I'm back!

Please forgive me for my recent hiatus from the blogging world!  I was home in Florida for a few weeks for my sister's wedding which was an amazing time with family and friends.  Since being back here in Ethiopia in June it has been an extra busy time!  If those excuses aren't sufficient, I'm  also currently recovering from the triple-immuno-defeat of an amoeba, food poisoning, and a head cold :)

Excuses aside, I'm back.  Check out this video (posted on the Water is Life International Facebook page) giving an update from the field in the Borena Zone of Southern Ethiopia.  We have a lot going on with our Sustainable Living Groups and I'm excited to share more about it in the future!  In the mean time, check out the video (forgive me that half the words you can't hear due to the wind), and know that another blog will be coming soon!
 
Blessings!

Melkam Fasika!

I awoke Easter morning at 6am to loud noises drifting in through my open window.  The sound of bells, women exuding “lululululu”, and men shouting and clapping heralded the beginning of the day.  Ethiopian Orthodox Christians spend a period of six weeks leading up to Easter fasting from meat-so for many Ethiopians the Easter feasts and celebrations begin very early in the morning.  Fasika (‘Easter’ in Amharic) is considered to be the biggest holiday celebrated in Ethiopia, even bigger than Christmas, and the day certainly did not disappoint!

One of the newest additions to Ebenezer Grace Children's Home

As is the case in the U.S., the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection  here in Ethiopia centers around church worship services, celebrating with family and close friends, and of course delicious food!  I spent the day with my friends in Awassa, and we had a huge celebration.  I was blessed to celebrate with over 40 children (the majority of them orphans from my friends’ ministry) and nearly 30 adults.  We had everybody over and started the day with a worship service with the kids.  Argo led the kids in singing worship songs, and then Argo’s brother shared a short message.  I love the joy expressed by little children singing worship songs, and even in Amharic you can’t miss the beauty and truth of their praises.

Easter Sunday worship service

After church came the Easter feast!  For such a large crowd we had a ton of delicious Ethiopian food…it was amazing.  To give you idea of the scope, five chickens, a goat, nearly 40 pounds of onions, and about 50 fresh injera were all involved in the preparation of the meal.  The most traditional Ethiopian dish for big holidays and large celebrations is doro wat.  Doro wat is a spicy red dish made with chicken, onion, spiced butter, and berbere (a traditional Ethiopian spice).  Nothing says special occasion here like doro wat!  The doro wat was delicious, and I couldn’t help but get my fingers soaked in the spicy red juices as I ate it by hand with injera :)

Cooking doro wat and other dishes on Saturday

Injera!

Tucking in to the food

After the meal we had coffee for the adults and desserts, and the kids did an egg hunt!  Don’t be confused-an Easter egg hunt is certainly not part of Ethiopian culture and tradition, but we farenji have no problem mixing traditions :)  The kids had a blast, and of course loved the candy.

It was a fun and joyful day celebrating the truth of Christ our Risen King!  It was a blessing for me to be surrounded by so many friends and brothers and sisters in Christ, and to get to celebrate Easter for the first time here in Ethiopia.

Tenestwal (‘He is Risen’ in Amharic)!

Like the Noonday Sun

Yesterday I had another opportunity to visit with a couple Sustainable Living Groups in an area of Ethiopia called Woliso.  Woliso is about 120 kilometers outside of Addis, and despite it’s close proximity to the capital city it is definitely a rural area.  I went and visited with these SLGs with some folks from the US who had come to see some of our projects and with a few staff members from the Kale Heywot Church.

Our group for the day

I had never visited Woliso before, and there’s something so striking to me that over the course of a two hour van ride we could be transported to a completely different world!  We left behind the traffic jams, tall buildings, and bustling streets of Addis and were soon out in the countryside sharing the road with donkeys and goats and looking out over a landscape of rolling hills dotted with traditional round huts.  I’ve learned that Ethiopia is a country of great diversity, and in many cases inequality, and yesterday was a poignant example of that.

I’ve written many a blog post about Sustainable Living Groups, and I’m sure there will be many more in the future, but man, I gotta tell you there is just something about being here and experiencing SLGs that really helps you to understand the transformational effect of these groups (yes, I’m saying come visit!).  It’s hard to understand how a weekly fellowship group could mean so much to a woman-until you see the hut that is her home and understand how isolated she could be there.  It’s nearly impossible to grasp that a $10 loan could have a great impact on a woman’s financial situation-until you hear of the incredibly low price of tools and see the woven baskets she has begun to sell for profit.  And finally, it’s difficult to comprehend the significance of a woman paying for her children’s school fees for the first time in their lives-until you’re immersed in a cultural context that says that only men can provide for their families.

