skills she was learning from the training, and how hopeful she was that she would be able to transform her life through the business she would start with the other guardians.  It was REALLY neat to see.

Favorite Story:  On Thursday when we took out the toys to play with (soccer balls, beach balls, and jump ropes) the kids BOMBARDED us.  I’m talking kids pushing each other down to get balls and practically strangling one another to try to get their hands on a jump rope.  On Friday we decided we were going to organize the kids into groups before we passed out toys in an effort to preserve some lives.  We had done a decent job, but we started passing out jump ropes we realized they were all tangled.  The kids were getting anxious, and as we got the ropes untangled one by one, it was impossible to hand them out in an organized fashion.  Case Chimdil came over (the Youth Pastor – the guy who had the 1 year old birthday party) and offered to help.  He shooed all the kids away into a big circle and just chucked the jump rope into the middle of the mob.  So much for trying to preserve lives. BUT he was having the time of his and HE was the pastor, so I just kept untangling. 

Saturday:

Saturday morning we had Saturday School with the kids, and then it was a tourist day! It was really nice to get to know the team better and to take a break for a bit.  Even though for the 5 hour trip we were probably only out of the bus for 45 minutes, I loved getting to see more of the country.  We drove up to Lake Wenchie – apparently it’s a popular tourist location: it’s about a 30 km drive from Ambo, 27 of which are on dirt roads going about 20 miles per hour.  Not what I expected from a popular tourist site, but hey… it’s Africa.  The drive was amazing – we got to see the typical grass huts, the lion king trees, and people pre-technologically farming (they were using plows pulled by mules).  AND Jessica let me listen to her music with her, which was nice because I forgot to load my iPod before I came.  I never thought I’d be so excited to hear Katy Perry’s “Firework”, but I guess your music taste changes when you haven’t been able to sing along to songs for 3 weeks.  I felt bad for the rest of the bus.

Sunday:

We went to another Ethiopian church in the morning, but the highlight of the day was getting to eat the 12th meal at the hotel we’d been staying at.  Apparently Ambo’s food is slightly sketchy, so it’s the only restaurant we eat at when we come. Normally, I would take advantage of eating at the same restaurant 12 times in a row.  But since there are a limited number of foods to trust here, I decided to stick to the staple diet of Corn Flakes, Omelets, stealing people’s fries, and the occasional Chicken Hawaiian (which was slightly different every time you ordered it).

All in all, it was a solid week with the team.   I loved getting to spend time with other Americans and figure out what a connection you could establish with people you’ve never met in a week.  Them leaving was sad (especially when they all talked about what they were excited to do when they got home… i.e. eat Chik fil A), but it also means that it’s the start of what we’ve been preparing for for the last 4 months.  The next 6 weeks will now be completely devoted to guardian training, teaching English, getting involved in the Youth program, figuring out what college ministry looks like, getting to know the SVO staff, getting to know each other, and whatever else gets thrown in our path.  Les go.  

Prayer Requests: 

• The start of guardian training! That we would seek guidance from God, the SVO staff, and the guardians on what the most needed things to teach in the next 6 weeks are. The guardians sacrifice a ton to make it to these weekly meetings (most of them are daily laborers and have had to do some major negotiating so they don’t lose their jobs), so I want to make sure we are best serving their needs.  
•  Our team dynamics.  They’ve been great so far, but this is where everything really starts.  That Katie, Rudy, Brittany and I would continue to grow together, encourage each other and trust one another.
  

Learning to WALK

“For he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’” Hebrews 13:5 (Joshua 1:5)

“We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional ting, that He is preparing and fitting us for some extraordinary thing by and by, but as we go on in grace we find that God is glorifying himself here and now, in the present minute.  If we have God’s say so behind us, the most amazing strength comes, and we learn to sing in the ordinary days and ways” – Oswald Chambers (My Utmost)

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” Hebrews 13:8

“All this time, I feel like you’ve been looking for something big to prove yourself maybe? You’ve always felt like you have to do things on your own. And now that you’re essentially heading to Africa with no plan, you probably feel like He’s sending you alone.  And I know it’s scary and you’re afraid of missing out on better opportunities and you can’t really see God because of all this.  But these times, I think, are when you can see Him the most” – Katie, in her letter she wrote me before she left

“It is such an answer to prayer that you have time to spend with Jesus to think and process.  In my mind, if the whole point of your going over to Ethiopia was for the Lord to put you in a place where you would be able to sit and commune with him and talk with him, that would be worth it.  I am being slowly convinced here that time with our Farther is the most important and to make choices that keep us away from Him is nullifying His grace to us” – Emily Nicholos, in an e-mail she recently sent

This morning I read the passage above in My Utmost for His Highest and realized how God is teaching me what it means to walk with Him instead of just believe things about Him.  After the youth meeting on Sunday, I left really intimidated by the rest of the summer. Kids are easy to play with because they just flock to you and want to touch you.  But 2 months provides WAY more potential than just playing with the kids.  I have the opportunity to form relationships with the SVO staff, the youth, and the guardians.  Which means that in the next 2 months, I’m going to have to be vulnerable and experience failure and rejection – 3 of the things I avoid the MOST.  And even though I’m really excited because I know SO much is going to come of it, it’s a lot scarier than being chased around by a bunch of kids.

