This month was so awesome! This whole month, we were out in the middle of nowhere. We were living in the middle of a postcard. Honestly.
It was gorgeous.
L Squad was able to do so many things. We did a lot of manual labor this month. It was so awesome to be outside and working with our hands. I haven’t taken a poll, but I think that every single person felt a sense of accomplishment with at least one project that they worked on.
PAINTING
Some of us were able to paint. We painted houses. The houses that Hopethiopia is going to use to house the people that they feel led to help. The houses that are going to be filled with the love and joy of a family. The houses that are going to be made homes to orphans and widows. We got to paint the outside and inside walls. We painted primer, color, and varnish.
GARDENING
They called this project just ‘gardening’, but it was a lot more than that in the beginning. It was completely starting from nothing and breaking up ground to plant a garden. A garden from scratch. The teams that did this actually made a movie while making the gardens… It’s called the ‘Real Ranch’. I think that Adrienne has it on her computer. When we get back, I’m sure she would love to show it to everyone. After the intense part of ‘gardening’ was complete; the garden was planted and organized. In ‘gardening’ we also went to the reforestation land. It was a 30-40 minute walk away. There, things were planted and we went there to water and build things around plants.
TEACHING ENGLISH
Four of us were English teachers, and we would walk 30-40 minutes to the shool and teach English to about 50 children, between the ages of 2 and 6. The children were adorable. We taught simple English, sang songs, played games, and Kathy taught zumba to the children. They were really good. I was impressed. 🙂
TEACHING IPAD & IT
I didn’t do either of these, so I don’t know that much. Basically, Asia and Adrienne would have about 10 students that they would teach how to use an ipad to in the afternoons. It basically turned into another English class because there is only so much that you can teach about how to use and ipad- especially with no internet. 🙂 Teaching IT was different. Some of the squad would walk to another school. With children older than the 2-6 yr. olds that I talked about earlier. They would teach things on a computer. Like Microsoft, Powerpoint, and Paint. They taught the children how to type and different things on the computer.
HYDRATION
With 31 people in dry Ethiopia, we went through a ton of water. We had one person from each team pulled to make a hydration team. We got water out of the facet, boiled it, and used it for drinking water. We would take turns and each have a day to own the water process. When Dr. Ralph came at the end of the month, he told us that we do not have to boil the water. He drinks it out of the tap and he had it tested. The water is practically perfect. Haha, so I guess that we wasted a bunch of time boiling water. But better safe than sorry, right? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
EYE CLINIC
We would have a team of people go and do eye testing with the eye doctor that Hopethiopia had. I’m not sure what this looked like either, but I think that there were people that came from the village into and eye office, that the Dr. has, and got their eyes examined for free.
VERSES
Dr. Ralph brought some scrapbooking letters from Canada. He had this idea to put a scripture verse in each of the bedrooms, above the door. So, for a couple of days, a couple of us put some verses in the bedrooms. It included cutting out the letters, measuring the space to place them, placing them, and making sure that they were straight.
COOKING
Finally, last but NOT least! We ALL love food. Bekah was our person in charge of the kitchen. It was great! She was awesome. Bekah made menus for each week and then, (thankfully, God has let her have prior experience with larger groups) she would figure out the amounts of food that we would need. She and Andrea took the 3 hour drive to the city every week to buy food for us. We were all divided into teams and each team would take a turn cooking, but Bekah was always available for questions. She was the queen of the kitchen this month. And cooking and planning for 31 people is not easy.
There were other things like fixing busted water lines and plumbing in the bathroom- thanks, Chase. There was a men’s Bible study for the men that worked for Hopethiopia and preaching in the local church- thanks, BJ. There was squad worship every Sunday with a squadmate preaching, worship every other night led by a team, and water color with the children- thanks, Carli.
It was a great month of ministry and everyone played an awesome role in partnering with Hopethiopia!
<3 Ash
