Monday, July 9th minibus adventure #1
Today the kids & I had our first of many big adventures around Addis. We headed to HQ (the SIM headquarters compound) after lunch to pick up some cash (Ethiopia is a cash only society) then headed to the grocery store. What should have been a 30 min trip by minibus & walking about ½ mile turned into a minibus ride plus about an hour walk. I am usually great w/directions, but today I wasn’t! :( We totally got lost, but God was watching over us….we ended up on a street that didn’t look familiar & asked 4 different people for directions and got 4 DIFFERENT answers 
lol! So we kept walking & I did have our cell phone on me & decided my last resort was to call the team who were all at the school together. After trying to describe the area we were in, they weren’t able to figure out where I was. I had a moment or 2 of panic especially as Jacob continued to tell me that he couldn’t believe I got us lost and that he knew which way to go—lol…..so I’m standing on a street looking way confused w/all 4 kids and decided I would just have to hire a contract taxi which is more expensive than we normally like to pay, but since they usually speak decent English and know most places around town this seemed like the best option as we were starting to hear thunder in the distance & we could see the afternoon storm moving close. As we were waiting 2 women walked by and just looked at us & kept walking, after walking past they stopped and turned around and walked back and said “madam, can we help you” –what an answer to prayer!!! She works as a waitress in Dubi so she has learned English there. It was cute how she continued to called me “madam” :) but they knew exactly where to go and said they would walk me to the right street corner-thankfully we were only about a block off of where we should have been, so we quickly found SIM & the kids were so excited to be in a familiar environment. We stayed awhile, drank some fanta (orange soda) & pretzels and then set off again for the grocery store. What an adventure it was just to go to the grocery store. Definitely makes me realize how blessed we are in the states to hop in our minivan and drive 5 minutes to Walmart.
Tuesday, July 10th —Minibus adventure #2
Today we woke up and Falk had planned a “culture day” around Addis. He had talked w/Feleckech to get directions & we planned to visit the “Red Terror” martyr museum, and one of the larger Orthodox Churches in an area of Addis none of us were very familiar with. So after lunch we set out with Kristen (our teammate who is living with us). Our 2nd minibus experience took us on a different route than we expected b/c of road construction so we missed our stop and ended up way past where we needed to go :) so we then got off and had to walk back about a mile. Of course the kids were not so excited about this, but here in Addis we have been able to “bribe” them w/Fanta’s :) so we stopped at a coffee shop to regroup. Thankfully within 10 minutes we found the museum and just in time b/c it started pouring just as we walked in . The museum was a very eye opening experience, it displayed the time here in Ethiopia when “the dergue” (the communist regime) was in power. It was interesting to learn more about this era and tragedy in Ethiopia’s history. We had a few other “experiences” too, but we’ll share more about those once we are back :) we learned that a lot of what we experienced today on the streets are very normal here, but still hard to get used to! Thankfully we found minibuses back to our side of town easily and we all made it back home safely-Praise God!! For dinner we had Falk’s student, Woobeshet & his family over for dinner. We had a fun evening w/them & enjoyed getting to know more about the Ethiopian culture! It’s been such a wonderful experience getting to know the people here!!
Wednesday, July 11th—Minibus adventure #3
Laura, Kristen & I have been looking forward to today b/c Feleckech has planned for a few weeks to take us to the market to go shopping! We had such a fun time as girls just hanging out! I have really enjoyed visiting with her and learning about the Ethiopian culture from her. Today I felt so much more relaxed on the minibuses and around town ( we didn’t have the 3 little ones with us). It’s so comforting to go with someone who knows exactly where to go, and how to get there, and speaks the language… Since I’ve been gone for 2 months from an English speaking country, I’m getting very used to just figuring out how to do things or get places-I really like the challenge/adventure of it all, but it is nice to have a native speaking friend with you to make it just a little easier to get around :) It was fun to be with Feleckech and watch her as she haggled w/the store merchants over the prices. We realized at the end of the day we got GREAT deals b/c she wouldn’t allow them to give us the “Firinji price”—she continually would tell them that the price they were wanting was by no means a “habasha price” (price that the locals would pay). We spent the entire afternoon out and on the way back a HUGE storm moved through. Thankfully we had just gotten on the minibus when the storm hit. As we drove we encountered several big traffic jams, so we sat for quiet awhile in the minibus. We realized that we were getting wet INSIDE –so the girls put their hoods up on their rain jackets (see the pictures)-it was really funny. Then it started hailing so hard—it lasted about 15 minutes and then passed quickly. It was amazing how much rain fell in such a short amount of time! The evening was very relaxing, but limited in activities b/c we had no power. Falk and Vic went to Bingham academy to play volleyball and workout. It was an early night to bed for me-I needed some extra rest!!
Thursday, July 12th –<inibus adventure #4
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This morning Feleckech was making injira here at the house. It was very neat to watch the entire process!! (see the pictures at the bottom of the post)
Falk spent the morning with Tegegn, one of his students, at his church where he also works. It was a great experience for Falk to learn first hand how a church operates here in Ethiopia. When we talked with him later in the day, he said this was the experience he has been wanting to have the entire time he has been here. The rest of us met up with Sadayie, a young girl Kristen has gotten to know over the past few weeks who works at SIM. Our trip to HQ was once again quiet interesting. Today is a holy day here in Ethiopia which means A LOT more people on the streets and on the public transportation system b/c they are going to and from the orthodox churches (one of which is right near our house). So this makes for about 3x the amount of traffic around our area. It also means the priest was on the loud speaker singing and chanting starting around 2am this morning—From “Mexico” circle we really had to be intentional about getting on the right bus to our destination. We pushed our way on and were sitting there when the driver said to many people were on the bus and we had to get off. We didn’t understand at first and by the time we did and Kristen said to him “ you mean, we have to get off”, about 3 different men chose to get off so that we and another mom with a small baby could stay on. This was such a nice gesture and really impressed us. During our visit at HQ, Jacob started throwing up again, so I decided he would see the doctor at the health clinic while we were here. He didn’t see any major red flags, but were told to just watch him over the weekend to make sure his symptoms don’t get worse. Poor little guy!
In the afternoon we went with a full time missionary couple to see what happens with the “urban ministries” division of SIM. One of their ministries is called “Deborah house”
The Deborah house is a ministry set up for girls who have previously been living on the street to come & be taught about the love of Christ and shown how to learn and work in society. They are taken in and live together with a house mom and are given food,clothing, a safe place to sleep and most importantly they are loved, cared for, counseled for problems they may have experienced during their time on the streets. They all go to school during the normal year (right now its rainy season break, like our summer break in the states). Our time at Deborah house was so amazing! The girls who live there are just so sweet and full of life. . It was so encouraging to talk with them, and play games with them and just love on them for a couple of hours. The house mom performed a coffee ceremony and the girls performed (song & dance) a few songs for us! It was a great time and the girls really enjoyed our kids! It’s encouraging to see how these girls lives have been forever changed b/c of this program! We would have loved to spend all evening with them, but it had been raining hard during the afternoon and the driver decided to come back and pick us up instead of us walking home! To make it all the way to our neighborhood, the minibuses were to packed so we ended up on one of the large city buses. This was a new experience and the kids were so excited to have ridden the “BIG” bus kayley said
We got home to find that Feleckech had left us injeria to eat for dinner from what she made this morning! We were once again very impressed with her cooking abilities!! This evening we spent relaxing around the house and preparing for tomorrow, it will be another full day as we spend the morning learning more about the PIN (People in Need) ministry that is run by IEC, and teach the young adults class in the evening!
Here are a few pictures from the week….
