1. Arriving at the orphanage to the children dancing and cheering, “welcome, welcome!”
2. Going to church every Sunday and having service be like a party for the Lord; dancing and praise and worship in a beautiful language.
3. Learning about the training center that is being built to educate people in the community; tools to equip them and help them live a successful life (hopefully breaking the cycle of poverty), health and sanitation, etc.
(Training Center in progress)
4. Sports ministry with the kiddos every day. I loved playing soccer with the children and when the ones on the opposite team would yell, “not today.” =D (A common World Race term that the kids quickly picked up on)
5. Singing the Jesus song/chant with the children each day.
6. Leading worship for my squad with my teammate India. Facing fears! Praise Jesus!
7. Movie nights with the kiddos (Prince of Egypt, Madagascar, Ice Age)
8. Field Day event that consisted of 3 teams and 7 different events/activities. Team names; Elephants (my team), Tigers, and Crazy for Jesus. All of the children getting paper medals at the end.
9. Making string bracelets with all of the kiddos. I LOVED this so much especially because I used to make these for my friends and family when I was a little girl.
10. Going to the crazy market and facing my fears (read last blog if you haven’t yet).
12. Scavenger Hunt with all my teammates and the children. I loved running around the compound searching for all the different items we needed to collect. To make things even more fun, lots of the kids got there faces painted and ran around acting like the animal that they were painted as.
(Our Scavenger Hunt crew minus 1)
13. I read the book “Captivating” by John and Stasi Eldridge!! If you haven’t read it, ladies, I highly recommend it. For me, it changed my life and helped me discover a lot about myself. A husband and wife wrote it together and it is one of the most powerful and ‘easy to relate to’ books I’ve ever read. Men, John Eldridge wrote a similar book but specifically for men called, “Wild at Heart.” I’ve heard excellent things about this book as well.
14. Being able to donate towards each of the children getting a new pair of shoes since there’s were in rough condition. By the end of our time there we were get enough to buy all 24 of them a new pair of shoes! Praise God!
15. Having to cook the majority of our own food was a blessing in disguise. I learned a lot about cooking and got to spend some good ol’ quality time in the kitchen with my squad mates. We also ate fairly healthy and I could tell a huge change in the amount of energy I had each day and how I felt overall. 🙂
16. One day I went to go on a run and ended up with about 10+ kids running with me. It later turned into a whole workout session and then a dance party!
17. ALL the hugs I got every morning as I made my way to English class.
18. Since we couldn’t leave the compound, my team and I had a photo shoot on our ‘Adventure Day.’!!
19. Receiving tons of encouraging notes from my squad mates.
20. Experiencing so much freedom!!! Read my last blog, (24 Orphans and 1 Big God).
21. Not having wifi! (Best thing ever) #nodistractions ;D
22. Asking my ministry hosts about different ways I can stay connected and help support Hopethiopia and what it would look like if I were able to come back in the future. This is what he told me: 1) Raise money for their organization by putting together a Hopethiopia run fundraiser when I get home. 2) Support or find supporters for the children that don’t yet have one. 3) Returning to Hopethiopia in the future and bringing people with me! Since I told Him that I would possibly be interested in helping at the training center for a period of time, he explained that he would equip me with all the material I would need to know and that I’d have a translator.Needless to say, this won’t be the last time you all hear my talk about Hopethiopia. 🙂
23. Playing card games with my squad mates.
24. Forming deeper relationships with the people around me.
25. Walking one of my friends through healing prayer. Thank you Jesus!
26. The breathtakingly beautiful sunsets!
27. Teaching English to the kiddos.
28. Doing puzzles with the kids… sometimes the same one 4 times over. lol
29. The beautiful land. Open fields. Mountains.
30. Having some of the house moms bring dresses for us to try on for the wedding that we were going to attend that following Sunday.
31. Workout days with the kiddos.
32.Getting my hair diddddd!!
33. Having dance parties with the children.
34. Playing with play-dough as an activity during English.
35. Playing with the parachute! (Brought me back to memories from Elementary School)
36. Forming a friendship with the security guard at the grocery store before arriving at the orphanage.
37. Getting to hangout with my awesome ministry hosts.
Here is one of them! Meet Monghay!
38. Throwing the children a Christmas party since they celebrate Christmas in January. We also got to play ‘pin-the-nose-on-the-reindeer!’
39. Falling in love with this family, these 3 AMAZING kids!
40. When it was time to leave, the children created a barricade at the middle (and again at the end) of the driveway so we weren’t able to leave.
So these are only some of the many beautiful memories I have from my time in Ethiopia. Also, please be praying for the salvation for the community and for safety for the children and staff!
Thank you for reading.
With lots of love,
Caleigh Lorraine Schuur
