World Orphans Ethiopia Video

I realized the other night that I don’t think I’ve ever posted this video that was made back before I too was working for World Orphans. Just another part of our adoption story, captured for posterity.

World Orphans currently has 3 projects in Ethiopia. You can find out more about them on the web site – www.worldorphans.org

Left Behind – Ethiopia Orphans from Mark Gumm on Vimeo.

The Day Everything Changed

A year ago today Mark and I were sitting on a old brown couch in a small room at our agency’s transition home. Each time a child crossed the courtyard outside we would look at their face. My stomach was flipping over and over in my stomach.

I cannot even begin to imagine what these two were thinking:

Fancy Ethiopian Jewelry

I was going through my pictures today and came across a treasure from our Ethiopia trip that I realized I hadn’t shared with you.

One day we went to the National Ethiopia Museum with the kids and our guide. The two-story building housed everything from the bones of “Lucy”, to thrones of past Ethiopian rulers.

In one display case I found this…

ET Necklace

It’s kind of hard to see because I was shooting through the glass with no flash – but that, my friends, is a necklace of safety pins! Yes, safety pins – nearly 100 of them. There was a picture of a tribal looking Ethiopian wearing such a necklace included in the display but apparently I didn’t get a picture of that.

That is some fancy jewelry!

One Simple Act

As a writer, there are few experiences in life that leave me at a true loss for words. But that is the place I have found myself in since a day last December when an encounter with a beautiful Ethiopian girl touched my heart.

We were in Ethiopia to pick up our kids, but arrived a week early so that we could spend some time seeing the ministry of Hope for the Hopeless which was founded by an Ethiopian pastor in Phoenix.

Our first encounter was at their Drop In Center in the heart of Addis Ababa. Their staff rescues kids off the streets and brings them in, feeds and cares for them and then tries to either reunite them with their family, find foster homes for them or, as room allows, place them in their boys and girls home.

That first day as we entered the gates of their little compound our van was surrounded by about 14 kids, most of them were boys. We got lots of hugs and handshakes and smiles. Later as we sat in the director’s office he began to tell us the stories of some of the kids. He told us about Mary. She was found on the streets, having been beaten and raped by 4 boys. She hovered near death for several days before being healed and brought into Hope’s place. Fekadu cried as he told us about how Jesus changed her life.

An hour later we stood once again in the courtyard and listened as the children gathered and sang us a song. Though we could not understand the words, we could sense the pure joy in their hearts and knew they were speaking of our Jesus. Tears streamed down my face and I could not take my eyes off of Mary, her face lifted to the heavens, eyes closed, singing to her Savior with a beautiful smile on her face.

Two days later we found ourselves at the Drop In Center again. We did not plan to stay long – we were just picking up Fekadu before traveling to one of their other sites. I had brought with me a pair of black boots that one of the other adoptive moms at the guesthouse had given me. She was leaving that afternoon and as she was packing she decided that those shoes could be put to much better use by one of Hope’s kids.

Mary was the only child there that afternoon. The others were in school. (They have had trouble finding Mary’s school records and so she hadn’t been able to start school yet.)

I handed Fekadu the black ankle boots and told him I wasn’t sure who they would fit, maybe one of the older girls. I’ll never forget the look on Mary’s face as she rushed over to Fekadu and put out her hands. He laughed and told her she could try them on. As she zipped up the boots she had the biggest smile on her face and she was literally bursting with excitement. Done putting them on, she began to bounce up and down and spin around like a girl who had just put on a beautiful ball gown. It was obvious to us that the boots were a little too big for her, but she didn’t care.

Then she saw my shoes and rushed over to me, for I was wearing very similar black ankle boots. She stood next to me, her foot pressed up against mine and smiled at me. She pointed to her shoes, then pointed to mine and smiled from ear to ear.

I was half watching her and half talking to Fekadu as she found a small rag or piece of paper and got it wet underneath the water spigot. Then she kneeled in front of me and began to clean the dust of Addis off of my boots.

A million emotions swirled over me. I was taken aback at first. Part of me wanted to bend down and make her stop. It was unsettling to have this beautiful girl, who had been through so much in her short life, washing MY shoes. After all, WE were the ones who had come to Ethiopia to serve these kids, to love them, to help them see how much they were loved by Jesus.

But in one moment our trip became not about what I could do for these “needy” kids but what those beautiful, hope-filled kids could teach me about gratitude, contentment and a true servants heart. For this girl, who had nothing, gave everything she had out of a heart of love and joy.

I knew that to try and stop her would seem ungrateful, and so I let sweet Mary continue to wash my boots, tears streaming down my face the entire time. We left a few moments later, my heart forever touched by a simple act of a beautiful orphan named Mary.

(I am not the only one that has been forever changed by meeting Mary. Read about Tom Davis’ encounter and learn more about Mary’s story.)

John 13: 8-17
It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.
The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
Jesus answered, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.
When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”

Hope-Filled Day

Today has been one of those amazing, fill-your-heart, walking-on-clouds, amazed-at-God’s-goodness kind of days that is hard to put into words.

It began a couple weeks ago when I heard, via Twitter, that Tom Davis (president of Children’s Hopechest) was headed to Ethiopia and was looking for other orphanages that he could visit and explore a partnership with while he was there. Um, YES!!!

I quickly sent him a tweet back (ha, if you don’t Twitter you’re probably lost right now…hang in there) and sent him a link to our wonderful friends at Hope for the Hopeless. There was a flurry of emails back and forth and I will confess to not getting much work done that day (sorry Greg, I’ll make it up). But I knew what an amazing opportunity this was for Hope.

