Ethiopian Adventure!

On July 2 we took a trip to Ethiopia for a few days. The idea for this trip was conceived a couple of weeks ago, when we found out that we would not be able to fly to Sudan until July 8 due to the limited number of flights. Rather than just sit around in Nairobi for three weeks it was suggested to us that we go on a field trip to Ethiopia to visit some water projects that SIM is doing there in conjunction with the local church. We were only too happy to oblige, as we are always looking for a new adventure to go on or a new country to visit! This is a brief overview of our time in Ethiopia.

We arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at about 1:00am on July 3 after our flight from Nairobi was delayed by about two hours. The man who was scheduled to meet us at the airport was an Ethiopian who works at the SIM office in Addis. I called to let him know that we were running late, and he seemed somewhat happy because he was in the middle of watching the Ghana - Uruguay world cup match and didn't want to be interrupted! (Too bad the game didn't end so well.) We finally arrived at the SIM guesthouse in Addis at 2 AM and settled in for a short night of sleep.

The next few days were spent driving and visiting two SIM sites which were about 200 km south of Addis. The countryside in Ethiopia is really scenic with lots of mountains and lakes. Both of the sites we visited were in very rural areas where the local people are living in very basic living conditions. The first sight was near the village of Tuffa, where SIM has set up a water irrigation project to help the local people water their crops. The second site we visited was at the village of Langano. SIM has a larger station set up here, with a variety of projects going on including a health clinic and a sports ministry. There are not any water projects going on currently at this site, but there were some well drilling projects that had been recently completed. We visited several of these wells, which had been fitted with simple hand pumps and provided the people easy access to an abundant source of clean water.

Our final night in Ethiopia was spent back at the SIM guesthouse in Addis. We had most of a full day in Addis, which gave us some time to do a little shopping and relax. We also went out for dinner at a local restaurant that night, which was a real treat. Ginny has always loved Ethiopian food and has introduced me to the tasty deliciousness as well. We have been to numerous Ethiopian food restaurants all over the United States and Kenya, so we thought it would be a real treat to actually get it in Ethiopia! Not only was the dinner fantastically tasty, it was amazingly cheap. Due to the current exchange rate between the US dollar and the Ethiopian birr (the local currency) we only spent the equivalent of about $5.00 for a huge plate of food. Not bad!

Overall, even though the trip was very brief, we came away with a good appreciation for the work that SIM is doing in Ethiopia. We also enjoyed getting a little insight into the Ethiopian culture, and seeing the beautiful countryside. One of the more challenging portions of the trip was communication - our driver who we were with pretty much the entire time was a really wonderful man, but his English skills were somewhat lacking, and we had zero knowledge of Amharic, the main language in Ethiopia. So there were a number of times were communication was very difficult, and it made me realize just how important learning the local language is if you really want to be an effective missionary. Even though we will only be in Sudan for about five months, we are going to do our best to learn as much of the local language as we can. We would definitely appreciate your prayers that the language learning would go well especially considering our limited time!

Tomorrow morning bright and early we catch our flight to Doro, Sudan where we will be for the next few months. Our next update will be from there. Thank you all for your continued support. We can't tell you how much we appreciate you praying for us, and would appreciate your continued prayers as we begin our work in Sudan. Will end with a few pictures from Ethiopia.

 This is a fairly typical sight when driving in or around Addis. The blue van is a taxi - this one happened to be very loaded down!

 There were a lot of these huge and very interesting looking trees near Tuffa, at the first site we visited.

 Here's Ginny walking through a cornfield in Tuffa as we were getting our tour of the irrigation project.

The road to Tuffa was very rough. This picture doesn't really do it justice - the land rover was definitely about the only type of vehicle that would have made it!

A typical scene in the area we were in - lakes and mountains were quite prevalent.

This was near Langano. I thought the Acacia trees contrasted against the dark sky looked neat.

 One of the well sites in Langano, with the local people demonstrating the use of the hand pump.

There are donkeys everywhere in Ethiopia.

Eating lamb tibs (a local Ethiopian dish) at the Addis airport before flying out.