Bus Crash!

We were on our way for a school outing. Our Bus was loaded with 59 students. I was seated directly behind the driver but couldn't see much because a partition was between the driver and me. The driver suddenly slammed on his brakes to avoid a mini-bus taxi that stopped abruptly in front of the bus. The driver swerved to avoid crashing into the taxi. The fellow sitting beside me, who had a clear view said "Oh NO". He very courageously jumped up and flew into the arms of two adjacent lovely ladies (he claims he was protecting them from the crash). We had swerved right into the path of an oncoming bus.
The driver of the other bus tried to avoid a head on collision and struck our bus a glancing blow as it then proceeded to roll into the ditch. Miraculously there were only bumps and bruises on our bus, including the driver and there were no life threatening injuries on the other bus.
This last week was March Break for the school and we made a return trip to Bahir Dar to try and finalize arrangements for next year. We are hoping to start an urban ministries program in Bahir Dar that targets street kids, women-at-risk, orphans etc. Since there are currently no project agreements with the government we can't get work permits for that. We can't get project agreements unless we have someone there to do the necessary research and write them up. So our first job is getting there. This next year I plan to teach part time at Bahir Dar Academy and continue to lay the ground work for future urban ministries.
On this trip we met Fray Shibaba, the director of the school, and her husband. Both have incredible stories. Her husband was imprisoned for many years while the communist regime rampaged Ethiopia for 17 years. Many of his colleagues died in prison. On occasion when they were very sick, prisoners were taken to the local government hospital for treatment. He was so appalled at the conditions with people dying in the waiting room that he vowed if he survived prison he would become a doctor. While in prison he met a Christian (most of the jails were filled with Christians during the communist era), and he also became a believer.
To make a long story short he now operates a private practice in Bahir Dar and saw more patients last year than the government hospital (more than 35,000). His wife (a former patient who he rescued from the verge of death) also became a believer and tried to open a school.
Because of their faith they experienced great opposition and received death threats, were on hit lists, and experienced many attempts to shut them down. They persevered and in only 4 short years, Fray now has more than 1200 students at the school and all the government officials and everyone else are now sending their kids to the school. She says it all happened by prayer.
Sue had an opportunity recently to teach massage to HIV/AID's patients who SIM has organized support groups for. By learning to give massage to each other, it is hoped that they can offer pain relief and emotional support to each other. The response to the teaching was very positive and Sue has been asked to come back and do some more teaching on massage and stretching.