We kept it kind of close to the chest because we did not know what would come of it. We were elated when we saw the visit scheduled on Tom’s itinerary. I emailed out our little network of friends/fellow Hope supporters. Except I messed up. I told them Tom was visiting on Wed the 21st. We made all these great plans to fast and pray from Tuesday afternoon – Wed morning (Ethiopia is 10 hours ahead). Except Tuesday is the 21st, not Wed.

This afternoon I got a message from hubby that Tom had posted pictures to his Facebook page. Sure enough, there were our beautiful kids! I was hit with the fact that God so didn’t need me to carry out his plans.

I sat at my desk and wept. Mostly with joy, but also with an incredible longing to be there and see those kids again. We saw beautiful, familiar faces and it brought our time with them rushing back.

So then I left and got my hair done, picked up kids, fixed dinner, got kids to bed…all the while just giddy from head to toe, sneaking peeks at my computer.

After getting the kids to bed I checked my computer again (refresh, refresh) and there was Tom’s blog post about his day.

“I can’t remember the last time I’ve been overwhelmed with so many things at once – love received from the kids, stories that broke my heart, joy that filled my soul as we danced and sang together.

…When we left each of them hugged us again, this time a little longer, and with the words I love you in our ears. Some community of folks gets to sponsor this orphanage. I’m telling you, it’s one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been.”

So I cried some more…and now I’m crying again. I am so excited to see what God brings about out of this visit. Please join me in praying for Tom and his team as they visit even more orphanages in Ethiopia. If you want to help launch the sponsorship of Hope for the Hopeless with Children’s Hopechest you can donate here. Just mention “Hope for the Hopeless” in the notes section.

Tom’s promised to blog about Mary, one of the girls at Hope, whose story will humble and amaze you. And I promise that I will follow it up with my own story about Mary and how she changed this woman forever.

If you want to read some of my posts from our time at Hope for the Hopeless in Dec you can go here and here and here.

Oh, but God didn’t stop there – this afternoon Mark called and played me a message from our answering machine. It was the school principal (Uh, Oh – must involve fists and blood). But no, sweet Beza and her friend Lizzie and gone into Mr. Starts office because they wanted to pray and ask Jesus into their hearts. That made me cry too – I’ve cried a lot today.

Seeing Clearly

Starting about the second week we were home, Beza has frequently complained of headaches. I notice it particularly at the end of the school day, or at the end of doing homework.

So we had an appointment at the eye doctor today. She was quite the trooper and did really well through all of the tests. We had to kind of explain “clear” and “fuzzy” so she could tell the doc when the fuzzy words became clear.

Turns out she is farsighted and when she is reading close up, she is straining her eyes and that is what is giving her a headache. The optometrist suggested some exercises to do as well as giving us a prescription for reading glasses.

I was relieved to see that kids frames are quite a bit cheaper than adults. As long as we steered away from the $86 Hannah Montana ones we were fine. In the end she choose a cute lavendar pair that were $10 and mom scored with a cute Hannah Montana eyeglass case that was on clearance for $2.

It struck me as we were waiting for them to place the eyeglass order that Beza may have gone her whole life in Ethiopia, straining to read and getting headaches. In a Addis Ababa, a city of 4,000,000, there are just 70 eye doctors (according to Christian Blind Mission). That’s one eye doctor for approximately every 57,000 people.

Maybe that’s why she was truly happy to try on those frames and look in the mirror, because she knew things would be easier.

Yummy Ethiopian Coffee!

One of the lasting impressions our trip left on us was that we are now complete coffee snobs. Let me tell you, there is NOTHING like a cup of authentic Ethiopian coffee. I will admit to not drinking it black but it is the best stuff out there. Did you know that Ethiopia is actually the birth place of coffee? Yes ‘em.

Now, remember those amazing kids at Hope for the Hopeless that we told you about on our trip?

Well, how would you like to score some amazing Ethiopian coffee and help those beautiful kids?

My friend Brooke is traveling back to Ethiopia in a couple of weeks (along with her husband, MIL and daughter) to spend time at Hope. While she is there she will be purchasing 2 lb bags of authentic Ethiopian coffee beans (whole). Each 2 lb bag is $10 and ALL the profits will go straight to Hope for the Hopeless.

If you are local (in Phx) and want to purchase, either leave a comment below (and I’ll reply to you) or shoot me an email (azdesertdivaATgmailDOTcom).

If you live out of the area the easiest way to buy is through ebay. The cost is fifty cents higher to cover ebay fees. Coffee will be shipped after Brooke returns on March 23rd. Orders need to be in by the 10th.

Brooke is taking over about 12 suitcases full of donations so she has LOTS of room to bring back coffee :-)

Ethiopian Funny

During our second week in Ethiopia we stayed in a suite at the Bole Rock Hotel. The small kitchen had a little stove and above it a nice stainless steel hood.

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It was several days before I happened to glance at the buttons on the left that controlled the fan speed.

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That would be like low, medium and high????

More pictures from our trip

I know I posted some of our pictures here on the blog while we were in Ethiopia, but of course there are so many more. So here are two Picasa Albums if you want to see more.

General Trip Photos

Hope for the Hopeless orphanage visit – I wish I had a reference with all the kids names because there are so many and it was hard to remember them (especially when I could barely pronounce some and couldn’t visualize it spelled out).

Chiropractors needed in Ethiopia

I’m finally getting around to working on some of the video from our trip. This first one is from the cultural dinner that we went to that first week with our guide Aki, his girlfriend Ryhanna, Dustin & Jen, and Jeff & Krista.

The dancing was amazing but seriously made me hurt just watching it. I wonder what their chiropratic bills are like??? Keep watching til the end. It’s amazing.