HOPEthiopia is such a beautiful place I don’t even know how to describe it well enough. There are so many sweet and powerful things happening for the Kingdom here. We live at the orphanage with all of the kids and it’s so fun! Something that is so cool here is because there are so many orphans here they just call it a “Children’s Village” instead of an orphanage. We live in the main house with some of the ladies who work around the house and in the kitchen, who also already have my heart. And then there are about 6 houses who have around 8 kids and a house mom that live there. They think of each other as brothers and sisters and their house moms as their moms. The children’s director and the children’s social worker are both male figures in their lives as well. We spend most of our days working on projects around the site, doing house visits in the community, playing with, loving on and teaching all of the kids, and then going into the village to preach at church on Sundays. There’s another squad here with us from the world race and there will be a few teams come in and out during our time here!
All of the kids have my whole heart here. They’re so special and I’m so excited to get to know all of them and live with them the next few months. One of the houses here has a couple of kids with special needs and danggggg my world got wrecked. I walked down to go get some of the kids to bring them to another house and my heart just couldn’t handle it. A house mom handed me a child who was left at the gates of this place a couple years ago and now he has developmental and physical disabilities because of it. As soon and she put him in my arms I couldn’t help but start crying as I held him all the way back to the other house. I went to sit him down and my heart just broke into a million pieces. Someone came over to sit with him so I could walk away to take a couple minutes and just wept. It felt like my worlds and all my passions just collided into one. Here I am in this small village in the middle of Ethiopia holding this orphaned child with special needs. My heart hurts for his conditions and knowing he can’t get the best help that he needs. I’m still processing all the emotions I’ve felt at this place. Something I’ve been stuck on is how my heart is breaking for what breaks the Lord’s and what I’m supposed to do about that. What I do know is I get to love these kids with everything I’ve got these next 3 months and then go from there.
I can’t even imagine all the goodness that is going to come from the next 3 months here and I’m so excited to share it with you all!
So much love!
xoxoxo
