Sunday, July 21, 2013

After a great nights sleep (thank God), we woke up to a delicious breakfast of pancakes, smoothies, and tea. The pancakes were huge and very dense. Dr Ron gave us some acupressure thing to do on the plane to get our internal clocks set to the time here in Ethiopia. I think it worked as we felt great after getting only 8hrs of sleep after not sleeping for 28hrs. We then watched the rest of The Sandlot which we all started the night before and took a walk around the local area on the hunt for mangoes. We were blessed to be able to spend the whole day with our new friends, Nate and Andrea. We went to the International Evangelical Church, which started at 11:15. The church was beautiful and the format was very similar to that of the Vineyard. The sanctuary was large and included a balcony. It was almost completely full with a variety of ethnic background, with the majority being Ethiopians. Worship was very nice with a large group of singers, a drummer, one guitar, and keyboard. There were young kids singing as part of the worship band, with one teenage boy that was very energetic and filled with The Spirit. It was great. We were both pretty emotional as we sang How Great Is Our God as just the voices, realizing the diversity that existed in the room but all worshipping the one true god. The pastor was American and gave a nice message which resonated with our trip and the adoption process. Offering was between songs (including singing while the offering was taking place which we liked) and there was no communion. The service ended in worship. After church we went to lunch at Island Breeze. It was predominantly American food but Brian had Ethiopian chikena tipe. It was very spicy but delicious. We also had Cocoa Cola, onion rings, and Amy had a burger. After lunch we went to the market area next to the post office. We never do well at places where you have to barter. Especially when you are in a 3rd world country and you know it's their livelihood, I feel terrible asking them to lower their price. Either way we got some souvenirs for the kids and ourselves. Someone here at the guesthouse suggested getting some things for Rediet to give her every year on her birthday which we thought was a cool idea. So we haven't gotten anything for her yet but hope to do some more shopping on wed before we leave. After the shopping we hit a coffee place that looks just like Starbucks but is called Kaldy's. Brian ordered a chai latte and instead of being like hot chocolate but with tea, it was like warm frothy milk with a tea bag added. Brian looked quite ridiculous drinking it. Then went to a Tamoca and bought two big bags of coffee beans for people back home. Had a nice dinner of traditional Ethiopian food, injera and wot (stew) at the guesthouse. It was good but very filling. We've enjoyed lots of time connecting with other families here and just sitting around talking and getting to know each other. We even played some foursquare with the kids who live here. Today was a very relaxed day and I don't think we looked at a clock once. Tomorrow one of the families here go to pick up their son and bring him back to the orphanage and he is theirs! They are first time parents and it has been really sweet to hang out with them, give them parenting insight and we got to pray blessings over them for their special day tomorrow. Craziest thing is they have our favorite board game here, Ticket to Ride, and we had the opportunity to teach everyone how to play tonight, it was lots of fun. After another full day, time to sleep!