Night Birds

Sat, 3 Jul 2010 20:04:16 +0300

Well, it’s not often that you can say you took the roof off your house... but we did this week! We have had animals shuffling around and squeaking in our attic and finally after two weeks of no sleep, enough was enough! After setting every kind of trap imaginable and trying everything else - all to no avail - our only option left was to remove our roof and come in from the top. Our “mouse” problem ended up being a “night bird” problem. That’s what the Ethiopians call bats. Once the bats were removed and the roof was back on everyone took a quick break to eat lunch. After lunch they went out and cemented in the holes that the bats had been coming in to keep them out once and for all. But, guess what?? During lunch those insane animals flew right back into their old spot without us knowing... and we ended up cementing them inside our roof! So, now we are just hoping they will die soon and that they won’t stink too badly. That should be the end of our night birds. Ha!

Holy Cow Camel!

Thu, 1 Apr 2010 14:47:54 +0300

It has been so busy around here that we can barely keep up. We have had lots happen since our last update, so we will try to get you caught up on life at Langano...

Succeed, Prosper and Dominate

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:01:29 +0300

It’s hard to believe it is already 2010! We have had a few very full months since being back in Africa after our visit home. We’ll try to give you a quick snapshot from the past 2 months...

Opportunities

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:53:55 +0300

We were able to spend the month of October back home in Texas visiting family and friends, so we don’t have any crazy tales to tell this time. Our next entry we will talk about coming back to Langano and how things have been going.

We are dedicating this blog entry to our Langano station and the ministries that we have here. It’s close to Christmas and donating to one of these ministries might be a great gift idea for someone. Thank you for taking the time to read about what is going on at our mission station and for considering where you might want to give financially.

E - (thiopia) Harmony

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:41:04 +0300

On Friday, September 11th Ethiopia began its new year. They are on a different calendar so it is 2002 in Ethiopia! It makes it very interesting when we are trying to do reporting. Plus, there is a six hour difference in time. So, if we have missed anyone’s birthday or other special date... sorry... we are 7 years and 6 hours behind you. :-)

A Day in the Life...

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:22:51 +0300

Sorry it has been so long since we posted an update. We have been so busy that we honestly just haven’t had any time. It’s definitely not for lack of bloggable moments! We have also been mostly without generator power since our last post (it keeps breaking), so it has been hard to work on our computers with limited ability to charge them... and then last week our internet was down for 5 days! That being said, here is our next blog...

On July 6th, we decided to write down all of the events that happened through out the day to give you an idea of what goes on during a typical day - if there is such a thing.

July 6, 2009 (Monday)

2:00 am - There have been three mice that have kept us up consistently each night. Shane tore apart our bedroom a couple of days ago until he was able to spear one of the mice. (Couldn’t find a broom!) The other two proved elusive until now when we heard one of the mouse traps snap. There was a mouse in it flailing all around. Shane was shining the flashlight on it so we could pick the trap up and throw it outside to deal with in the morning. Suddenly, the mouse yanked his head out of the trap and jumped up on all fours looking right at Shane. Shane screamed like a girl - we were dying laughing!

6:15 am - Moses woke us up. Shane got up with him and checked the other mouse traps. The third mouse was in the trap - victory!

7:04 am - Shane got his crossbow and shot one of the big baboons outside our house. (For those of you that are new to our blog, the baboons here are very dangerous and hungry due to the famine - we shoot them for protection.)

7:10 am - Merga, one of the guards, brought the arrow back to Shane after the baboon pulled it out of his body, dropped in on the ground, and ran off - these guys are monsters!

7:15 am - Woke up the girls for school.

7:45 am - Guards showed up at our house wanting a wage advance.

7:55 am - Due to clouds the solar water pumps aren’t pumping water. Shane starts back up generator to pump water for the camp.

8:00 am - Kids headed to school, Allyson went to do radio (short wave radio between all the remote mission stations throughout Ethiopia) and then headed to the clinic.

8:05 am - Shane met with manager of the guards to go over guard schedule for the next month and to pay the part-time guards. Also, Urban Ministries (local NGO), left camp after breakfast and the second week of Sport Friends camp started today around lunchtime. Worked to make sure cabins were set up and kitchen had everything they needed for meals for the week. Also started working on invoices for the guests.

8:50 am - Shane helped Urban Ministries team transport their supplies to the bridge. (Large groups can’t load up their bags, people, etc. until they first cross through the container bridge. The busses can’t fit through the container.)

9:35 am - Shane shot the second baboon of the day.

