The Beauty of Africa

By Sharone Goe

Traveling as a part of a group of eight women to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia nearly two weeks ago, made a huge impact on my heart and restored so much of my own spirit it was truly an amazing experience.

Not only has the fellowship between the other women in the group and myself reminded me of the strength and beauty of human bonding, but the beauty of the people that I encountered and met during my time in Ethiopia was also a reminder of how much beauty there is in the world.

Most of us hear of the prevailing conditions of places like Ethiopia, where the poverty and illness is often all that is talked about, but for me, the most surprising element of this journey was that in fact, all the way across the world, in an entirely different world of its own, lives a gracious people... filled with joy, vibrancy and life.

Just looking around the streets of Addis Ababa one was constantly reminded of life as people filled the streets, selling their wares or just lounged in the mid day sun. The bustling traffic of city life was only one reminder of how life goes on, regardless of the 'conditions' and the people that we met all week long were testaments to this fact as well.

From the children we met at the Entoto project, to the villagers in our neighborhood, to the many servants of Christ who were busy in their various outreach programs to help the needy and sick within the community... All around us- there was LIFE, and a love of life, joy and smiles which all served to reaffirm that love is all there truly is.


The difference between a modest home made out of wood and tin and our modern Western world where structures and edifices abound... the perspective of driving on unpaved roads and through bumps and holes to get anywhere vs. the economy of what we know in the West...
all of it came down to one simple thing for me which I witnessed first hand during this trip...
People of all kinds, of all walks of life, and even those who have none, share the one trait of humanity that is able to transcend any circumstance and all differences...

What that boiled down to for me was SPIRIT.


Whether it was through the presence of a smile, the joy in shared laughter, the smiling eyes of a child who doesn't know the difference between being sick or healthy- rich or poor,
the fullness of life in those whose struggles have been hard to bear... all that I encountered was a testament to life itself... and the beauty of the world around us and having the hearts to see.
I thank God for Ethiopia, for Africa, and for the beauty and hearts in the spirit and people we met all along the way.

God is Good, God is Great, Give me some chocolate cake!

by Erin Affourtit

I got back from Africa 2 weeks ago today and I have yet to write a blog. Dealing with the feelings and emotions from this trip has been incredibly difficult. In fact, I haven't dealt with them at all, unless you count chocolate cake. J I threw myself right back into the American way of life and I haven't taken a breath or hardly looked up from my job, essentially because I know how painful it is to go back to what I witnessed.

One of the Ethiopian boys who rode in the van with our driver Abraham was Shiffalo, a 22 yr old young man with such a vibrant spirit. Shiffalo got a huge kick out of helping me and the rest of the team speak Amharic. He would say "wet-tight" or "sue-car", I would repeat "wet-taught" or "slow-er" and he would just laugh and say "good good" at my broken Amharic. I'm sure it sounded much like the broken English of a newly arrived China man to America. But he didn't care, and neither did I for that matter. I was happy enough to be engaged with him, learning about his culture. By the way, "wet-tight" and "sue-car" means milk and sugar, in case you were wondering.

Each day Abraham and Shiffalo picked us up we were greeted with so much JOY! I was intrigued by Shiffalo's joy, to say the least. I wanted to know more. Where did he come from? What village? Where is his family? So…being me, I pried. I asked Aki, our incredible translator and local guide to ask Shiffalo if he will give us his testimony while we were in the van. I looked to Shiffalo after Aki asked and after a big sigh, he concurred. He began by telling us that his father loved his mother very much. His father was a soldier and had to go away. When his father returned, some time later, he found his wife in bed with another man. At this point in Shiffalo's testimony, he turned his head away to look out the window and his lip began to quiver. As I watched him, I felt him go back in time to what is the most devastating moment in his life. He slowly began speaking, swallowing chunks in his throat. Aki translated: At 10 years old, I watched my father shoot and kill my mother and the other man. My father quickly went to prison. Shiffalo was left to survive, traumatized on his own as an orphan.

He found his way to the big city, Addis Abbaba where he met Abraham, who tried to help Shiffalo whenever he could. Shiffalo says, "because I witnessed this experience, the image of my father killing my mother kept playing over and over again in my mind, it drove me mad so I started doing drugs to deal with the pain."

This is probably only a quarter of (1) one single child's story. There are SO many children without parents in Ethiopia- it's heart breaking. My absolute favorite scripture is James 1:27 because it answers everything you need to know on what God has to say about religion, orphans and how we should live our lives. "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and blameless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Zaudi Conjo!

by Cheryl Lovejoy
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

The first time we went to the Entoto Community Center, we got to look through and purchase the beautiful jewelry made by the men and women in the Entoto job creation program. Then we had the privelege of meeting the jewelry makers up close and personal. As I entered the room, I wanted to make a connection with them so I thought I'd try out one of my few Amharic phrases. "Conjo, conjo" (beautiful) I told them, and pointed to the jewelry. And then I really went for it and told them "Conjo nesh!" (you are beautiful!). Probably didn't get it quite right as they burst out laughing in response.

