Update!

I feel incredibly blessed for the life that the Lord has given me. I would have never imagined that my 19^th birthday would be celebrated in Africa, but I am so thankful that it was. Thank you to everyone who wrote me such sweet words on my birthday, it made it that much sweeter!
I’ve been back in Ethiopia for 2 months and I have 2 more to go, which seems very surreal. Just a second ago I was in my dad’s office at the end of August talking about how it would all go so quickly...and it sure has!

2 months left and I feel like I am turning the corner for the final stretch. Here is what that looks like…

• -       The women I have been teaching have finished the first half of their program and now move into the skills training portion of it. My final class with them was this past Friday…bittersweet! I am very proud of how far they have come. The first month of their program multiple woman dropped out which was a big discouragement. These final 15 have worked hard and are now in their final stretch as well.
• -       I have lesson plans for all of my other classes up until the day I leave so for Kindergarten up to 12 it is just teaching those lessons and preparing my heart to leave these kids who I love SO stinking much.
• -       My amazing parents surprised me with my life long dream a SAFARI. So in late March Rahel and I will board a plane and head to Kenya! I can’t believe it and as I type this I am getting giddy.
• -       I am not a videographer by any means but I do enjoy it so I have taken on a couple of video projects. The first is a video for our sponsorship program that is in the works. Basically it is just catching some really cute faces on video. Which is awesome and pretty easy. The second is a video of the women I have been teaching. Which is not so easy. It requires them to do some English speaking which they are not really comfortable with. The rest of the video is just candid shots, which is also hard because the minute I take out my camera they freak out haha! So pray for that. The third project is every Sunday morning for the next 8 weeks. I am documenting counseling training that is happening at IEC, the church I attend. Excited but nervous because these videos will then be used from now on when they train people…so better not mess up ha!
• -       When I got back in January I started teaching a new class in Sires which is a WAR project about an hour away. These women had no English in their vocab. Where did I start? Well I sang the ABC’s in front of them, which was humbling. Since then they have made remarkable progress. In my last class they were reading BOB books perfectly, which was a sweet moment as those were the books I learned to read with. I really enjoy that class, and getting to Sires is an adventure in itself. Meron and I take 3 mini busses and walk for about 20 minutes for a total commute of about an hour (on a good day).
• A week ago Rahel, Meron, my new friend Hannah and I drove an hour outside of Addis to go to this wild life park for rescued animals. The drive there was hilarious, we hired this driver who had very little knowledge of the city so we were constantly stopping to ask if we were going in the right direction. We arrived at the park and our very old but cute guide said “We walk a lot.” And from there we basically hiked into the mountainside, which was also hilarious because Rahel and Meron were in dresses. After 20 minutes of trekking we reached the cheetahs. Then more trekking and we reached the lions. They had 12 lions that were separated into 6 different encaged areas. Hannah and I walked over to one cage where the lions were resting about 15 feet from the fence. They saw us and straight CHARGED at us. Hannah and I screamed and turned to start running…then we realized that the double wire fence would probably keep them in there just fine. The lions then continued to roar at us for 5 minutes. It was wild. Check out the video on my facebook. We then headed over to the monkeys. This next story will probably be one of my favorites to tell for a long time. I wish you could have seen it. I was pretty bummed at all of the cages and fences that kept us far away, so I asked if I could hop the wood fence to get closer to the monkeys. There was still a wire fence between us but the monkeys could stick their arms through it. Rahel starts snapping some awesome pictures, I’m throwing up the hang loose sign and just loving the moment. Hannah then decides to hop the fence; I step out of the way so she can begin her monkey photo shoot. Within seconds a monkey grabs her hair through the fence and Hannah screams ballistically. I am standing there, watching it all go down, paralyzed with “I don’t know what the heck I should do right now.” It then grabs her tank top strap and rips it into two pieces. It finally lets go of her and we all start dying in laughter. It was one of the craziest things I have ever seen go down. And now Hannah has such a rad and legit story to tell. We reenacted it for the rest of the day and I can still see Hannah’s face when the psychopath monkey latched onto her head. So so hilarious. Hannah wasn’t hurt but a giant clump of her hair is now forever in the monkey exhibit. Such a fun and bizarre day.
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  the beginning of the hike to Born Free

  
  
  
  

  

  Our last class together. They are beauties!!!