9:45 am - Shane reviewed menu and work requirements with kitchen staff... with lots of pantomime.

10:00 am - Shane left with carload of Ethiopians to go to Arsi Negelle (45 minutes away) for kitchen supplies. This was the third trip in four days. Trying to get the kitchen staff to plan beyond the next meal has been difficult to say the least. Tried to coordinate trip with Allyson who needed to go to the health office to take paperwork to the government, but had to leave since she was tied up at the clinic with an emergency.

10:45 am - Shane arrived in Arsi Negelle. Dropped Tenishu (guard) at the main road and told him we would pick him up later. Dropped Deeta, Mulatu and Yeshi and rest of the Ethiopians at the market while Shane tried to find gas for the truck. He needed fuel in order to make it to Addis the next day. After driving to the next town (additional 20 minutes) and checking at four gas stations he finally found fuel.

10:45 am - Allyson left for Arsi Negelle with government paperwork, an emergency patient that needed to go to the hospital, Usman (clinic gardener), and the rest of the car full of random people who needed a ride.

11:35 am - Shane drove back to Arsi Negelle after getting gas. He went to the market to pick up the rest of the gang, but they hadn’t finished shopping. It took another 30 minutes to finish buying vegetables.

12:00 pm - Kids out of school.

12:10 pm - Shane stopped at multiple “sooks” (roadside shops) trying to find toilet paper for the camp. Finally found one that has it. Shane saw Allyson and Usman and had a quick visit before heading back to Langano.

12:55 pm - Shane arrived back at Langano. Realized he forgot Tenishu in Arsi Negelle.

1:00 pm - Cow was delivered to be slaughtered. Shane paid for the cow and the workers slaughtered it. Both meat grinders broke and eventually the beef went bad before we could get new grinders from Addis (4 hours away). Argh. Back to square one.

1:15 pm - Guy who brings fish for camp showed up. Shane paid him for the 120 fish he delivered for dinner.

1:35 pm - Shane shot third baboon of the day.

1:45 pm - 40 kids and their leaders arrived for camp.

2:30 pm - Allyson arrived back at Langano dead tired and realized the kids hadn’t had lunch yet. Lunch from scratch...

3:00 pm - Allyson noticed that Deeta, our house helper, was just about to use the dish sponge to clean the toilet!!!!!! After barfing, Allyson stopped everything to TEACH hygiene yet again.

3:15 pm - Allyson went back to the clinic. No need to detail that craziness here!

4:00 pm - Hannah informed us that Deeta was “mopping” the kitchen by dipping the broom in water. Then when she showed him the mop and told him to use the mop, he explained to her that the mop is used to dry the floor. What were we thinking all these years? :-)

4:10 pm - Guard showed up at the door asking Shane for wage advance.

4:15 pm - Shane started working on cash report for June. Computer ran out of battery.

5:15 pm - Allyson returned home from the clinic.

7:00 pm - Dinner with all of the campers. There wasn’t enough food for us, so we went back to our house to figure out dinner plans... in the dark.

8:00 pm - Back to the dining hall for meeting with campers / skits / introductions.

8:45 pm - Bathed our dirty selves in our chilly shower / family time / put kids to bed.

9:30 pm - Guard knocked on the door to let Allyson know there was an emergency at the clinic... Allyson headed out the door.

10:00 pm - Shane packed and put shopping list together for Addis. Plan was to leave the next morning.

10:15 pm - Allyson back from the clinic after taking care of yet another malaria patient.

10:30 pm - Fell into bed, gave thanks to God that there were no mice in the house and went to sleep.

Hamburger and Fries

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:41:59 +0300

It has been quite a roller coaster of a month. Despite the wide range of emotions we have experienced, we are finally starting to feel somewhat settled. Our house is coming along and we are getting accustomed to being here. The kids are really enjoying homeschooling with Mary. She does an amazing job and really takes her job seriously. They are getting an amazing education and we are so grateful to have Mary in our lives!

Then and Now

Mon, 18 May 2009 21:36:43 +0300

Many of you have asked for us to share a little more about our Langano station in regards to who we live/work with, what the different ministries are, and also the history of Langano. It is really quite a story of patience and sacrifice. We have a lot to learn in these areas and it’s humbling to think we have become yet another part of the Langano story...

"Discomfortable"

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:07:10 +0300

The last month has been rough but good. We have really had to struggle with a wide range of emotions. We titled this blog “Discomfortable” because that is basically what we have been wrestling with - being in a constant state of uncomfortableness. Many of our crutches have been taken away and we have been forced into a deeper dependence on God...

