As I am flying back over to Africa on my 18 hour leg, of course I am surfing the in flight entertainment to see what movies I can watch.  The movie titled “I Am Because We Are” is a documentary that Modonna made about the HIV/AID situation in Malawi.  Of course I like watching anything about Africa but I must say that I was saying to myself “Oh great, what does Madonna have to say about a microwave solution to the issues of Africa.’  So, in my cynicism, I pushed play.

About 25 minutes in, I have pushed pause to write this out.  I don’t yet know what Modonna’s microwave solution is (cynicism continues), but I have found something new else.  Every picture of a little African boy that has been orphaned is squeezing my soul out of my eyes.  I litterally can not handle to watch it.  The reality is that I have grown deeply calloused to pain and suffering over the years.  Only now is God reawakening my heart to see the child behind the image.  I feel my new son in every one of those helpless faces.  How could I have not seen them in their images before.  I find myself embarrassed that I have only seen a “little poor African kid” and not the child that God desperately loves.  I am so glad that loving our son and knowing he has reawakened my heart to these precious children that desperately deserve us (those that call themselves Christians) to see them the way God does.

Let us not grow calloused.  Let us not turn our eyes away from Jesus.

Matthew 25:31-46

Thought I would share this with you today, even for us over here who are seeing the suffering every day on the streets and all around us, it is still easy to become calloused and forget that making even a little difference in the lives of a child is worth it.

Levi

We are hoping that things will calm down here in the future and we will not have to make so many trips to the hospital and back, its not been anything major lately but a lot of ear infections and small sicknesses.

The kitchen has been a project and a half! Its not easy to get things set up to cook for this many people all the time. We finally have a good countertop to cook on and are getting to where its easier for the cook to make meals.  It’s wonderful to see the place coming alive and the kids settling in more, it was a major adjustment for them to move up here and be with new nannies in a new place they had never been before, but slowly you can feel the mood changing, the kids are settling in and its starting to feel more like a home.

We have a few people heading south today and they will be spending some time out in the tribes, Lale says that there is a possibility that one of the newborn babies we have been hearing of will be born and hopefully able to come into our orphanage.  We are praying that things work out and these babies we are told we will get are able to be rescued.

Levi

This past week we have been going all around town trying to pick out a good school, its a lot like picking school for your own kids, you know that feeling where you walk into a school and immediately start to look around for dangers or reasons why you might not trust the place… Its amazing how our feelings for these kids have grown and how providing for them has become almost a part of us, we can do nothing without thinking of how it affects the kids and what they might want, or how we can help them be able to learn and get ahead in life. We found one school that looks very good, also as a big bonus they teach english which is a very important skill to have over here and they seem to have very good teachers.  The kids are jumping out of their skin ready to go to school, they ask about it every day and are getting antsy to get out of the compound more.

Kotsa

We have this little boy who is the cutest little thing ever, his is six years old and just has a very sweet and kind heart.  He is one of the newer kids who came to us earlier this year and has adjusted well. When he first came we all though that he did not like us, he would always squint his eyes at us and wrinkle up his forehead, whenever we went to hug him he would look at our hands like they were going to attack him. At first we backed off and gave him some space, but later on we started to realize that he just has really bad eyesight, he can literally hardly see us coming for him and is scared. Its was so sad when we finally realized what was going on, he tries to play ball with the other kids but every time the ball comes at him he runs a totally different direction thinking he is going to catch the ball. Is super sad but kind of cute to watch him try and play.

This past week we took him into the eye doctor and tried to get his eyes tested for glasses, but he just sat there staring at the equipment and would not say a word to the doctor… So we are going to try this again and hopefully because he has been there before he might warm up to the doctor.  We are praying that he loosens up and helps us make this happen for him. I can not imagine how happy he is going to be when he realizes that there is so much more to see in this world than he sees now.

On another note, Abre the little boy who is living with us is doing very good, he is improving every day and seems to trust us now. And big bonus, he sleeps at night now! And now I know something I always wondered before…. 5 kids is really not that much harder than 4.

Levi

Yosef is doing good, he went into surgery yesterday at about 2 and was done in less than fifteen minutes.  The doctor installed a drain hose in his chest so the infection can ooze out instead of staying in his chest. The really sad part is the hospital would not give him pain killers because he is only a month old, so he had to just bear it while his chest was cut into and the tube was installed.  I am cringing just thinking about how bad that must have felt. The doctor did not seem worried, he thought the antibiotics would catch up with the infection soon, we are just praying that its sooner than later.

Thanks to everyone who is praying for him.

Another thing I want to mention but have been hesitant to….  I am always scared that people will stop reading the blog if we talk to much about the needs over here but we just have no other connection with the folks back home, and all we can do is put it all out there and pray that God gives you all grace to stay with us.  I feel real awkward every time I bring it up, but I just have to get over it, so here goes..

