Prayer Needs

Trevor and I leave today for Ethiopia to bring Zerihun and Melaku home! So excited!!!

We have also had some encouraging developments in Meseret's situation this last week -- I have found a school that is willing to admit her here in town! So, if she can get a student visa, she can come here and study until she graduates from high school, and then go on to college.

In order to get a visa, she needs to get a passport, and to get a passport, she needs an ID card. I'm not really clear on how she gets this, but all I know is that the social worker has been talking to her older brother and older sister, who live in Addis, about helping her to get it (maybe she would have to live with them for a bit? -- not sure), and neither is willing to help her.

I don't know why this is, but while I'm there, I'm going to be trying to figure out how to help her get this ID card. I'll be meeting with the siblings as part of Zerihun's going-away family visit, so I can talk to them at that time, hopefully help them overcome whatever obstacles would keep them from helping.

Please pray for me for favor and open doors! Somehow while I'm there, I would really like to get all these arrangements taken care of, and make sure the process is well on its way for Meseret.

Thank you!

Ethiopia Day 4 - hanging out

Wednesday was a holiday too, and the kids were all out of school, so we hung out with them most of the day at Layla House, which was fun and relaxing.

Melaku is Alex's little buddy, and for some reason he loves to play with his hair -

Both boys have asked if we will let them grow their hair out once they come home - of course we said yes. I'm sure it will be nice for them just to be able to have control over that aspect of their appearance.

There were more soccer games, this time with the older boarding school girls joining in, including Meseret on the Phillips family team -

We played card games with the kids -

and Darren showed them pictures and played some of Lindsay's songs for them on his laptop.

In the afternoon, the boarding school girls had to go back to school, so Alex and I rode with them in the van. They go to school in an area called Akaki, on the outskirts of Addis. It felt like the countryside to me; the roads leading up to her school were dirt, with huge rocks in the road. Because of that, I think, most people get around in horse-drawn cart taxis like this -

It was sad to say goodbye to Meseret, but we told her to work hard in school, especially in math and English, and that we will do whatever we can to bring her here!

Ethiopia Day 3 - Timkat

Tuesday was the beginning of Timkat, a national holiday celebrating the Epiphany (Christ's baptism); it goes through Wednesday, so the kids were on break from school (though Melaku had a half day in the morning - he goes to school at Layla House).

We went to Layla in the morning to hang out with the kids, and got to see one of Melaku's classes -

Earlier he had shown me his school notebooks from his classes, like English, Math, Science, and Amharic. He was so proud, looking at us to see our reactions and comments on his work. :) He had a notebook from music class too, with lyrics written out to songs as diverse as If I Had a Hammer, Seasons in the Sun, This Little Light of Mine, and I'm Yours! I asked him to sing some that he knew, and he sang If I Had a Hammer - it was so cute - he has a sweet little voice.

Because it's a holiday, the girls at boarding school (including Meseret, Z's sister) were on break, and were coming to Layla to spend the night, so Lindsay and Zerihun went with the van to pick them up. We walked down to a restaurant for lunch, and soon after we got there the van dropped the three of them off. It was pretty emotional meeting Meseret. She is so sweet, and is beautiful; she speaks English pretty well too. Darren started talking to her, letting her know how hard it was for us when we found out she was too old, and how we wanted to help her however we could and that we consider her a part of our family too. We were all crying - it was really heart-wrenching. Please pray with us that we can find a way to bring her over too!

After lunch a group of us took the older girls and boys from Layla and the boarding school out to see some of the holiday celebrations. There is an ancient Ethiopian tradition that the actual Ark of the Covenant is here at a church in Ethiopia. On this holiday, replicas of the Ark are carried out in procession from 8 different churches to a body of water, where they celebrate Christ's baptism and pray all night, then they are carried back in procession the next day. We walked to one of the churches where an Ark is carried out. That's a simple statement - but it was a long walk! No one told us how far it would be. :) It probably took about an hour and a half! And it was hot. But it was really cool to see the procession. Everyone is dressed in white, or with white head coverings, singing songs, and they all jump up and down and ululate when the Ark passes them. Then they all fall in behind to join the procession. This picture is one we took the next day from higher up - the Ark replica is under the umbrellas:

Lindsay and I went back to Layla after that to rest a bit, but Darren and Alex stayed and hung out with the kids. We came back later, and when we walked in we saw them hanging out in Zerihun's room - Darren was playing songs on his laptop and the younger boys (including Melaku) were showing off their dance moves. They were so funny! Melaku was just laughing and laughing, especially when Lindsay and Alex would join in.

It is getting harder and harder to walk away from these boys every day, leaving them there. When we left that evening, Zerihun walked us to the door, and it was SO hard not to take him with us! I can tell it's really hard for him too. Being one of the older boys, who has been there so long and seen so many kids leave, you can tell that he is just so ready to go. He asks us when we'll be back to take them home - he thinks it will only be a couple of weeks, but it will probably be more like 6-8 weeks, which is going to be hard! Pray that all goes smoothly with the extra documents needed, no glitches with the court or the U.S. Embassy!