This blog is dedicated to all true Storm Riders who, through it all, proclaim the name of Jesus and reverence his word. This blog will talk about our personal walk with Christ and will also examine current events and important life lessons. We plan to update on a weekly basis but please feel free to leave comments and suggestions. We must all learn to share what we know and help each other grow in Christ. God Bless!
Friday, October 18, 2013
Missions: Ethiopia Part 1: Team, Country and People
I left last month for my missions trip to Ethiopia. This was my third missions trip with Times Square Church and it was such a blessing. I was with a team of seven extraordinary, beautiful, hilarious, intelligent, kind, normal and God loving women. I knew only one of the ladies which was the team leader, Tobi. But of course by the end of the trip I got to know and adored Miss Ruth, Miss Hazel, Babita aka "Bob", Homa and Jane. I felt completely comfortable with these ladies in our last meeting a week before we left for the trip. We were already exposing our humor and personalities. We had wonderful, engaging conversations and the main topic was men and marriage. Hey, no judging, we are 7 single women what else would we talk about!
The Team
Our mission was to volunteer at Healing Hands of Joy founded by Allison Shigo, who was also our host. The center was developed to establish safe motherhood support networks to eradicate fistula. HHOJ also provides assistance to women that developed fistula to rejoin their communities as safe motherhood ambassadors and provide a life for themselves. I will elaborate more on what we did at HHOJ next week, but please visit the center's site at healinghandsofjoy.com to learn more.
Addis Ababa
After our 12 hour flight to Dubai we boarded our plane to fly into to Addis Ababa, which took 4 hours. The country is beautiful to say the least. The mountainous landscape took my breath away! The city reminded me of Monrovia, Liberia expect for the mountains. Most of the people, if not all, are extremely attractive. Most of the locals we encountered had a kind disposition and friendly. The country's religion is Christian Orthodox. We saw many priest and parishioners walking to mass.
Orthodox Church
In Addis most of the people wear western modern day apparel (jeans, t-shirts, high heels, sneakers and business causal wear). We saw sprinkles of traditional garments, more so in Mekelle. Some of the women had their heads covered with a shawl or scarf and men wear colorful tams, beanies or tuckers.
Majority of the men have low hair cuts and the women wear their hair in a variety of ways; natural, textured, long, short, braided ( I love and plan on executing myself), wig or weaves. We went to a restaurant called 2000 Habesha that had traditional Ethiopian cuisine, a band and cultural dancers.
We then went to Mekelle, where the center, Healing Hands of Joy, is located.
Below are more pictures and video of the dancers from the trip. Next week's post will go more in depth about what the Lord did through our team and my one on one time with Akeza, one of the woman at the center.
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