Almost Home

On Friday, we took the day off, due to the Ethiopia's Memorial Day, and spent the morning at Great Hope Church in the Korah neighborhood.  This church is the only evangelical church in the community of approximately 130,000 people.  There is about 500-600 kids who attend the various programs that are put on by the church.  Programs like a sports camp on Saturday mornings, after school teaching/training sessions, a school lunch program for the kids who otherwise wouldn't get any food or water at all.  They also have a ministry to the kids who are living at the dump.  The list of outreach programs that this church runs is endless.  Sound familiar?  We really had a good time helping out each day with the lunch program and so we spent several hours on Friday hanging out with the children.  Some of the guys on our team pitched in and help sand the rust off of metal bunk beds that they are going to use to for the 30 orphans that the church is taking in from the dump.  When we left the church amidst tears of joy, and sadness, we all truly believed that God is doing a mighty work through this small church.  


The rest of the day was spent gathering our things to come home, and doing some last minute shopping of gifts for family and friends.  We boarded the plane at 11:30 pm local time in Ethiopia.  We made it to Frankfurt and had an 8 hour layover so we ventured in to town.  We visited a local Cathedral that was bombed during World War II.   During the bombing, an ancient Roman Bath house was unearthed, and is currently on display next to the Cathedral.  It was nice to get out of the airport and get some fresh air.  We got some coffee and pastries at a little downtown cafe and then made our way back to the terminal to catch our flight to Denver.   While we were in route there was a medical emergency on the plane and we were detoured to Montreal Canada, to let the passenger off so that they could get her to the hospital.   Everything that we know is the she was in stable condition when she left the plane.  33 Hours after we left Addis we arrived in Denver.   So, consequently we missed our flight, the last one out of Denver, and are now staying in a hotel for tonight.  Everyone is exhausted mentally as well as physically.  They all did great throughout the trip, even though we had some adversity along the way.  Thanks for praying for us.  We arrive into Billings tomorrow morning at 12:48pm.  Look forward to seeing or talking with everyone about the trip when we get home.


Sincerely,
Aaron