Sitting here with the power out is nothing new to us, but what is new is the country we are in, as well as how OFTEN the power goes out. We landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on the 31st of May. We arrived late, actually rather early in the morning, to a pleasantly cool night. The entire squad all packed into two vans, a bus and drove for what seemed like hours to a guesthouse for the night to sleep before the teams split up for month 9 of the race.
Waking up in Ethiopia was waking up to a splendid, beautiful landscape covered in trash and pollution. It is a very different atmosphere than what I was expecting, but despite the smog and plastic, it was still beautiful. Green mountains surrounding the very large town of Addis Ababa and its altitude of roughly 7,700 feet making it very noticeable while walking around on the hilly streets. It is very new and different here for us, but the poverty, the homelessness, and the very poor living condition of the local people is not new.
The once beautiful river flowing through town is surrounded by beautiful trees, purple flowers, and covered in trash. It’s polluted, muddy, but it is still used for people to hand wash their clothes. I’ve never been to a place so littered and still so beautiful. I can only imagine what it would look like if everything was cleaned up and taken care of. It really makes me sad to see what humans do to this world and at the same time making it worse for one another.
I can’t say that I am the person who recycles all the time, but after seeing how polluted so many parts of the world; it definitely is opening my eyes to how important it is for us to take care of one another as well as the world we live in. I understand that this isn’t everything, but in a way it should become important to us all.
Our mission this month is to find people, who are serving the Lord around Ethiopia with out any recognition, little to no support, and just doing what they feel is right for serving and loving people. This month is Unsung Hero’s month for our team. Our goal is to reach out to organizations around Ethiopia, get information about them and try to see if we can connect and support them. Which is part of why I described how trashed it is here.
The Korah community here was started with people who had leprosy. It is located in the southwest part of Addis Ababa, next to the city dump. People who are not apart of this community refuse to go to or near the Korah community because they believe they are cursed. The community started with lepers and they now have 3 generations of poor, dirty, sick, and hungry people living there. The Korah people do have an Unsung Hero’s helping them, but hopefully more can help the helpers.
The Korah community reminds me so much of the city Addis Ababa because they are beautiful, but so much of the beauty is hidden because of the “curse” and the trash they literally live in. It just reminds me of how important every person is and how much the world could be a better place if we all took the time to reach a hand out and help, or pick up trash when you see it laying around, or by realizing that we are all in this together and need to help each other out regardless of health, skin color, religion, sex, social status, etc. All these things would help in the long run and change can still happen if we do our part.
Until next time……