Northern Historical Route

The Simien Mountains are called the roof of Africa, with good reason. At many points you are high up on plateaus looking down on mountain ranges thousands of feet below you. Over the Christmas break from school we had the opportunity to travel through much of northern Ethiopia- including a return trip to Bahir Dar and north to Gondar and Axum. Many of the peaks in the Simien mountains are over 4,000 metres high.
A few teachers from school joined us including Jim and Andrea Rawson, Sarah's Grade 1 teacher (Miss Jennie Ruim) and a good friend from Canada, Karen Zabawa. Karen previously accompanied us on our two trips to China for our adoptions of Sarah and Rachel. She found Africa a little more challenging than China and is just now getting over her flea bites. She is also involved in other charities one of them being starthrowerfoundation.org
We had left for Bahir Dar a few days earlier than the rest of the group to meet with several leaders concerning the urban ministries program that we hope to launch next year. Since there is an exorbitant amount of red tape to go through for getting a program approved by the government, we may initially start out by teaching some English and or computers part time at a local school in Bahir Dar until we get our feet on the ground and have the time and resources to put together an official government approved urban ministries program.
After a few days the rest of the travel group joined us and we visited some of the island monasteries, blue nile falls and several other local attractions around Bahir Dar. Many people from the outlying areas still come by papyrus boat to market the same way they have for a thousand years.
New Years Eve we spent in a police station. Some say I can't go anywhere without ending up at a police station. While we were visiting a local village, where they make papyrus boats, all of our jackets were being stolen from the van. Our guide insisted we try and get them back (we were also heading for the Simien mountains where it can go below freezing). Our guide along with the local police and village elders pursued the thieves until all the jackets were returned (around midnight).
Soon we were on our way by Land Cruiser up to Gonder and from there to the Simien Mountains and Axum. Gonder was the capital of Ethiopia for 250 years with a succession of kings making their home there. There are many interesting castles and old palaces to be explored. I remember visiting Gonder years ago and seeing live lions running through the ruins. It kind of added to the adventure. Fortunately there weren't any lions this time.
From Gonder we went into the Simien mountains and then wound our way up and down spectacular mountain gorges on our way to Axum. The trip was uneventful apart from flea bites and hundreds of cock roaches appearing as soon as the lights went out. We decided to leave the light on in the bathroom to avoid "the crunch in the night".
On the route to Axum we saw lots of burned out military vehicles, remnants from the various wars Ethiopia has been involved in over the last 20 years.
Axum is the home of the Queen of Sheba, the famous Queen who visited king Solomon. The Amhara tribe claims to be descendants of the King of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The Ark of the Covenant also is said to be in Axum guarded by the Orthodox Church.
At one time the Axumite kingdom was the most powerful in the ancient world with its kingdom extending all along the Mediteranean. Axum was also a cultural centre of a quite advanced civiliztion. We visited the Queen of Sheba's palace, her pool and varius underground tombs etc. Only about 2 or 3% of Axum has been excavated so there is still a lot of history to dig up.
We were running short of money by the time we hit Axum and we had to pool all our resources as a group to cover our hotel bills and travels in Axum. There is no using of credit cards, ATM's or any way to get money. Everything is cash only.
We are back into routines teaching at school and Sue with her Amharic studies. The girls are enjoying school and will be participating in Field Day over the next couple of days. Field Day is a long tradition at Bingham that goes back to the days when I was a student here. It is essentially a major track and field event where everyone in the school has to participate in at least two events.

Survey trip to Bahirdar

As we arrived in Bahir Dar and got settled into our hotel room for the night we received a phone call. We wondered who could be calling us and who knew we had arrived. Assuming it was a wrong number I picked up the phone anyway and the voice on the other end asked "do you remember me- Amsolu, my wife Geddam and I worked with you in the Sudan." I couldn't believe it. His wife had been the cook for our Relief team and we hadn't heard from them in 13 years. They had returned to Ethiopia and he was a key leader in the church in Bahir Dar that we are planning to work with, in fact they are responsible for the entire northwest area of Ethiopia. He was the one who had drawn up the recent proposals for SIM for work among the Youth, Street Kids and other needs. It was a great reunion and chance to sit down with him and discuss the needs in Bahir Dar and what can be done about them.
He has not had an easy time of it, being asked to move 5 times in the past few years because of religious persecution. The army had to intervene one time to prevent a mob from decimating their newly established church. The government strongly supports freedom of religion and has recently given him some land of his own, so if he can scrape enough money together to put up a house, he should be free from further evictions.
We surveyed some of the social concerns in Bahir Dar with more than 6 thousand street children, some of them as young as three or four. Bahir Dar has the highest HIV rate in Ethiopia. We discovered several factors that are exasperating and perpetuating the situation. Many young women end up on the street for a variety of reasons including they have lost one or both of their parents. The town is both a university town (10,000 students), a tourist town, and an army garrison town. Many young women turn to prostitution to provide an income for themselves and to try and provide for their siblings.
The street children organize themselves in little bands, which become their family. To a certain extent they look out for each other but we are also told there is a lot of treachery. At least half the kids we met needed serious medical help. Many had open sores and wounds. The task is far too big for any kind of institutional approach.
One of the other key leaders in the small church we hope to work with in Bahir Dar is a key leader for the University Students. He is the only staff member for a totally indigenous university fellowship of Christians. There are many students meeting in small groups to study the Bible and grow in their faith.
We see the University Students as the key for addressing the social and spiritual needs of the town. The street kids and the young women all look up to the University students. In fact many of the street kids are already following the university students around and follow them right to their small group Bible studies. If you could mobilize a force of students to address the social and spiritual needs of the town, they could have a huge impact. Ebenezer is also responsible for the university fellowship in Gondar, a town 150Km to the north of Bahir Dar. He says there are many students meeting in small groups in that town.
We are encouraged at the potential we see for God to do great things in the north of Ethiopia, but we also realize the challenges are enormous and many of the problems are rooted deep in the culture and values of the people.
Bahir Dar is located on Lake Tana, the largest lake in Ethiopia. They still use traditional papyrus boats to navigate and fish the lake. We had opportunity to take an excursion on the lake, visit one of the many island monasteries and sight some hippos.
Over the Christmas break (from me teaching and Sue in language school) we plan to return to Bahir Dar and continue our survey work as well as take an excursion farther north to Gondor and Axum.
Sue is doing well in her Amharic course, but she is really putting a lot of work into it and is finding it quite challenging.
Sarah and Rachel seem to have totally adjusted to life at the school (Bingham) and really love it here. If we move to Bahir Dar next year they will find it a lot more difficult to adjust.