We just went through the incoming money for this month in preparation to send over the wire for September, and for some reason we are almost 5000 dollars behind meeting our budget this month, the incoming donations are just way behind where they normally are.  We have been in scary situations before but this is the closest we have ever come to not having money for the basic needs of the orphanage. Its amazing how fast money goes when you have this many kids to care for, it seems we don’t go more than a week without something coming up that goes outside the budget, this past month it seems was medical emergency month. Also we did the push earlier in the month to pay for the orphanage move and got that covered super fast, its possible that people donated towards that instead of doing a general donation. Either way its always uneasy to not know where the money will come from this close to the first of the month.  We are praying that God will come through at the last hour like he always does.

Thanks for sticking with us, you have no idea how truly grateful we are.

Levi and Jessie

Little Yosef who came to live with us only a few weeks ago is having a serious problem today and we want to ask you to pray.  At about 10 days old he developed a clogged milk duct which apparently is fairly common in newborns because of the mothers hormones being left in their bodies. Anyhow its now become a serious infection in his chest and he is headed into surgery.  We will keep you posted as we know more, but for now Emily is going to stay with him at the hospital while we wait and see how things turn out.

Levi

What amazes me is how much I am learning by working with Lale, he is constantly challenging me and pressing our relationship onward. As we sat and ordered coffee he opened up by saying. “God is showing me things.” “Ok” I said looking into his eyes and wondering what he meant. “I used to want a big phone” he continued, but only managed to confuse me more. “Ok” “Now I see that other people with big phones forget about them, people who before wanted the big phone but have them, now want other things. And what I see now is that God is the only thing that I need to want, and when I get some of God what I want is more of God, not something else” Cell Phones are the big houses of Ethiopia, people here seem to set their status by how expensive their phones are and Lale has long talked of his desire to have a really nice phone. I could not help but sit there and wonder how many times I had choose to want something other than God, how easy it is to forget that wanting God is so right and having him in our lives is so fulfilling.

We have been forced to learn in our time here that enough is so much more than to much, we asked our kids to leave nearly all the toys and friends they had back home behind and what we have found is so much more than what we left behind. I am thankful for Lale and his insight into what things in life are worth striving for, I am thankful for the continuous lessons we seem to be learning that God will provide enough and give us the hearts to see that its more than we will ever needed. For the past several months it seems we always are looking ahead to when more money will come in for the orphanage. A few times we have been at the point where it looks like next month will be the month where we finally have enough to keep some in the account, yet still when we pull money out to pay for things there is nothing left and somehow there is enough when it comes time to pay for the next month.

Lale was able to put into words the lesson I have been learning for the past 18 months, its learning to strive for God and nothing else, its learning to trust him and trust that he wants our hearts more than he wants us to have plenty in life. Or rather that he does want us to have plenty its just not the kind of plenty that we think we need, he wants us to have plenty of character, plenty of desire for him. I may not be there yet but I know what road I am on by looking at what God is doing every day.

Levi

The rooms and beds were perfect, the kids each have their own bed with a beautiful bedspread and each one is different so they have a little sense of personal space. I have to back up a bit here, in order to feel what this moment was like, you have to understand what a big deal this is for these kids. Most of these kids have never even seen a staircase, or taken a shower in hot water, now live in a beautiful home where they have their own beautiful comfortable bed to sleep on and eventually a decent kitchen where hot meals will be made for them, and a bathroom where they can take hot showers and use an actual flushing toilet.

I know I am probably getting a bit gushy about the whole thing but when you live in a place like this and it seems are made to endure lengthy stretches where it feels like all you see and hear is bad news, something like this can be all it takes to carry you through, to make you see the whole point in why it is that we live here and do what we do.

We now have 2 under 2 months, a 1 year old, and 8 between the ages of 4 and 7 all living at the new orphanage in Addis.  There are another nine little ones ages 1-3 down south who will be joining us up here over the coming months. (Plus the little one living in our home as a foster child).

Thank you to everyone who has helped make this move a reality, today was confirmation of so many things for us over here and hopefully I can communicate to you how real this help is in these kids lives and how important your role is in all this.  We know that we have a long way to go on the journey to help these tribes stop mingi but for each of the kids who have been rescued life just got a lot better.

Levi

Today I was going through our pictures and found two incredible photos of Teraffa, the first was taken as he took his first bite of food in almost two weeks, and the second was taken a month a go as the little chunk of a boy sat in the yard and played. Its amazing how far he has come in just 8 months! I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

This is where the kids sleep

The not yet finished kitchen

The play room and dining room areas are in there

All the kids enjoying a break from the work

Nickoli and Abre enjoying some candy

Emily and Gnawie hanging out

(I wish we could post a picture, but he is still down south and the internet down south is, well…..)

Gulo is a cousin of Lale’s and although she is not going to be able to keep the baby, being a relative of his means that the elders respected Lale’s wishes and allowed him to take her from the village while the baby was born.  We are praying that Gulo does well as she makes the trip home in the coming weeks, I can not imagine what she is going through right now….

In other news, Lale is out in the tribes and we hear through word of mouth that he and the pastor have baptized 23 new Christians in the Omo River this past week. How wonderful is it that the river that they use to kill their mingi children is now being used to baptize new Christians!  The redemptive power of God is shining in the tribes today!

Levi