Let's Talk Ethiopia!

At church today, the group from our church who recently traveled to Ethiopia including Dave spoke during what is called learning & sharing.  It is a time between the two worship services where a certain topic or event takes place.  It is also a time for everyone to gather together to enjoy some coffee, donuts, and conversation.

Each week is a certain topic and today's topic was a recap of the Ethiopia mission trip.  Dave posted a few blogs about his trip and he has shared several stories along with many pictures with me since he has been home.  Today I got to hear stories from some of the others who traveled with Dave.  Many individuals gave a personal story about how they were able to connect with one of the boys who lived at Kolfe.  It is truly remarkable to hear some of the youth to reference their sponsored son their brother.  Truly amazing and tear jerking.  The group also wore their traditional Ethiopian outfit.  They all did a great job and sparked many questions as well as an interest to learn more.

Dave and I along with a few others started our sponsorship program at our church 2 years ago and were semi successful.  We were successful because we were able to establish a relationship with Children's Hopechest.  We were successful as we gained many sponsors and we were successful because we caused enough stirring to get a group of individuals to leave their comfort zone by traveling to Ethiopia for a week. 

But now we can be truly successful thanks to the energy the new group members bring to the table, the love and desire to make this relationship succeed and be long lasting, and the stronger connection my church, Olivet, has with these amazing young men.  

After the presentation this morning a woman who is very active in our church and who we have gotten to know thanked me for bringing Ethiopia to the church.  She thanked me.  Now I know I did not personally bring Ethiopia to our church as we have others within our church who are either Ethiopian themselves or adopted from Ethiopia but I wanted to cry as she spoke to me.  I needed to hear those words so badly because of how I have been feeling for the past 5 weeks.  Dave traveling with people I didn't know and to have an experience without me to my girls' birth country put me in a place that I never want to visit again.  It tore me to pieces so to be thanked meant more than I could ever express in any blog post.

Today was a good day but I'm glad it is over.  I'm glad the group got to share their story with the church as they needed to.  But now the rest of the group who did not travel can now get back involved with Kolfe.  It is going to be an exciting few months while we gather a plan, roll out the sponsorships again, and get the rest of the church excited about Ethiopia and Kolfe!