Simmachin Shane ine Allyson nacheow.

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:53:31 +0300

We have been in Addis for a month now attending Amharic language school. It has been a nice break from Langano - warm showers and 24 hour electricity (aside from the occasional power outages). We are staying in a place called the “Press Compound” - the name comes from that fact that there is a printing press next door to our house. Our language school is actually here at the Press which is wonderful since we don’t have a car yet. The kids are attending school at the SIM school, Bingham Academy. There is another family that lives here that takes our kids to and from school each day. What a blessing!

Mary, the kids’ homeschool teacher is here, but she is also in language school with us, so for now the kids are at Bingham. Bingham is set up really nicely for families like us. They have a homeschool program that we can enroll our kids in which allows us to put them in school whenever we are up in Addis as long as we give them some notice. It also gives us access to the Bingham library so we can get supplies to take down to Langano for homeschooling. We are very grateful for the flexibility Bingham gives us. The second week the kids were in school, Bingham had its annual field days. Field days are a BIG deal here. The kids were buzzing about it for weeks! At first we didn’t understand what the big deal was because we were comparing it to field day in the U.S. Nope - very different. This was a whole family affair and it lasted 2 full days. There were all kinds of competitions and even some parent-child races. It was a wonderful time to meet people and to really feel connected to the expat community here in Addis. (You can check out Mia’s latest blog entry to see pics from field day.)

Visitors!

Wed, 4 Feb 2009 21:17:05 +0300

We were so excited to have our first visitors, John and Rebecca Thibaudeau (from our home church, The Village Church). What a blessing it was to have them and to get to share our new life with them. They came simply to encourage us - and it worked! It was so wonderful to have company and to hear news from home. What troopers to come such a long way for such a quick visit - they even packed all of their own stuff in their carry-ons and used the rest of their alloted baggage to bring us all kinds of goodies from everyone back home! (Thank you to all of you who contributed!!) They jumped right in and helped with many different things. We worked on laying the floor for our veranda, John played handyman around camp, Rebecca helped at the clinic, you name it, they were game to jump in and do it! The timing of their trip was perfect. We were literally exhausted when they got to Langano. It had been 6 weeks of nonstop stress and we had one week left before we headed up to Addis for language school. There was so much to get done in that last week and we seriously never could have done it without them. John and Rebecca, thank you so much for following the Lord’s leading in coming to visit us. You will never know the full impact you have had on us!

Christmas In Ethiopia

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:24:04 +0300

This was definitely a Christmas to remember. First of all, Christmas day is celebrated on January 7th in Ethiopia, so the clinic was open which meant we didn’t really have the day off. Thursdays are immunization day out in the community, and we have to drive the clinic car out to the site, so we decided to all go as a family.

We all enjoyed being out in the community spending time with the local people here. Our immunization “station” was set up right among some huts so there were plenty of kids and animals to play with...

Bessie... and Grocery Shopping

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:05:28 +0300

So... this was our homeschool science lesson last week! We had to slaughter a cow and the kids really wanted to watch. It was CRAZY! We will include pictures for those of you who are interested, but I will warn you they could be disturbing :-) We learned that cow stomach is a delicacy here - we will be trying it later on this week. On a side note, Shane had the pleasure of eating “kitfo” this week with a new Ethiopian friend. Kitfo is raw goat meat chopped up - yum!!

Why did we have to slaughter a cow you might ask? Well, the place where we live is the Langano Mission Station and on the station there is a camp called Camp Langano. The camp is hosting 70 staff members from Sports Friends this week and we needed food to feed them. You can’t just run to out to SAMS or Costco here for the big bulk purchase! For $100 we bought a cow that will feed everyone for a week.

Our New Home... Ethiopia!

Thu, 4 Dec 2008 11:26:41 +0300

Well, we have finally arrived in Ethiopia! It has been a long, long journey over the past year and we couldn’t have done it without the people God has put in our lives. We are so grateful for amazing friends and a supportive church! Thanks to all of you who have helped make our move possible. Words can’t explain how thankful we are for all of you - too many to name, but you know who you are... AMAZING!

We left home a little over a week ago. All of our bags have made it - although it took three trips to the airport to recover all the luggage the airline lost. Our flight arrived in Addis at 3:00 AM! By the time we got to the SIM guest house and into bed, it was 5:00 AM and the call to prayer (Muslim) was just beginning! We had to get up and be at a meeting by 9:00. I (Allyson) left the U.S. sick and definitely didn’t feel too well after 3 hours of sleep in 2 days! We have finally recovered from our jet lag, but we are still pretty worn out.