An hour or two later, we were driven up Entoto mountain to visit the homes of the families involved in the program. It was a cold, rainy afternoon and I was bundled up in all of the layers (five layers!) I'd packed in my suitcase and I still felt chilly. As we entered the first little tarp-covered neighborhood, some members of our team were invited into the homes and others engaged with the children or with a little kitten standing in one of the doorways. The homes were surrounded by a grove of eucalyptus trees and I wandered off a bit to look up at them. As I stood there, I heard a voice by my side say, "conjo, conjo!" There was mischief in the voice and as I turned to see who was there, I recognized the face of one of the women I'd just met in the jewelry-making program. Sure enough, she had a big grin and was enjoying repeating back to me my feeble attempts at Amharic. My new friend invited me to enter her one room home. It was probably 8 feet by 8 feet and most of it was taken up with her bed. The walls were decorated with magazine clippings and newspapers and the room had a cozy, cheerful feel to it. As we talked, she told me her name was Zaudi. Before leaving, I nicknamed her "Zaudi Arabia" and that cracked her up.

Walking back to the van in the light rain, I got to think about Zaudi and our interaction. If Zaudi, who lives in a one room tarp-covered home on Entoto mountain, without access to running water or regular electricity, and whose life is impacted by AIDS can greet me with laughter and good cheer, then surely happiness is almost always accessible to me.

God, please bless Zaudi. Thank you for the joy that she shares with others. Thank you for her laughter. Please help her to have the strength she needs each day. Please provide for her needs. Please give her many reasons for joy and may she continue to be cause for gladness in others.

The Story of Rich

by Casandra Morgan-Loyer

I first noticed Rich when we attended the Beza church services on Sunday. Rich is a boy of eleven, with a warm face and an easy smile and a hint of mischief in his eye. On Sunday morning the team was waiting with tons of other people for the first service to end and the second service to begin. We were standing around chatting and taking pictures, peering over the edge down the eight circular flights to the ground floor. Rich was moving from person to person, hanging out with kids, looking out the window. He seemed to be very much at home. He owned the room in the way that pastors’ kids seem to own the church environments they spend so much of their time in and I assumed he was the son of one of the ministers or praise and worship team members. I also noticed there was something different about him but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

On Wednesday afternoon, we attended a home cell group at Beza. These are small groups who meet to encourage one another, discuss the sermon from Sunday and how it can be applied to their lives. The awesome thing about these groups is that they also take care of each other’s needs. If someone needs something, the group pulls together to make sure they get it. So cool. What a God way of doing things. Anyway, we showed up for the group and there was only one other person there --a lovely man from Uganda. The next person to arrive was Rich. He came right in and sat with us, undaunted by joining in a discussion with eight women from America. Of course, he was so completely adorable we wanted to eat him up with a spoon. We gave him candy, which he liked until he was told it had turned his tongue blue. He was a bit concerned about that and wouldn’t actually believe it until I took a picture of his tongue and showed it to him. He got nervous, thought it might stay that way. I had to assure him it wouldn’t. Eventually, other people started to arrive and were able to provide some translation. Rich asked me a few questions like how long I was going to be in Ethiopia and when I thought I might be back. I told him that he looked kind of like my son, Conrad and showed Rich a picture. He smiled at the picture, surprised. He thought Conrad was Ethiopian. We chatted for a while about what sports he liked and Sunday School, a few other random things. I was quite simply taken with Rich. He was so open, bright and engaging. I was away from my kids and missing them and getting to connect with Rich was a total blessing.

Later, we got to hear a little more about Rich’s background. I was right to think Rich is a kid who spends a lot of time at church –but not because his parents are on staff. Turns out, Rich doesn’t live with his parents. We don’t know the full story but we did learn that Rich is a boy from the countryside who came to Addis on his own a few years ago (when he was seven or eight). He worked as a shoe shine boy in the streets and found his way to Beza Church. He was there every time the doors opened and they eventually noticed that he was on his own in the largest city in Ethiopia. The church has taken him in and he splits his time with different families. Breaks my heart to think where he might be if he hadn’t found Beza, breaks my heart more to think what happens to all the kids and orphans who don’t find their way to a safe place.

Rich’s story embodies so much of what being in Ethiopia was like. Even in the midst of heartbreaking circumstances I could see and feel God at work. I could see Him working through people who love Him and have His heartbeat for the most vulnerable. Seeing that kind of love was profound. Pretty much rocked my world.

