November finds me in Ethiopia! This is actually a crazy country for me. It went from being one of the ones I’m least excited about to being one of the ones I’m most looking forward to. Check it out 🙂
ETHIOPIA
Geography:
The mountain lover in me is going to adore this place. Let me show you.
Look. ALL mountains. This place is going to be beautiful… Some mountains are as tall as 13,000 feet. For reference, Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the continental U.S., is only about 14,000. These are no bunny slopes.2
Size and Climate: Ethiopia is huge. Like, really huge. How huge, you ask? Nearly twice the size of Texas. “Great” you say. “Texas is so big no one really knows how big it is.” Check this out:
Boom. See? Huge. By the way, the number of people that live there is almost a third of the entire U.S. population. It is the most populous landlocked country in the world. Let that sink in….
It is bordered by Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan. Climate is going to be tricky based on where my team ends up when we get there. Because it’s mountainous there’s a substantial amount of variation in temperature based on the city, but we are expecting hot in the lowlands and moderate in the mid to highlands with cool/cold nights.
Language and People: Amharic is the official national language, but each state has their own unique working language. How’s that for confusing… Interpreters will be needed this month, though English is the major foreign language taught in schools. (However, how many of you remember your 8th grade language class, hu? Exactly…)
We have a very similar, very uniform population pyramid for Ethiopia. It looks like this:
For some reference, here’s what the population pyramid looks like in the United States of America:
Have we discussed the challenges posed by a wide base and a narrow top? Yes? Moving on….
The population growth rate is high, the death rate is high, and a mother will have her first child at around 19 and have, on average, 5 children. Imagine the higher numbers of children per family to draw up that average.
The amount of money earned, on average, per person per year is $1,500. That’s right around $4 a day. In 2012 (the most recent data available) nearly 40% of the population lived below the poverty line, which is the number that live under $1.25 a day. This country has nearly 100,000,000 people in it. Nearly 40% live below the poverty line. Get the idea?
The religious dichotomy is crazy here, too. The two main religious practices are Christianity (specifically Ethiopian Orthodox) and Islam. They are divided by mountain regions with the Christians primarily located in the highlands and the Muslim population living in the lowlands. Ethiopia’s history stretches back thousands of years into the Islamic Holy Wars. War and hunger are constant themes in Ethiopia with nearly 7 million people starving to death in the past few decades.3 Adding in high birth rates and high numbers of refugees draining resources, Ethiopia faces a lot of challenges.
Why I’m Excited: I’ll be honest. Originally I wasn’t excited. Ethiopia wasn’t something I knew much about except to hear stories of war and starvation in the early 90s. I remember hearing my pastor tell occasional stories of provision for our partner organizations there, but I have never had any desire to go. I was reading my Bible one day and found it mentioned by name. None of the other countries I’m going to exist like this in the Bible! Turns out Ethiopia is talked about by name almost 50 times. That’s incredible to me that this isn’t somewhere like Babylon or Persia or somewhere that almost becomes mythical because the names have changed. I get to go to this place and love on these people that have been around for thousands of years. That’s cool to me.
From blogs I’ve read about Racers here, there’s an NGO I would absolutely love to work with called HOPEthiopia. They are what I’m all about – reaching the most vulnerable in a sustainable, empowering way. They serve orphans, widows, and the elderly by sponsoring families in need, empowering women and children with skills like sewing and other abilities, and they love on orphans and raise them up to be future leaders. My dream would be to start or work for an organization like this one day. I want to see how they’re run, how they’re funded, and ways they impact their community in practical, empowering ways – not just handouts.
This is actually one of the things I’m most looking forward to about the Race. I want to run or start or plant or work for an organization like this, but everything I learned in college is that the worst thing you can do is have the “white savior” complex: let me come in and teach you what you need to do to fix your problems. No, not at all. TRUE change, positive, empowering, actual lasting change comes from the community, and often in a grassroots way. One of the things I’m most excited about is getting to work with 11 different countries worth of non-profits, NGO’s, or just families that saw a need and are trying to fill it, and learn best practices from those so I can take that with me to start my own one day. I think it’s funny that the place I was least excited about before now has so much potential to be life changing for me and something I’m so looking forward to. I used to use Ethiopia as the place I was afraid God would send me – as the “worst case I end up here” example. It’s crazy to think about this being up there in the ranking of places I’m most looking forward to serving in.
I have 8 days to reach my first goal of $3500. If you feel led, click the SUPPORT ME button at the top of this page. I covet your support. I can’t go love on these people and make a difference in the hearts of others if I am not sent. I’ve asked the Lord to send me, and He has. Please be a part of sending me out.
1 – picture created by yours truly through mapfrappee.com
2 – http://ethiofact.com/6745/time-bring-back-eritrea-cold-reply-ambassador-hank-cohen/4/
3 – http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/ethiopia-facts/
4 – all other info from the CIA World Factbook page on Ethiopia