BUT after seeing the passage, reading through a couple more verses in Hebrews, and remembering things that people had told me over the past weeks, I realized that’s exactly why I’m here for 2 months.  I think God’s showing me that He will never leave me or forsake me, even in my day to day life.  And as Ethiopia becomes my “home” for the summer, it stops being this place where I expect huge “moments” that I can cling to and place my faith in.  Not that I’ve stopped expecting big things from this summer.  But the more settled I become here and the more routine life gets, the more potential I see for relationships to build instead of just one-time emotional conversations.  I love high energy and “doing” all the time because I don’t think that  I fully trust that God is with me in the mundane, every day aspects of life.  So as my time in Ethiopia becomes more “normalized”, I’m terrified, but I see SO much purpose in it, and that’s cool.

“Through him let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name” Hebrews 13:15

Random Updates:

•          On Sunday we had our first “Youth” meeting.  It was kind of boring, which was cool because there’s a TON of ways that it can grow this summer. 
• I got corn rows! (Carey, I promised I wouldn’t come back with them, but I never said I wouldn’t get them…).  It’s step #3 (I think I’m on #3?) in becoming Ethiopian.  I met a couple of girls at the youth service on Sunday, and I told one of them I wanted hair like hers (college students can speak a good amount of English – all college classes are taught in English, so the more schooling they have, the better they are), and 20 minutes later I had cornrows.  I’m pretty sure my scalp got a little burnt the next day (sorry Mrs. Lisa, I didn’t get your suggestion soon enough!), but it was TOTALLY worth it.
• I MADE MY FIRST ETHIOPIAN FRIEND!!! Her name is Meti and she’s 22 and an accountant.  She told me she liked my hair (after it was in the new hair-do), so naturally we hit it off.  She spoke really good English because she’d been through school, and we were with two 10 year olds who also spoke English pretty well.  It was awesome – we ended up hanging out for about 2 hours talking about random things (the 10 year olds helped entertain too).  At the end of our conversation, we decided we were gonna start meeting up on Saturdays during kids “Sunday School” and have a bible study.  I have no idea what it’s gonna look like, but I’m SO excited because I feel like we’re going to learn a lot from each other.  I also just wanna know what college life is like/life was like growing up here/make an Ethiopian friend.

o   On that note, I had to bail for this Saturday because we’ll be in Ambo with the team, but I got to have my FIRST text message conversation in Ethiopia.  Now we just need to be FBO and we’ll be REAL friends.

•          We got to see two of the businesses that some of the groups had made through BOK.  It was amazing, and spoke SO much for what the program is doing and how it is actually empowering this women to believe in themselves, think for themselves, and become self-sustainable in order to provide for their family.

-          Ambo tomorrow! I don’t know if we’ll have internet, so there may not be posts until Sunday or Monday.

FIRST ETHIOPIAN TEXTING CONVERSATION!! It started with "Hey mete, it's Marnie from America"

Business that the guardians started!!!

CORNROWS!!! And I finally did it.  It's the first picture with the African child.

Party Party Party

SATURDAY: International Birthday Party #2!!

Case Chimdil’s (the youth director in Burayu) daughter had her 1^st birthday, and since the Gleason’s were here when she was born, it was pretty exciting that they were there.  This party was WAY more fun than the first international party, and I didn’t even speak their language! Case lives in a complex that looks like it would be government housing in America.  We walked in and there were leaves covering the floor (I think that’s tradition in Ethiopia for ceremonies), printed out signs that said “Happy Birthday” in both English and Amheric (the clip art they picked out for the signs was a menorah. I chuckled).  They had taped one of those banners that says “Happy Birthday” on the back wall surrounded by strung up Christmas lights (the lights kind of looked like how we decorated when we used to hang up lights for FCA meetings at Centennial).  It was AWESOME. Instead of a birthday cake, Ethiopians make these MONSTER bread circles (literally, it’s a big circle made of bread.  Picture a round cake, then multiply the diameter by 3.  It was HUGE, and about 2 inches thick).  Dad… you’d have a hard time giving up bread here.  Ethiopians also eat a ton of popcorn, so there was a HUGE bowl of popcorn, intermixed with hard candies, cookies, and topped with bananas (unpeeled… literally, there were just bananas on top of the popcorn).  The whole party was just JOYFUL and I felt like at one point, the entire complex was in Case’s living room (people kept walking in and Case would be like “oh yeah, these people live close to me too!”  Some of them brought their babies who had been born “around the same time”, so when it came time to “cut the bread”, there were about 5 babies waiting to blow out the candle.  It was REALLY cute).