Thief

"Laba at Meskel Square"! Laba is the Amharic word for "thief". Towards the end of September there is a huge celebration by the Orthodox church called "Meskel". The origin of it is shrouded in legend and superstition. It goes back to the time of Constantine when his wife is said to have discovered the true cross of Christ by following smoke from a burning fire. For the Ethiopian it also signifies the end of rainy season sort of like the arrival of spring (they can now visit relatives that were cut off due to swollen rivers). At any rate as I was observing these celebrations, I had my pocket picked. I think I was distracted by one policeman who started beating indiscriminately on the crowd with his billy club. In the ensuing chaos and flight for my own safety I ended up without a wallet. I lost my Ethiopian drivers license and Canadian Citizenship Card. I started having flashbacks to my time in Brazil where I had my wallet picked with all my id and then had my passport destroyed on one of my river trips. At that time I ended up in jail for two months.
It took me trips to 5 police stations, most of them twice and one of them three times, 11 1/2 hrs. and 2 days of waiting in lines and chasing signatures before I was able to replace my Ethiopian drivers license. I still haven't replaced my citizenship card.
Sue has started her Amharic language classes. She is finding it brutal but is persevering. She is also getting exposure to different types of urban ministries that will be useful for when we start things in Bahir Dar. She has visited a women's shelter as well as some self help projects. One project involved taking people who lived on the street and organizing them into a little Co-op where they were trained on using a brick making machine. A whole community of homeless people that used to live against walls and under plastic sheets now have houses they made from the bricks and are getting income from the sale of bricks.
We are making plans with the SIM director for the North of Ethiopia to visit Bahir Dar around the third week of November. We will meet with various officials and people working in the area at that time as we start things rolling on getting an urban ministries program started there.
This weekend is mid-term break at school and we took a trip about an hour and a half north of Addis to an Orthodox monastery called "Debra Lebanos". The monastery was started by a monk named Tekle Hynot who is said to have stood on one leg in a cave for 29 years in meditation. As the legend goes his one leg eventually fell off. We climbed up to the cave where this event supposedly occurred and were met by a monk in a cave. Apparently a lot of monks still live in caves.
The Orthodox church in Ethiopia has a lot of history. The area we are going to, God willing, in northern Ethiopia is the heart of the Orthodox history in Ethiopia including many legends of the Ark of the Covenant as well as many ancient island monasteries on Lake Tana.
Not far from the Debra Lebanos monastery is "the Portuguese Bridge". This bridge is more than 400 years old and is located along the "Nile Gorge". Sue and the girls are standing on the brink of the gorge with a sheer drop off of thousands of feet to the Nile river below. The Grand Canyon has nothing on the "Nile Gorge".
The girls were fascinated by bands of monkeys and baboons that could scale sheer rock cliffs without falling (as far we knew).
School continues to go well. Both girls are now healthy after a couple of weeks of sickness. They are both enjoying school and have made lots of friends. Sarah and Rachel recently competed in a school "House Competition". The school has divided students into what they call "Houses" named after famous missionaries (Carey, Scott, and Taylor). Sarah and Rachel are members of Carey and their team came in first place. Rachel didn't compete much, she was the smallest on the field and she said she "didn't want to get sweaty".
In my Grade 9 Bible class I am having a good opportunity to discuss many important issues of life. We recently completed studies related to "Why does God allow so much suffering" and "Why are there so many injustices that seem to go unchecked". I am discovering that many of my students are struggling with deep issues of their own including thoughts of suicide, abusive home situations, caught in the middle of messy divorces involving their parents etc. Pray that I will have God's wisdom in helping them at this important time of their life.

