Team Ethiopia 2014 Day Nine

Team Ethiopia, a short-term missions group from Central Church in Collierville, TN, is now on the ground in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and ready to serve! Here is an update from Cathy on Saturday, the ninth and final day of the trip. Today is our last day here!! I can’t even believe how quickly the time has gone, but, at the same time, it seems like forever ago since we saw that first soccer match the day we got here.

Today was another day of sports and recreation! It was also another beautiful morning full of sunshine and breezes! God is good. We have had overcast days everyday until yesterday, and today was just more blessing with the beautiful sunshine.

We started the day intending to do a street race with the kids, but the traffic police wouldn’t allow us to close the streets for the hour or so that it would take to do the race. But, never fear, we improvised and did the race at the soccer field.

Before we started the race, Joe told all of the kids about the people in America that did the Run Your Street 5K in honor of this race. Then our race began. Four laps around the soccer field was enough to get my lungs burning!! Meme, Lana, Liz, and I all did the race with the kids. I finished 2^nd to last and Liz finished last. But hey, we did our first race in Ethiopia!!

Following the race, we did the “real” soccer match of the staff against the kids (apparently, yesterday was practice). Candice and I played, and Candice scored a goal! I was on defense and just followed one of the staff member's lead because I don’t know anything about soccer! But I will say they did not score on me! Liz was back up for the goalie, but Fikadu did a good job as our goalie, so Liz was never subbed in (credit elaine). The staff won 2-1! The sniper that Kelly McGugan sent fulfilled their duty and doused Candice with water after the game. They also got me with one bottle, but I was definitely not soaked like Candice!

After that the kids played their soccer match. We were all yelling like crazy as each team scored points. Lauren got her hair done by a couple of the girls during the game, and it looked really cute. The game with the kids was wild!! The teams were tied 5-5, and then they went into a sudden death shootout! Each team scored 2 goals. The last player to shoot was an Onesimus player, and he SCORED!!

Ben, Kelly and Joyce were excellent fans of the soccer games and, of course, went WILD every time Onesimus scored. The whole crowd went wild when Onesimus won the game!

Katie took some fantastic pictures during the game today, and Natalie spent her time on the sidelines with the kids. We have all really grown to love these children in the short time we have been with them.

Unfortunately, Howard wasn’t feeling that great today, so he rested on the sidelines and in the car for a little while. But so far so good with him. Pray he is completely healed during the flight home.

A few of us tried our hand at bargaining at the shops to buy a few gifts and souvenirs. It is always a joy to haggle with the locals. Luckily, we had our trusty translator and driver with us to help us!

Pray for safe travels, no delays, no bag misplacements on our trip home. Also pray for our connection in Germany to go smoothly, customs to go quickly and easily, and that everyone stays well on the flights home!

We are all exhausted after this wonderful week. Thank you ALL for reading, supporting, commenting and praying for us during this journey of ours! You are all a part of it with us!

We are loading up the van as I type this, so I will sign off. We will see you Sunday night!!

Love from Team Ethiopia and Cathy

Team Ethiopia 2014 Day Six

Team Ethiopia, a short-term missions group from Central Church in Collierville, TN, is now on the ground in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and ready to serve! Here is an update from Natalie on Wednesday, day six of the trip. We have passed the halfway point of our trip, and we are consumed with mixed emotions.  Today was a fantastic day full of laughter and tears.

We started the day with Liz leading us in a powerful devotion about how Christ is giving us the ability to truly influence the lives of the children we are here to serve.  Together we sang the song “Thank You”, and it really put it into perspective for us that we might not always see the reward of our influence here on earth.  Everyone - from the ones who are sent, to the ones who financially support, to the ones who pray - will reap the reward in Heaven. Howard then made us all laugh at by wearing his ponytail hat.

After a filling breakfast, we headed to the church for another day of activities and worship.  Candice continued to do an outstanding job leading the kids in songs.  It continues to amaze me that the kids know every English lyric and hand motion to each song.

Following music Meme gave a devotion that captured everyone’s attention (including us).  She read the story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and taught the kids the importance of praying for themselves.  Three of the kids even got up and said what in their life they wanted to pray for.  It was definitely an emotional moment for many of the team members.

The kids divided into their groups again and went from station to station.  Candice and I (Natalie) took the kids outside for jump rope games.  Lauren and Lana helped the boys make shakers out of plastic eggs and rocks.  They also truly exemplified Jesus by getting on their knees and washing all of the girls’ feet and painting their toenails. Kelly also got the chance to help with this. Liz led a lesson to the children about praying for themselves where she opened the door to the presentation of the Gospel (credit elaine). At Joyce’s and Joe’s station they had the opportunity to write letters to God filled with their prayer requests.

 

Sadly, we were unable to play soccer after lunch because of the rain.  We headed back to the guesthouse for quick showers and debriefing.  I am not kidding when I say quick showers… Liz, Joyce, Lana, Katie, and I literally raced to take the fastest showers so we would all be able to have warm water and be ready in 25 minutes.  It was a close race but Joyce was the winner.

