Just a few images of beautiful Ethiopia and her people uploaded as we travel back to SLC … more on the way…

we left our friends in mekelle with quite a bit of resource to move forward in their community projects, and hopefully some hope and fresh ideas to do so as well.  most of us are doing pretty well physically, but we’re ready to be home emotionally.  thanks for thinking of us in your prayers.

see you all soon.

We visited many “homes” yesterday in the Mekele community.  You can’t really call a 4′ x 8′  room/shanty that sleeps 3, has no toilet or shower, no running water, has one light, has no bed, no sheets, no pillows, no ……. and leaks water when it rains – you just can’t call that a home.  There are tens of thousands of residents in those types of living accommodations here in Mekele where about 215,000 people live.

Can you imagine hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million plus, in the capital city of Addis Ababa where 3M people live and the incredible homelessness and substandard living conditions, unimaginable poverty and …….  It is really unfathomable.  Think for just a moment about the worlds population of 7B people and how many billion – likely 6B plus – that live in these conditions.  We are so blessed and we are so grateful for our new digs for the next 4 nights but are humbled tremendously.

Please continue praying for our health and that we can do God’s will on this trip and to lay the foundation and framework for future exciting and beneficial endeavors with us, with K2, with Bridges of Hope and for all the markets throughout the world that are in such need of help. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” -

Thanks for the continued prayers and God Bless you!!

Bob Seawright

As Americans we are use to everything happening instantly and many times that is how we approach our compassion efforts.  We feel good when we give something away to a person less fortunate but is it about how we feel?  I believe if we were to step back and look at it beyond the immediate situation we would find that the outcome is much different then we intended.

Eric Winter

We were very excited to get to do a first CHE lesson with the visually impaired group yesterday.  They wanted to learn about dental care.  I got to help since they were down two team members.  They had a good laugh as I brought around the plastic mouth to demonstrate how to brush your teeth.  They probably thought we were crazy and thinking about it in hindsight, if I had never seen one before, I may have laughed at it as well if someone handed me a giant plastic mouth.

If you have never worked with anyone who has a disability, I highly encourage it.  They are amazing in the fact that other abilities are so much more heightened.  We had the opportunity to visit their homes and they led us from the orphanage where we did training to almost a mile away with twists and turns down roads, through a locked gate, all while holding a conversation.  I can barely walk in tennis shoes, knowing and seeing where I am going without falling.  Three girls live in a shack that used to be a toilette and was cemented over.  The three of them sleep on one “mattress” on the floor together.  They are clean and happy and it looks like their accommodations are better than most of the other visually impaired.  They have a strong desire to be taught something that will allow them to support themselves and you can tell just from our short interactions with them, they are very bright and capable of doing something amazing.  I hope next time I come back, we have found a way to teach them so I can buy the things they have been making to support themselves.

Thanks for all your love, support and prayers.  Amy Rose

Today we went to the school of blind to teach them about dental. Wow, that was crazy. Its amazing to me how this community is taking care of their oral health. Cleaning their teeth with twigs and living with pain everyday. This leadership group is all teenagers that are living this way. I pray that our teaching will help them understand how important it is to teach their community about oral health and this will be a start of something amazing.

This afternoon we spent some time with the younger children at the school if blind. As we walked off the bus towards the school the children began to run toward us, knowing where to run and without tripping over large rocks. We were so welcomed by these children. Their hands were out ready to shake ours, introducing themselves. I met two little girls, one had her hand wrapped around my waist and the other holding my hand. These sweet girls began to sing to me their english song they have been learning at their school, they stole a part of my heart. This has been an awesome experience.

We have had a couple of team members that have got very sick, please be praying for them.
Courtney Rogers

1.  We have a few sick people – flu is setting in with a couple people and we have 2 who are nauseous and have been vomitting.

2.  As we start teaching in the communities and doing home visits we have 2 members staying back at the hotel today, so we need to fill in the gaps for the roles they were playing.

3.  Pray for us as we get into the communities today and see what the guys at the seminary have been doing in regards to community development.  We are praying about our continued and future support of the projects going on here, in addition to the current K2 support of their gospel training at the seminary.

We’re praising God for:

1.  10,000 bibles in the NT Tigryan language which have been delivered and will be distributed to all the priests in the entire region soon!  This is the first time the NT has been printed in this language!!

2.  The training room [complete with internet and laptops] that K2 built is being used continually and working well.

3.  The first class of graduates [25 men] are all on track to graduate from the Seminary in June 2012.

Thanks for praying we’re ready to rock!

The other place we have been to is a hospital for girls that have “fitula”.  If you don’t know what that is, let me explain.  In this culture, girls are circumcised at a very young age.  Now, most of these girls are “changed” to say the least by this practice. Most of these women need medical attention fast just to save their life and they don’t get it.  They spend a month locked in a room surviving the infection and horror of what has happened.  Often when they give birth later in the rural areas, the outcome is a very painful delivery and tearing that results in Fitula, where the woman is not able to control her urination.  Culturally, this causes a lifetime of pure hell, they are shunned by their family, they are divorced by their husband and put out away from the rest of their family for their condition. Try to think about what it would be like to spend your life like this.  So . . . we went to the hospital and rehab today where people that believe this to be a “insane” practice want to do all they can to change this.  Holy moly, what a huge blessing these people are to these women.  They want to make a change in the lives of people and that change can only come if people go out in the community and teach others that this has to change.  Anyway, it was very nice to see that all that we see each day in the city can maybe be changed. There is a reason for us to be here.  We are doing what God has asked us to do.

Now on the other note, this team is a really great team.  We are having so much fun together, learning a lot about and from each other and love this mission.  We can’t get internet too often, so please don’t worry if you don’t hear from us, everything is great.

Melodie Anderson

What stood out to me was [a] their joy and passion about the movement of God over here and [b] the unity we have as “being one in Christ” even when there exists some belief and practice differences of faith in following and living in Jesus.   In the business of listening to God and living Him out in a community and country of great need, these issues become peripheral and even fall off to the floor at the table of the Lord.

We had what was called a coffee ceremony and were caught up in the beauty of humility and servant mindedness of Martha, the woman who prepared everything for us.   “When in Rome” got practiced by this zero tolerance coffee drinker and you know what?  It wasn’t about coffee, it was about being with one another and breaking bread, listening and learning, living in the kingdom of God and the Son He loves.

The evening meal was authentic Ethiopian food that to me was like eating a Greek gyro involving lamb, bread, vegetables and spices – delicious!  So our evening is winding down, some went to an internet café and I’m writing to you up in my room.   Much love over the distances to each of you and thank you for your embrace of us here, however that is happening!  – Mark DiMeglio

So it was day 1 here in Ethiopia. And pretty intense. Things I’ve seen, in no particular order, that I’m processing:

- mothers with infants laying on muddy streets amidst traffic, livestock and people
- 12 year olds that are battling sexual predation
- donkeys walking the streets

And just a whole world that I feel completely ill-equipped to process. I was interviewing a team member today for video and she just totally broke down with broken heartedness for what we saw today.

Our team is tired, emotionally worn. Some of its jetlag, some of it is reality. Pray for us.

Tomorrow we fly to Mekele and start our work in the field.