The past three months living in Ethiopia have been nothing less than amazing. While I was reminiscing on my time here in Africa, I decided to make a list of a few things I never want to forget.
- African children belly-laughing at Kung Fu Panda
- The African sunrise/sunset
- Orthodox priests chanting at 5am
- Cutting grass in the fields
- The Christmas Eve stars
- African church (these services are long and Spirit-filled)
- That time a badger basically attacked my team during manual labor
- Singing at the top of our lungs to Chicken Fried//Zac Brown Band while washing dishes
- When a street kids grabs your hand while walking to the market
- The 45 minute walk to the HOPEthiopia Reforestation site
- Binge watching all the Marvel movies on off days
- Coffee and Bible reading on the couch
- When I slept beside Jaynna and she steamrolled me to go pee at 3am
- 6am runs in the compound
- Our kitchen ladies, Hildana and Zanet
- Coffee ceremonies in the children’s village
- Elena getting healed of her gluten intolerance
- Stretching for the splits (pictures to come)
- Stopping the van to let a herd of camels cross the road
- Eating Injera
- Getting lice for the first time (and having to keep coconut oil in my hair for a week)*side note: I used to be terrified of getting lice, and now I would take all the lice in the world if I could cuddle an African kid one last time
- Making pancakes with the kitchen ladies
- The walk to the guesthouse every morning
- Doing laundry by hand
- Movie nights with the kids
- All the love notes Daawit gave me
- The cram-packed van ride to Addis Ababa to submit financial reports
- Mange (one of our local friends who works with HOPEthiopia) saying the word “boujee”
- The beautiful mountains that surround the compound
- How the Lord bestowed His love on me in totally new ways
I could go on and on about how much I love Africa and the people here, but my list would take forever to read. I am definitely sad to be leaving this beautiful place that I have called home for the past three months, but I know the Lord has so much greater things in store for both Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