-          Favorite Parts:

o   Seeing how open the community is to sharing their lives with each other and celebrating with one another

o   Getting a tour of Case’s house.  There was a living room, a bedroom for the 4 kids (literally, a room with a bed. And a little stove where it looked like they had extended the kitchen.  No wall decorations, no carpet, no closet.  Just a hook on the wall where Case had hung his jacket), and the master bedroom (a room with a bed, a dresser, and a couple pictures).  I think the kitchen was an extension of the living room but had been separated by a curtain.  It was cool because Case was SO proud of his house.  It’s a lot compared to some of the people he works with, but it was still amazing seeing how much pride he had for his life/family/kids, and his excitement about getting to share it with us.

SUNDAY: Ethiopian Wedding!!

Right before I came to Ethiopia I said the ONE thing I wanted to see here was an Ethiopian wedding, and on Sunday I got my wish! As soon as the church sermon had ended, Case (the same guy who’s daughter had a birthday on Saturday) went outside and escorted the bridal party in.  There was a lot of singing and dancing involved as they got to their seats – it was kind of like a conga line.  The bride was dressed in traditional Afonoromo (the native language in Burayu) garb – a white dress (like a cloth dress. Not a wedding dress) decorated with trees (the Burayu sign of unity), and the groom was wearing a matching shirt/pant outfit.  The couple was escorted to 2 chairs that had been covered with a white sheet so that it looked like 1 bench, and the bridal party sat behind them.  The ceremony wasn’t as different as I expected, but it was still really cool to see.

Things I liked:

•        It was an entire church ordeal.  Even though the bridal party were the only people celebrating, the wedding had kind of been incorporated into the church service.  I thought it was a cool picture of what a church community looks like.
•           When they put the rings on each other, they held up the hand (i.e. the bride held up the grooms hand) and everyone cheered.  It was cute.
•           It was a ceremony, but I didn’t feel like everything had to be perfect.  I felt like it was more of a celebration of them getting married than a show that was being put on, and sometimes I feel like that’s what weddings have become.

Things that were different:

• They signed the marriage papers at the end of the ceremony and then held up the completed document for everyone to see.
• They both lit a candle together and then held up the candle stick
• They didn’t kiss
• The bride didn’t look very happy.  Misganaw (the leader of the SVO staff) said that it was pretty typical for Ethiopian women to be raised not super stand-outish so she was just shy, but it was really hard for me to see that she was excited about getting married.
• The bridal party danced around the car, led by the bride and groom, before they got in.  They were dancing and singing and CELEBRATING the fact that their friends had just gotten married – it was really fun to watch.  I’ll try to upload a video, but we’ll see how that one goes.
• The dirt road was COVERED with confetti from the church to the main road.  And I haven’t seen anyone cleaning up trash here, so it’ll probably stay there until the next big rainstorm.
• The bridal party all jumped in the back of a pick-up truck and followed the newly-weds to the reception (I don’t really know what the reception was).  I just liked that they fit like 20 people into the back of a pick-up truck.

Bottom line – I LOVED getting to see how a different culture celebrates.  

Popcorn, Bananas, Oranges, and Cookies. YES. Notice the decorations in the background. 

Dancing around the wedding car!  

As a tradition for your first birthday, you get to cut the bread!

Fotos Fotos Fotos!

They're kind of old and there are only a few, but the American team is here so I get a couple minutes of wifi every day to upload them from the guest house!

Traditional food! The best part: it's finger food! And REALLY messy finger food. AND Ethiopians always share their dishes with each other.  Now I have an excuse for eating off of other people's plates. 

I have the best mom EVER.

These are what are actually keeping me from getting malaria...

My room for the summer! Please take note of the curtains.  I knew engineering problem solving would come in handy one day.

Blogging is complicated when you have no internet

So you take advantage of the 1 minute spans that you get and post as much as possible....

Pictures to come when uploading them doesn't crash everything!!! 

Amheric Level 1 Lesson 1

Monday – Sengo (pronounced “sen-yo”)

Tuesday – Maksengo

Wednesday – Rob (but you half roll the R, and talk with an African accent)

Thursday – Hamus (pronounced “hummus”.  This is 1 of 2 that I could remember during my lesson)

Friday – Arb

Saturday – Kidame (I thought they were saying edame, which reminded me of edamame.  This was #2 that I remembered.  See the trend?)