Some of the women in the 'Burka' SLG

One of the groups that we were with yesterday is named “Burka” which means ‘Spring’.  Truly this group is a spring of life for the women involved, for their families, and their community!  The women prepared a traditional coffee ceremony for us, and we listened as they shared their personal stories of how their SLG has transformed their lives.  The women shared with us that in their community there are loan sharks who lend money, but then take exorbitant amounts of interest-up to 120% over one year.  Because of their SLG, the women are now able to take loans at a reasonable rate within a safe and supportive environment.  With these loans they have been able to do many things!  Some have started small businesses of selling coffee and household items; others have used their money to pay for their children’s school fees and supplies; and still others have been able to purchase smallstock such as chicken and goats.  Here’s what one woman (through translation) had to say in her own words about what the Burka SLG means to her (turn up the volume-it’s a little soft).

 

Now that these women have been empowered, they are looking around their community and wanting to do more to help their friends and their neighbors.  The Burka SLG has the vision to start a co-op within their community where they import in bulk basic household goods (such as flour, sugar, coffee, etc.) and sell these to their community at fair prices.  In a rural location like Woliso this would greatly benefit the community with access to goods they can’t always find in the local market.  The Burka SLG will continue to not only be a spring of life for the members and their families, but also to their surrounding community!

So What's the Story?

Lately, I’ve been realizing the power of a good story.  A good story can be useful, powerful, and evocative.  Here in Ethiopia I’ve realized that stories and anecdotes are a really great way to communicate.  This lesson dawned on me after a meeting the other day with some of our Ethiopian church partners.  After nearly an hour of intense discussion, the kind of groaning cross-cultural communication that makes me feel woefully inadequate, I finally threw out a good story, or really example in this case.  In this meeting we had been discussing a concept of an “in kind contribution” that WiLi had made to the church.  Rather than transferring money, we had basically contributed a certain set of services.  We were discussing budgeting and reporting, and I was having a very hard time conveying this “in kind contribution” concept.  Finally, after about an hour, I looked at the empty chair beside me and said, “Ok, it’s like we gave you this chair.  Maybe in the past we gave you money to buy a new chair, but this time we instead went out and found what we thought was the best chair made from good materials and suiting your needs, and we bought it and gave you the chair.  So…it’s like this chair…ya know what I mean?”  And amazingly, after the hour of discussion, this simple example conveyed the right concept!

On this blog I tell you a lot of stories of WiLi’s work in Ethiopia and my experiences.  I tell you the names of the villages where we work, I share the stories of the people I meet, and the details of their lives.  I do this because I believe stories are powerful and evocative.  Maybe at some point you’re going to get tired of these stories, maybe they’ll all start to sound the same, but I sure hope not.  The beauty is in the detail, and I hope our hearts never grow numb to the raw reality of impoverished people and communities in Ethiopia.

I want to be a better story-teller.  There are so many things that I see and experience here that I wish I could better convey to you.  I know my words are inadequate, and what they say about “pictures being worth a thousand words” is why I try to include here as many pictures as my poor internet connection will allow me to upload :)  I want to be the kind of person who at just the right moment in conversation is ready with a good story starting with something like “One time there was a man walking through the jungle…”  I’ve realized that stories like this are themselves worth a thousand words and can often convey my crazy-mixed-up-ferenji-thoughts way better than an hour long explanation.

Daily we are all living and witnessing stories worth telling.  As I see more of the world and see more of the reality of friends and family near and far, I’ve come to realize that the narrative of our lives tends to mirror the overarching narrative we see in the world.  If we see hope in the world, we have hope in our own lives.  If we believe the world is doomed, then most likely the trajectory of our lives will be pretty gloomy too.  I believe that the true narrative of creation and every created thing is one of hope and redemption.  I see this truth in the lives of my friends and family, I see it in the villages I visit in Ethiopia, and most importantly I hear this truth proclaimed from the lips of my Lord and teacher Jesus, and from the pages of my favorite book the Bible.

So here’s to stories worth telling, and story-tellers worth listening to!  I wouldn’t count myself in the latter category, but hopefully some of the stories you read here fall into the former.  To send you off, here are a few pictures from life and work here in Ethiopia the past few weeks!

Inspecting new well sites with a team of our partners from the Mekane Yesus Church

New well drilling site in Finchawe

Little girl fetching water from a pond

Meeting with a Sustainable Livelihood Group as part of a program assessment