After debriefing we loaded up the vans and headed to an Ethiopian culture restaurant.  We did “buffet style”, which means we ordered 3 large platters that we were able to share.  The food was delicious, but our plates did have some things that were not familiar to us. Lana, Joyce, and Cathy were brave enough to try the intestines. Dinner was served with a show.  We all watched and danced in our seats while a group of performers danced cultural dances.  There are no words to explain it; you must simply watch one of the many videos we took.

Exhausted and full we headed home for a good night’s rest before another busy day tomorrow.  It’s past midnight and technically the next day, so it is no longer my job to blog!  Stay tuned!

Team Ethiopia and Natalie

Team Ethiopia 2014 Day Five

Team Ethiopia, a short-term missions group from Central Church in Collierville, TN, is now on the ground in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and ready to serve! Here is an update from Katie on Tuesday, day five of the trip. It’s only our fifth day here in Addis Ababa, and I’ve noticed a change in each and every team member. I’ve seen hearts softened, tears shed, and, of course, heard many laughs. I can say, with a sincere heart, that these people that were once considered strangers have become family. We eat together, live together, laugh together, cry together, and, most importantly, serve together.

It seems as though with each day that passes we all experience something new and incredible. If I could give this trip a theme, as a whole, it would be God’s providence. Every time we turn around and suddenly panic that we may fall short when it comes to serving these kids, God provides, even in the smallest of details, like having enough pencils for the kids to write their love letters to God. If it were in our hands, this trip would be a disaster. We have no choice but to give all the glory to God.

If yesterday went well, then today was fantastic. Shout out to Meme for putting together such an incredible program the kids love! Today was all about praying for others no matter the circumstances. Howard started the day off with the story of Jonah. Cathy led a great lesson that ended with all the kids telling her who they were going to pray for. Joe and Joyce led writing love letters to God and came back with great news that a lot of the kids really took this seriously and genuinely.

We have had a hard time getting some of the older girls involved, but today was different. Lana and Lauren led the girls in making friendship bracelets during crafts, and it was a huge hit. They loved it. It’s funny how God can use something so simple to bring people together and build relationships. It’s very encouraging to watch Lana really connect with these older girls.

In the afternoon, we headed to the soccer field to play some field games. The girls jumped roped pretty much the whole time, and I think if we hadn’t had to leave, they would still be doing it right now. Watching Joyce and Candice try to double-dutch was…well…let’s just say I have some pretty great pictures that they probably wouldn’t want anyone to see. Ben had to explain baseball with your feet, otherwise known as, kickball. They aren’t familiar with baseball, and we don’t speak the same language, but they got the hang of it and loved it. And for everyone who knows Natalie back home, she played soccer and kickball today!

It was a great day for all of us!

Team Ethiopia and Katie

Team Ethiopia 2014 Day Three

Team Ethiopia, a short-term missions group from Central Church in Collierville, TN, is now on the ground in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and ready to serve! Here is an update from Lana on Sunday, day three of the trip. I hate to admit this, especially being called to come on this trip, but in all honesty, I am not a pray-er. I do not pray much, and when I do, it is usually for others. I had a difficult time trying to decide on information to share with you. So while typing this, I asked God to help me push out my negative thinking at the moment and to help me organize my thoughts to share things about the whole team and not just about me and my selfish problems.

Thanks to Madison Frey’s and many others' prayers, the team was able to have a restful night, and we were all excited about the agenda for the day. This morning was sweet.  Each morning we enjoy the sound of a an unknown man singing his praises, a lullaby of words that I do not understand, but from the cry in his heart and the depth of his tone, I know it is one of love.

After eating a delicious breakfast of thick waffles, fruit, fluffy eggs, and buttered toast, we met together for our daily morning devotional led by Liz from 1 Samuel 3:8-9.  Joe and Kelly gave us the reminder to continue to challenge ourselves to focus on the reason why we are here and try our best to disconnect with the outside world, besides limited updates to family. I also discovered that during our morning devotional praise song, that Ben has a voice like Keith Urban.

The morning remained cool and crisp as we gathered together to attend worship service at the International Evangelical Church. We were all honored with the chance to see Dr. Ernie, Anne, Morgan, Meredith, and Madison Frey again. It was a joy to hear Dr. Frey speak the message to a church filled with different cultural backgrounds and walks of life; we met people from Australia, Asia, Europe, and other countries in Africa.

Dr. Frey’s message, titled, “More than Enough,” from Matthew 14:13-21, was passionately delivered and reminded us that we are “right in the middle of where God wants us to be.” “We have to conquer our lives with a childlike faith.” His message was perfect timing and just what Team Ethiopia needed to hear before we start our week of service and ministry to the children.

After service the team fellowshipped together for lunch. At our separate tables we were able to bond more with one another.

Afterwards, we headed on a search for a field to hold our bible school for the kids in tomorrow. The location God provided for us was more than we could imagine; a perfect size campus with two large play areas and several classrooms and a gorgeous sanctuary. This is my first mission trip, but I could feel Kelly’s excitement and thankfulness for God exceeding our expectations and needs for this mission.