  
  

  

  More of the sweets I taught.

Born Free is up in the countryside of Ethiopia.
Such a beautiful area of this country.

Love from Addis,

Becca 

Excess

I don’t have drawers here, just a giant wardrobe without any shelves. If you open it up it you will often find a mound of clothes. Some folded, some not, some clean, some not. Tonight I couldn’t look at the pile anymore so I put it all on my bed and folded it. I brought about half of my clothes to Africa- mainly my summer stuff. As I was folding I kept folding shirt after shirt that I had never worn here. I brought 5 pairs of knee length shorts that still have the tags on them…sorry mom. I have about 5 outfits that I always wear, and apart from those items the rest just sit in my closet. Couple tonight’s epiphany of “Becca has far too much” with the fact that I am reading the book Radical and you have a very convicted girl.

I don’t really have a plan to go out tonight and just give shirts to homeless people or a shelter. I don’t know what I will do but I just have this overwhelming sense and awareness of the excess in my life that I don’t need or want at this point.

I know this is not some new revolutionary idea that Americans have too much but I challenge you to take all your clothes out, put them on your bed, and then fold them all. It’s a humbling thing to look at piles of money in the form of clothes that you probably don’t need.

A passage from David Platt’s, “Radical”

“Am I willing to live a life that is content with food and clothing, having the basic necessities of my life provided for? Or do I want more? … Do I want to indulge in more and more luxuries in my life? After all what’s wrong with luxuries? This is a key question, and if we are not careful in how we answer it, we will miss the point of what God desires us to teach us about our possessions. We don’t need to sell or give away nice clothes, nice cars, nice houses, or surplus possessions because they are inherently bad. As we have seen, wealth and possessions are not inherently evil; they are good in and of themselves. So we don’t sell them or give them away because they are sinful. …We sell them and give them away because Christ in us compels us to care for the needy around us.

…

The reality is that most everything in our lives in the American culture would be classified as a luxury, not a necessity. The point we can learn is that our perspective on our possessions radically changes when we open our eyes to the needs of the world around us. When we have the courage to look in the faces of brothers and sisters whose bodies are malnourished and whose brains are deformed because they have no food, Christ will change our desires, and we will long to sacrifice our resources for the glory of his name among them.”

Woah. Amen and Amen.

Go read this book, take a look at your life, and ask Jesus to reveal the blind spots in your life that are full of pure excess!

Rahel's Love Story

Rahel is at the salon. It is 8 pm and I am impatiently waiting for my roomie BFF to get home because when she is home the world is right. She comes home babe status after getting her hair all done up. She immediately tells me that moments ago a CUTE BOY asked her to dinner…and she said NO b/c she felt bad about how late she was getting home. Not a valid excuse. She said he was going to Time Zone -- a café that is walking distance from my house. I get my cupid pants on and insist that we go to time zone on the account that I reeeaaally wanted a cup of tea. Rahel says no way but I am an excellent persuader and minutes later we are en route to meet future husband. We are steps away from Mr. Red shirt who, by the way, is downing injera (he is white, so this is a weird site too see). I tell her we will go to the second floor so we don’t chance having to talk to him. I enter and sit at the table next to him. Rahel gives me the wide eye “I’m gonna kill you face.” I grin back. I order my tea and sip away as Rahel awkwardly sits with her back to her fiancé. I am trying to convince her to say something, anything, but she won’t budge. I finish my tea and we leave.

Rewind to a couple days ago when our guard told us that “bazoo forenj” (many white people) moved into our neighborhood. We’ve only seen one blonde oldish man in our neighborhood, crossing our fingers that there are more. Anyways there is reason to believe that Rahel’s boy might be one of the guys who lives in our neighborhood. We informed our guard that he is wearing a red t-shirt and jeans, so please keep your eyes open and report back to us in the AM.

Tonight we are praying to the good Lord that this guy lives in our neighborhood so Rahel can finally get a ring by spring. Keep your fingers crossed.

- Cupid

If you really knew me...

The kids are on their mid winter break this week and I was in charge of planning a week’s worth of programs for the kids to attend, according to grade. My idea for the high schoolers came from the MTV show “If you really knew me." A show where a team goes into High schools and ask students to finish the sentence "If you really knew me, you'd know..."