Life with AIDS

by Jennifer Dickinson
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

We spent the morning working at the Entoto project--spending time with the children who live up on the mountain. They are bussed down on Saturday morning for classes.
I sat in with a class of 10 year olds. They were discussing a passage of Matthew about worry and were telling their teacher what worries them. The teacher was a baby-faced guy in his twenties and he translated for me.

One little girl hid her face when he asked her to tell him her concerns. She had pigtails and a sweet, shy smile. When I asked him why she was doing this, he said, “She is embarrassed because she doesn’t know English and wishes she could speak English to you.” I told him to tell her not to be embarrassed. After he translated what I said, she came over to me, and he said, “She would like to sing for you.” In a small, quiet voice, she sang “Twinkle, twinkle little star.” Another little boy at the table told the teacher that when he closes his eyes at night he sees horror. His mother is very sick and he is worried she will die. I told them I would continue praying for them when I got back to the US.

Kelli in Wonderland

by Kelli Payne
Saturday, August 16, 2008

Time travel is hard, at least for me. I’ll journal this day as Saturday but it was more like an endless morning. I wish I could journal about profound insights and conversations but the truth is I ate, slept and watched airplane movies like “What Happens in Vegas.” I have this inclination to apologize for the truth but, happily, I am refreshed to simply share. My realizations include the following:

1) I love the Luthansa flight attendants. They are nice, attentive and overall ROCK.
2) I was mad at the United flight attendant because he wouldn’t give me a glass of water and I was parched. I am still talking about this injustice.
3) For me, sleeping on an airplane is an art. I am 5 11’ and sometimes feel like Alice when she takes the pill that makes her grow and her legs and arms are hanging out of the house.

This idea of comfort rose again for me. I tossed, I turned, I huffed, I puffed. I had 3 pillows, 2 blankets, earplugs, an eye cover and at some point a sleeping pill to get the comfort and rest I deserved. There was an Ethiopian man sitting 2 seats away from me. He looked well dressed and had to be fairly wealthy for an Ethiopian to be on an airplane in the first place. He kept offering me pillows and blankets as an attempt to ease my pain and suffering. At one point, I woke up and looked over at him. He was resting simply by propping his arm on the chair of the seat and resting his head on it. As I made every attempt to find comfort, he displayed no pursuit of it. I am open to the reason being he is older and vastly more mature than I am which is plausible and likely. My feeling is the Ethiopian culture doesn’t have a sense of entitlement to comfort the same way Americans do. They aren’t born with it because of generations of rarely experiencing it. Of course, this is only a hypothesis that would be tested throughout the week.

Entoto Mountain

by Jennifer Dickinson
Tuesday, August 18, 2008

After lunch, we headed up Entoto mountain. The people we worked with minister to the people on the mountain who have HIV and who have gone to live up on the mountain because they believe drinking from the lake will cure their sickness. The project works with them, tricking them into taking their antivirals by having them swallow their pills with the “healing water.” The goal is to keep these people alive.

A light rain had begun to fall after we made our first stop and by the time we got further up the mountain, it was a typical Ethiopian deluge-- the kind that makes you wish you were huddled under a mountain of blankets in a fire-warmed cabin. Instead, we were eight women trudging up a mountain covered by brightly-colored umbrellas, holding the hands of our guides so as not to slip down the muddy mountain.

There’s no way to prepare for what we would see. No Oprah special or Anderson Cooper hour, no book that details poverty in excruciating detail. We stopped in on a family in a two room hut. Their child had a runny nose and was barefoot and smiling. They invited us in and asked for prayer for the older woman in the 2nd room. She was very sick. They slept on the ground, under a few blankets. No running water, no place to eat, no sight of food at all. No electricity. We gave the little girl a lollipop and she stared up at us with wide, curious eyes. As with every child we’d made contact with in Ethiopia, I wanted to scoop her up and take her home.

The next stop was a hut that’s the size of my living room in my apartment which, by the way, I regularly lament is way to small. There was only one woman in the hut and she explained that ten people pay $1.50 a month to sleep there. It was dark and like the hut we’d seen before, had a tin roof and the ground was covered in blanketed pallets. The woman had a bright smile. She looked to be in her fifties, but could have easily been in her thirties as the combination of HIV and never having food is good at aging a person.
This is when I lost it. If anyone knows me, they know that when I cry, it’s usually never just a few tears spilling down my cheeks. My chin quivers, and well, I sob.

I fought hard not to do this and the awesome news is, I won. I thought: “Jennifer, how would you feel if someone came inside your apartment in Silver Lake and started sobbing because it was small and depressing?” I bit my tongue. I pushed my eyebrows up my forehead, a trick that I discovered in Ethiopia is very good at sending tears away. I hugged the woman. We thanked her for letting us come in her house. She said she didn’t need prayer because she is doing well. God is good. We moved on to the next place.