We are now into the second full week of school and the pace of things has picked up substantially. Sue has also started language study so is gone before the girls leave for school.
Sue is learning to roast and grind coffee beans the traditional way as part of her culture and language training. I'm hoping she learns how to carry wood and start fires next as our apartment is freezing.

Just before school started our building took close to a direct lightning strike. It was the middle of the night and I thought a bomb had gone off. Sue leaped up hitting me at the same time, adding to the sensation we had been hit. The lightning fried a couple of staff notebook computers including mine as well as damaging some network equipment. Fortunately we were able to recover data off the computers but will need to send them out of country for repairs.

Ethiopia Arrival

On August 17 at 6:30pm we left Toronto for Addis Ababa Ethiopia. The total trip took more than 30 hrs. before our arrival at the school where we will be located for this first year.
After an eight hour stopover in London, we continued our journey and arrived in Addis Ababa at 1:30 in the morning local time. Clearance through customs and immigration was uneventful except Rachel wasn't listed on our entry permit (although it was listed on our copy). After some delay they decided to keep her passport and give a ticket for her to go to the immigration office to obtain a valid entry visa.
Eventually we cleared the airport and were taken by waiting van to the school.

We were taken to a spacious 3 bedroom apartment that will be our home for the next year. We were both delighted and surprised to find that from our residence we have a phone and Internet access (although slow).

It looks like both Sarah and Rachel will be able to go to school this year, although they had to make an exception for Rachel as she isn't old enough for their kindergarten.
We had our first taste of authentic Ethiopian food last night. Sue and I are accustomed to it, however it will take some getting used to for the girls.
Although it has been nearly 40 years since I lived in Ethiopia, with the exception of structural changes, things look pretty much the same. Sarah and Rachel are pleased to see donkeys and sheep walking down the middle of the road. There is still a great deal of poverty and suffering for the average person. The needs can be overwhelming. The girls seem to be adjusting well inspite of the huge changes and have already made some friends.
We are quite impressed with the facilities at the School. It has a good computer setup as well as excellent gym.
We haven't met with the Central Office of SIM yet to discuss the development of the Bahir Dar program that will target ministry with street kids, orphans and women at risk. We are already making plans, however for a trip up to the area around Christmas time.

The Beginning

Homeless! This last weekend we had our garage sale as we are in process of selling our house and getting rid of years of junk as we prepare to leave for Ethiopia.
As we were putting things on the chopping block for sale, the girls were trying to rescue them. Our house closes the end of July and we hope to leave for Ethiopia mid August.
We have given them so much space and told them they can pack whatever they want in their allotted space. Sarah will likely fill her space with seeds as she seems to be a gardener at heart and is already planning her mango trees, vegetable garden and flower gardens. Sue and I have zero interest in gardening.
This next week we will be going to a Bingham reunion. Bingham is the boarding school that Bob went to in Ethiopia as a boy. He has not seen most of his classmates in 40 years. It will no doubt be a memorable time. Bob will be teaching computers at Bingham this coming year in addition to getting plans and approvals for the work in northern Ethiopia working with street kids, orphans and women-at-risk.
We would like to be at 100% support status by the end of July so feel free to let others know who may be interested in Ethiopia, the AIDS epidemic now facing that country or are interested in praying for us.
Thanks again for your interest, prayer and support. Pray for our work permits as we were told this week that we would need to have the permits before we leave, even though we were told earlier that we could come on a business visa and get the work permits in country.