Sunday – Ihud (pronounce “i-hoooood”, but like the “I” in “if”)

Tomorrow – nege

Today – zare

See you tomorrow – nege ineganang (pronounced “nege inelkjad LAUGH LAUGH LAUGH, wave”. And then they think you’re trying to be funny and wave back)

Peace – Salam

What I actually learned during my lesson:

1.       - This doesn’t sound anything like Spanish

2.       - Carrying a notepad and pen with you is required if you want to figure out what they’re actually saying

3.      -  Laughing helps.  A lot.

- Apparently it’s obvious that I want to be able to communicate.  The director of the program came over during my lesson and was like “You are just so eager to speak Amheric!” I just laughed and nodded.

Meet the Guardians

Thursday morning we went to the school in Burayu to meet the guardians! We were an hour late because of a miscommunication with our driver (yes, we have a driver.  And a maid and a nanny and a guard.  It’s weird being in a country to serve the people and hiring people to serve you at the same time, but it’s just a part of the culture that I haven’t gotten comfortable with yet.  The other day I was carrying in grocery bags, and EACH person tried to take the bags from me.  I wanted to be like “Homies, my sister and I used to have competitions to see who could fit the most grocery bags on her arms.  It’s okay”.  But that’s Level 4 of Amheric, and I’m still on Level 0).

ANYWHO. We pulled up to the school, and the kids in the school were in 4 lines singing a welcome song.  At the front of each line was a kid holding a sign that said “Welcome (insert name here)” and a rose for the 4 of us! I think it was the warmest welcome I’ve ever gotten.  We got out of the van, and kids just stretched out their hands trying to touch us.  I wanted to explain that I didn’t have any healing power, but again, that’s Level 4 Amheric. 

To be honest, Thursday was hard.  It probably had to do with the whole “sticking out like a sore thumb” thing, but I also was expecting to be able to communicate with the kids and guardians a little more than I was able to.  Part of me kind of feels like I’m intruding on Katie and Rudy’s ministry – they’ve done so much to establish relationships with these women and the staff, and sometimes I feel like I’m even an outsider on our team.  I know that’ll change and they’ve done a really good job at bringing us in, but it’s still tough.  I also like “learning the lay of the land” before I jump in and take leadership/give my opinions, but I feel pressed for time because we’re only here for 2 months.  By the time I get a complete understanding of what’s going on, it’s gonna be time to leave.  Thursday afternoon B and I had a neat conversation that centered around how neither of us knew why we were here, but it’s cool because both of us are confident that this is where God has put us and we just need to go with His flow instead of our own.

FRIDAY, on the other hand, was a lot better at the site.  It was probably because I had a better idea of what to expect, and the team was kind of discouraged from Thursday (Katie and Rudy had expected to see more progress, and B was still thinking about her purpose here) – I feel like sometimes my joy comes out when others don’t have it, because that’s when it’s most needed.  We got to the site and all of the Compassion kids were in Ambo for the day (the Compassion kids make up half the school), so school had been cancelled for the day and it was only guardians.  There were a lot more guardians, but I also got more of a chance to interact with them after we had been introduced and Katie had given her intro message.  One lady said she wanted to learn how to speak English, so I walked over to her after and told her (with lots of hand gestures) that I would teach her English if she would teach me Amheric.  I then learned all of the days of the week – it was so FUN being able to laugh with the women at my mispronunciation, and I feel like I established some kind of trust relationship with them where I showed them that I wanted to learn from them and get to know them.  I’m hoping this will help them receive me better when I have the chance to teach them.

Our team stayed up for a long time on Thursday night talking in circles about what we wanted the guardians to get out of the program, what was important to emphasize, and what our purpose here was.  It was hard because there are NO right answers and really good things come with bad things and vice versa.  Bottom line is, we can’t save the world, nor can we take away all the conflict or hurt that exists in it.  It’s also kind of freeing because it’s forcing us to seek the Lord and figure out what HIS vision for the program is.  I’m past the point of trying to figure out what I can do – my prayer this morning was that I would walk with Him and be more transformed to be like Christ, and let fruit come out of that.  Kind of cool. 

Biggest Frustration: The Internet.  I would much rather just not have internet for 2 months than for it to tease me with pseudo working and then crashing right as I get excited about using it.

Cool things: Seeing God answer my prayers for patience with the family. And becoming more vulnerable with each other as we get to know each other better.

Things I’m realizing: I would hate being famous.  You wouldn’t be able to walk ANYWHERE.

Prayer requests: That I would figure out how to encourage Rudy and Katie.  It’s been cool being on a team with older believers, but I’ve never been put in a place where I had to spiritually encourage older people.  My comfort zone = my age +/- 4 years and younger.  Greater than 5 years = intimidation.