I planned the 2-hour session a little different than how MTV does it. We played five rounds. It started with basic things like, “If you really knew me, you’d know my favorite color is blue.” With each round I gave the kids prompts they could use, they progressively got more personal.

Here are some of the responses…all started with “If you really knew me, you’d know…”

-I am afraid of spiders

-I want to someday repay my parents for everything they provided for me

-I thank God everyday for my health

-I disrespect my mom too much. I’m working on it

-My biggest fear is public speaking

-My biggest fear is dying unmarried

-My relationship with my family is awful

-I wish my dad was still alive

-I feel inferior to almost everyone

-I have no confidence in myself

-I am proud of myself for getting good grades

-I feel closest to my mom

I wrote in an earlier post that self-expression is unheard of here, especially amongst youth. So for the kids to share these things with us was really a big deal for them. I am so grateful for their willingness to be vulnerable. At the end there was a bit of a silence until Goshow started to clap. We all sat and clapped with big grins… this was a big day for the kids, reason to celebrate! These kids are just amazing; they are game changers for Ethiopia. I see so much potential in each of them. Pray for these 7: Freowit, Goshow, Sammy, Dave, Zalelim, Aizlu, and Nati. Please pray for a continued willingness to share in group discussion. After seeing the success we had today, we are planning to do a lot more of these open-share type of exercises.

Love from Addis,

Becca

The Ignorance is Real

I had a conversation recently with a friend of mine who is Ethiopian about the annoying things that people from the US say when they come to Africa. I know. The list could be endless, thankfully Aiden’s wasn’t. Here are some of them (unfortunately, these are actual things people have said):

-“Oh, you speak English? How?”

-“They have water!”

-“There are buildings here!”

-“You really have a house?”

-“You’re wearing shoes!!”

“Where are all the animals?” – yours truly

I know this may not be the worst preconceived idea, but it does sound pretty dumb. I said this as I got off the plane in September. I also often get asked, “Why aren’t you posting pictures of the lions?” …ha! The only safari-ish animals that live in Ethiopia are crocodiles and hippos, both of which are hours away from where I live. So no, I don’t pass by an elephant every morning on my walk to work. The craziest thing I’ve seen was a really long snake and it was dead.

I’ll stop quoting before we all want to disown our country or slap everyone in it. I was guilty of thinking these things before moving here and even after getting here. I think most of us have this picture of Africa that is so wrong…big plains, huts, lions, and emaciated babies running through dirt roads…though these are some of the images that you’ll see here it certainly isn’t the end all be all. We think we know everything about Africa by the sad commercials we see...Isn't that true about most things though? We get a piece of the story and think we know it all. I am thankful though that with each day passing my ignorant thoughts about this country get remolded into what this beautiful place truly is. Yes, poverty is a word I would use to describe Ethiopia but my list would include so many more words that are positive. Lively, Kind, Colorful, Abundant, Genuine…

I can only speak for Ethiopia, specifically Addis Ababa and a few other cities but the places I have been are strikingly different than every preconceived thought I had about this country.

“The same thing goes for when you talk about someone without knowing them. Foreigners talk about Africa and Ethiopia as if they have been here and experienced it. People don’t realize that our country and even our continent is changing. They think that everyone is hungry, waiting for some donation of food and water. That is so wrong. We, as a country are changing. We are finding the problems, and we are fixing them. Ethiopians are a welcoming people, but when foreigners come with their incorrect thoughts about our lives, it makes us angry.” –Meron, my amazing friend and translator.

I guess this lesson that I am learning can span across all areas of my life...judgment is risky business.

Pray for Kalkidan

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted –Psalm 34:18

Kalkidan is a girl who’s mother went through WARs program a couple of years ago. Kalkidan is only 13 years old. Her mom moved to Arab country to work, Kalkidan stayed with her uncle. This week an employee notified us that Kalkidan was living on the streets and that she was pregnant. She came to our office this Saturday and told us that her father had raped her and the child was his. Today she met with WAR staff and Rahel took her to her first hospital visit. 

Stories like this are not uncommon here, but they are tragic and awful. We plan on supporting Kalkidan as much as we can as she walks this journey of pregnancy, trauma, and heartache. Friends, lift her up in prayer. Pray for her heart, her living situation (right now she is basically homeless), the baby, her financial needs, and her soul. Pray for the people who will counsel her in the months to come. My heart aches today but I am thankful that the Lord is sovereign still.