Happy New Year!

 Greetings!

Today is the Ethiopian New Year. Malcam Addis Ameut Ethiopia! It is now 2005. (Their calendar has 13 months.) Not sure I want to go back to 2005….I wasn’t even old enough to live in Ethiopia…. I awoke yesterday to the chants and songs of a band of children, dressed in traditional clothing, banging on a neighbors door. All through the city there was celebration like this. Flags waived, coffee brewed, and music filled every ear. My friends and I went party hopping. We hit four homes, all of which insisted on feeding us. At the third home I could not sit up straight in my chair. When they came around with their pitcher of water to wash my hands I turned to an English speaker and said, “Tell them that if they feed me anything else, I’m going to throw up on them.” I don’t think that exact message was relayed, but I was not force fed anything else until evening. I was then made to eat a large piece of their nasty cake. No offense, Ethiopia, but your cake is not palatable – kinda like a wet, rotting sponge. I don’t know what they do to it, but it’s bad. Cake aside, it was a great time of celebration. May God bless 2005.

Last week, Great Hope Ministries invited the community to a program at the church commemorating the transformation of Korah. There were two large pieces of ply wood covered in pictures. On the far left were pictures of the children in the trash dump. They were three years younger, but sad, filthy, hopeless. In the middle were pictures of Sumer’s family, and the many teams of ferenge that had come, sponsored kids, and made a difference. And finally on the right were pictures of the children now. Picture after picture of their smiles, bright and confident smiles. There were pictures of them at boarding school, on field trips, and home in Korah. The heading read, “The Transformation of Korah”. True that.

 

Several people stood and shared with the community how Project 61 had changed the lives of their family and publicly gave the Lord praise for His blessings. The name of each person from Korah who is now in America; whether adopted, student, or visitor was mentioned, and again God was praised. A group of students filed out in somewhat matching attire to sing, dance, and mime for us. And finally, the leaders recognized the children with the highest grades. Each child strutted down front between our chairs while we clapped to a peppy beat, shook the proud hand of a ministry worker, and received a gift for their hard work. What a wonderful way to lift their morale for the new school year ahead!

 

It is back to school time. This week, Sumer and I have filled three hundred something backpacks with supplies for each student. Her house was filled with mounds of socks and pencils.

 

Today we dropped off the first batch of kids at Akake boarding school. This is a branch of the larger school in Shashamene that the majority of the students attend. It was exciting. They poured off the bus, received the backpack with their name on it, and entered their dorms. I look forward to watching them grow where they are planted. On Monday, we will transport the remaining 234 students to Shashamene. It will be quite the day. 

This past Monday was my first day of Amharic school. I loved it. There were ferenge from many parts of the world, speaking many other languages, and there for varying purposes. My teacher is the sweetest thing since canned peaches. We are not allowed to speak in Amharic in class yet. Their teaching method is that we will learn as we learned our mother tongue, initially by listening only. When we are confident in the word’s use and pronunciation, we may use it starting in the next phase. The rules, of course, only apply in class, and we are encouraged to experiment outside. It’s so much fun to go out and hear words I just learned in use by the nationals. My language is growing by the day.

The rainy season is coming to a close. The rain is less and less and the sun shines more and more, though today we had a good storm. I’m in no hurry for the rain to go. Soon we will be hot always, and I do love the rain.

Last week, a girl in our program named Buzayu came to the clinic to see me. She sat in the chair and pointed to her ankle. A large round something was just barely sticking out of her skin. She explained to me that it used to be in much deeper, and on the other side of her ankle. I gloved up, grabbed it with my fingers, and pulled quickly. She jerked away from me, then looked in astonishment at what I had extracted from her ankle. It was a thorn, roughly an inch in length. She told me it had been there for a year and seven months. Over the past year, she had gone to numerous doctors, had x-rays, and went on antibiotics trying to figure out what was wrong with her foot. Everyone had told her nothing was there.

 

I could only think of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10. He cried out to the Lord concerning a “thorn in his flesh”, that the Lord might remove it from him. But God, in His sovereignty, allowed the thorn to remain. Paul even alludes to the fact that it was given to him intentionally to keep him from boasting in his own ability and accomplishments. The Lord’s reply to his prayer was this alone, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” We do serve a jealous God, who will get the glory He deserves. Paul continues by praising God for his difficulty, knowing that in human struggle and weakness, the power and faithfulness of God is made known. How backward this thinking seems! And yet, even on the other side of the world, His grace is indeed sufficient for me in every difficulty, distress, or persecution.