Still Alive, But it was Close

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All,

I have good news. I made it to Ethiopia and everything went great on flights and traveling. We had flights from Chicago to London, a stop in Jordan and then on to Adis Ababa. This description of the first day might scare you Mom and Dad, so just skip this entry.

The first morning we had a late breakfast to make up for the 24 hours of travel to make it here. We had a short worship service and then began a life changing day. Our directors gave us a short list of instructions and which part of town to travel to along with 320 birr. And to make you feel more confortable this is only $32 dollars. (and most groups didn't use more than $10). We were in groups of four with little knowledge of the language or the city at all. It was something like a scavenger hunt in another world. Most of the people we interacted with knew about the same amount of english that we knew amharic. So the idea of the trip was to immerse ourselves in the culture and to get lost on the first day in the new city. After riding some packed taxi vans to different parts of town we made it to one the cities centers. Unlike the US poverty is not hidden under a bridge or in the ally way. The streets are packed with cars and people. It was hard not to have your heart broke by the amount of beggars and homeless on the street begging for money. Seeing people literally sleeping in the middle of the side walks was hard not notice. Children following you around with looks of dispare and mothers laying with their children in their arms not even picking up the pennies tossed infront of them is troubling to say the least. Their health is worse with many blind people, broken limbs, or big sores.

It is truly undescribable the poverty that we saw and interacted with on the first day.

But now to the story the title speaks of.

(I will describe it more indepth later when I get the opportunity) While in a large square a ethiopian college student started talking with us about classrs, the US and even Obama. We asked about the culture of some close architecture. After talking about our work in an orphanage he said that there is a cultural dance close by that raises money for another orphanage. Trying to be open we were up to the idea of checking it out. We were then led down a few streets and behind a tin metal gate into a small house. It wasn't completely suspicious since mose buildings are made out of sheet metal. We were excited to meet a bunch of college students that proceeded to teach us the local dance, which I must demonstrate some time. And as you do with just at your house they fed us some small amounts of food and gave us bottles of coke. After things got a little weird we decided to leave when they annouced that we owed them 900 birr or $90 dollars. Not only is this incredibly expensive when an earier meal costed less than $2 but we didn't have that type of money to spend. Fortunately we made it out of there safely and only paying $60 dollars for a small amount of food. Now this was a scary experience to have some conflict in another country that you can't speak the language well at all.

One more great short story. We have had groups of people at the seminary (where we stay), stop and ask to pray and bless us on our trip after only meeting them for a minute. The hospitality that we have been shown continually amazes me.

When we get more time I'll try to update again.

All is well and start praying for our digestive systems as they start to shut down on the group slowly.

Oh and we get to squat to go to the bathroom. That is bringing some great stories in the group so far.

Love,

Josiah


(Megan I miss you alot!)

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Comments

[Joel]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Hey, foo! Hope things are going well. Especially on your birthday!