After this amazing high, we returned to the guesthouse to rooms filled with our lost, late luggage. We finally had our supplies and equipment we needed, and we also received letters from our loved ones. We shared letters with one another, laughed and cried; the room was full of blessed feelings of love and gratitude.

After dinner together Ben led us in yet another emotional and reflective debriefing. These debriefings are the perfect part of the day; they are much needed. The team becomes organically honest and open to the questions asked each night. It’s a beautiful thing to see how different team members have been helpful towards one another during our journey with Christ. We are all on different spiritual levels but with the same purpose. Howard has been a father to all of us - his knowledge and encouragement has been instrumental to everyone on this team. The biggest inspiration to all is how amazing, the young ones (Lauren, Natalie, and Katie) are able to interpret their feelings and how awesome it is to see how mature they are in their passion and love for God mixed with their genuine bubbly personalities and laughter. During this night before our big day, we shared crazy moments, first time experiences, and heartaches. We were also blessed with three additional team members: Misty, Anna, and Liz #2; they will be joining us again tomorrow as we serve God and his children.

To end the night, we celebrated Meme, Ben, Ernie, and Nega’s birthday with a first class cake, baked by our one and only…Joyce!! We are now off to bed.... We are looking forward to loving on the kids tomorrow, allowing God to show his love through us. Thank you again for your many prayers and the ones you all will continue to say for us tonight. I am praying as well!

Love,

Team Ethiopia and Lana

Team Ethiopia 2014 Days One and Two

Team Ethiopia, a short-term missions group from Central Church in Collierville, TN, is now on the ground in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and ready to serve!

They've spent the past two days getting to their destination and adjusting to their home for the next 10 days. Here is a report from Cathy on how they're doing.

Day 1: Friday

Travel went beyond smoothly!! Although we had short connections and our flight out of Memphis was delayed about 30 minutes, we prayed and ended up in Houston with time to spare for everyone to go to the bathroom and get some food. Our flight to Frankfurt was smooth sailing, and we arrived with time plenty of time to make our connection. We got a surprise on our way to Addis Ababa: we all got to check Saudi Arabia off of our list of countries to visit! We stopped there to let off about 90% of the passengers, and then we all got to spread out with entire rows all to ourselves for the last 2 hours of our flight. We began to bond more as a team during each flight.

When we arrived in Addis, we got 2 surprises: 1) None of our 26 checked bags made it to Ethiopia, and 2) we were greeted by a wonderful welcome committee of Nega, some of his staff and several of the girls from Onesimus! It was a joy to see their faces and their excitement upon our arrival. We were each given a rose by the girls and hugged (credit elaine). They offered to carry some of our carry-on luggage for us, and we were happy to get them out of our hands after 30 hours of traveling! We took some cold showers and were happy to be clean despite not having all of our toiletries.

Day 2: Saturday

We had a pretty relaxing day getting adjusted to the time change and newness of Ethiopia. Some of us were woken up by a call to prayer from the Muslim mosque in the neighborhood. After we all got up, we had a fantastic breakfast – it was so good it was the highlight of some people’s day!! We had french toast, eggs and fruit.

We also attended a soccer tournament this morning between some of the local teams, and one of the teams was comprised of street children from Onesimus, the drop-in center The Forsaken Children works with. We got to see so many of the kids that are beneficiaries of The Forsaken Children, Onesimus and our Central Church team. They were a joy to watch.

Natalie, along with another couple of Team Ethiopia members, enjoyed playing a little bit of soccer with some of the boys before the game started. Katie and Lauren now have a couple of new boyfriends in the group of Onesimus boys. We also learned that Liz has an extreme love of the game of soccer.

Many people recognize and remember the returning members of our team, like Candice, Joe, Ben and Kelly. And Howard had fun facts for us at every turn, whether it was about Ethiopia or translating a phrase for us.

We enjoyed rest time after the soccer games along with a game of Fish Bowl. Lana did an excellent charade of “photosynthesis”, which Meme put into the bowl! We celebrated Meme’s birthday today!! We had a wonderful cake in her honor. The Freys joined us for dinner, which was another nice surprise!

During our debrief at the end of the day, Joyce told us the highlight of her day was waking up in Ethiopia. My (Cathy’s) highlight goes along with that: walking upstairs this morning and looking out the window at the beautiful view of the mountains and seeing God’s handy work was so peaceful. Despite the poverty and sadness that we see with the street children and so many of the people here, God really is in this place and He sees the beauty that we aren’t always able to see. I was so thankful that was my first daytime view of the city.

As I am writing this blog, the leaders returned with our bags – good news is that Candice’s, mine and Howard’s bags made it, but the bad news is we are still missing 24 bags! Please continue to pray for the bags to arrive along with our team to be effective for God this week! And don’t forget to comment so we can read them in the morning as our “mail”! Thank you for praying for us!

Love you all,

Team Ethiopia!!