Ethiopia- Day 5,6: Our last supper, and our final day in Addis

After we got back to our hotel we chilled for a bit.  Jason said he felt so encouraged with how Joshua was responding to us.  He noticed that when he threw the ball up on this small ledge with some brush Joshua loved venturing into something at least a little unknown.  We can't wait to get him home, and just let him run around in the snow or grass or whatever is on the ground.

Alemu came to pick us up for our traditional Ethiopian dinner at Yod Abyssinia.  I was so looking forward to good food...

This is Alemu.  Love this guy and what he does.  His wife and daughter have been living in the USA while his daughter goes to school.

                                                              Loads of fun right here:)

And God had something up his sleeve for Brandon and Emily this night!!

Dinner... Injera is a spongey type of bread.  So we tore off pieces to scoop up the other...stuff with it..

I tried to like it

goat meat.  very chewy

barf!!  I really didn't know what all the different choices were.  The white is cheese, but tasted funky.  One section was cabbage, and the rest I wasn't too sure.  Jason pointed to one and said, "don't eat that.  It tastes like I just licked someones armpit".  And, seriously, if he can't choke it down  I know I can't.  

I loved watching their different traditional dances.  Jason thought he was getting it down.  I'll let him think that, but he so was not.  Every dance they did looked like they were double-jointed from head to toe.  So entertaining!  We got some video that I cannot wait to show our boys someday.  I can't get it to post on here:/

No idea what was so funny, but let's just say that yellow stuff was worse than any cough syrup I've ever had...sticking to the pepsi.  Brandon and Kara's dad, though... bottoms up:)  It was hilarious how they both broke out in a sweat.

I don't want to steal any of Brandon and Emily's thunder by telling their story, but it was definitely a huge and awesome thing that God did.  So I'll give just a snippet... At dinner Alemu asked them if they are enjoying their trip.  I think he was especially amused by the massive camera.  So Brandon and Emily asked about a little boy at Jane's House.  He was the oldest one there.  Well, long story short... Out of all the families on the waiting list for our agency none had requests that fit this precious little guy who they fell in love with.  He seemed to really connect with them as well, and because of the uniqueness of the situation they've been given a "pre-referral", and will be heading back over for their court hearing to become "Kevin's" parents as soon as possible.  Haha...Kevin was what we called him when we referred to him, because we didn't know his name.  Emily and Brandon asked their daughter, Lily, when they were corresponding from Addis, "what should we name him?".  Lily- "call him Kevin" (from "UP").  Well, we got a chuckle out of it.  Actually I'm pretty sure that Emily secretly renamed all the children.  After watching how natural and affectionate they both were with the children we all knew it was just a matter of getting home, and they would be starting the process:).  They have been feverishly getting their paperwork in.  Please be praying for provision, peace and perfect timing.

Per Kara's request we slept in the next morning, and I was loving that!  Then we all met up to go to the crazy huge congested market, Merkato.  I have never seen anything like it.  We nervously gasped/laughed as our driver made it through the narrow traffic of people, vehicles and donkeys without hitting anyone or anything.  People were smothering our vehicle begging for just anything we could give them.  I loved watching Kara's dad's face as he handed out smarties to people.  Pure joy.  And it was so cool for their girls to pass the blankets out the windows to mothers and children.  Rob tossed one out the widow towards a guy laying on the sidewalk.  It was so amazing to watch another man come, pick up the blanket and lay it over the man it was intended for.   It is beautiful how grateful and unassuming someone with nothing can be over receiving a blanket for her baby.  

                 

Below is the congested market.  We had to have 3 guards with us.

  

Yes, those would be chickens...

 This sweet boy walked with us the whole time, so we paid him too when we paid the guards.

The mother of all traffic jams, but apparently this is normal.

We had to leave around supper to catch our flight home, so we spent the afternoon packing our things.  A kind man from our hotel took us to the airport, and dropped us off.  As he left I got a panicky feeling of "what if something goes wrong here".  We had been so well looked after the entire time we were there.  There was a line of at least 150 people waiting just to enter the airport...panic set in.  I think I heard the superman theme song as I saw our driver in slow motion come to the clueless Americans rescue.  Oh, thank God!  But he moved us to the front of the line... yes, right in front of everyone as in cut. I swear I heard him say something with Alemu's name (maybe not, but it sounded like it) and people just moved out of the way, and let us in front of them.  I do not ever want to be an "entitled American" that is disrespectful to the people of the country I'm in, but because I didn't know Amharic I couldn't say anything except "sorry" to people as we butt past them.

We got through all the security stuff, and boarded our plane for Sudan.  Yes, Sudan.  All I know is what I've heard and seen on the news, but we had no glitches on our way to Ethiopia, so thought all should be fine.  It came time to land our plane in Sudan, and our captain announced that there had been a "fuel explosion" near the runway which was going to make landing difficult.  We came in for the landing with inches to touchdown, and went soaring back up.  I was trying to keep the "I'm freaking out look"  off of my face, but the green skin tone along with me clutching the armrests may have given that away.  The captain said something about a tail wind.  We eventually landed a scary jerky nose dive landing.  

One week later Emily sent me an article about what we thought was a fuel explosion.  Not so much... just an air raid!  Yep, there was a weapons warehouse/factory that was bombed by the Israeli military, because Iran was smuggling weapons through Sudan.  Kinda scary.  

And we finally arrived to Canada only to have our flight to Grand Rapids cancelled.  So close!  I was about to go psycho, but Brandon calmly took care of finding us a different route home.  4 hours later than the scheduled arrival we made it home with no luggage, but it was home nonetheless.  Sooo good to see my girls and my mom.  We didn't get our luggage for about a week, but after the God-filled week we had just been through I really didn't care.