Friday, August 5, 2011

Korah....Day 5


Korah was possibly one of the "days" I was most looking forward to most when I decided to go to Ethiopia. If you haven't heard of Korah let me share a little....Korah is a district of Addis where 120,000 + people live. Korah is a landfill....a trash dump! Men, women, children, families live in this area and dig in the trash for things to sell to survive. In the morning everyone loaded up in the vans and before going to Korah we stopped at the "market"..read lot on the side of the road where the farmers bring their sheep to sell. Our 4 vans pulled into the lot and bought 45 sheep....live sheep, to take to the people of Korah.

Some to be slaughtered to feed the children there and some to gift to several families to help them try to bring themselves out of poverty. They loaded those 45 (live) sheep on top of our vans and we headed out to Korah. When we first arrived in Korah we pulled up to the church/school there and loaded out of the vans. Immediately there were kids all around. We were divided into groups where we helped to teach the kids conversational english and then served them lunch...lunch that was possible for these kids because of their sponsors. It didn't take long for us to see how important sponsorship is to these kids. They all know their sponsors and ask everyone "do you know Kim Jones (ex)? She is my sponsor. She lives in TN". Or we would hear a lot of "Sponsor? Sponsor?". The kids who dont have sponsors were looking for sponsors and oftentimes their friends were trying to help them find sponsors...which was so sweet!



I had met a sweet little boy that I was hoping to sponsor and was looking for someone who works in Korah to confirm that he didnt yet have a sponsor when 2 other boys came up to me. One of them said "this is my friend Teraku. He needs a sponsor. He is a very clever student. You sponsor?" Since I was wanting to sponsor this other boy I took these 2 boys over to my sister Kelley and told her what they had said. She said to him "Teraku, I will sponsor you." His face lit up and I don't think he left her side the rest of the day. After this I found out that the little boy I was hoping to sponsor was not available for sponsorship. It didn't take long though until another couple of boys came up to me. Again, one of them said "this is Kumelachew. He is very good student. You sponsor?" So, after confirming that he was in fact in the sponsorship program I agreed to sponsor him. And he never left my side.

(This is Kumelachew and his friend David)


 He asked all about my family and as I showed him pics on my phone he would point them each out and say "this is my father. this is my brother.....etc." That is how important the sponsors are to these children. We are their family! Before leaving Korah we walked to the ALERT Leprosy hospital. We met women who suffer from leprosy who were making linens etc to sell in the market and a sweet man who had no fingers on either hand who wove rugs to sell in the market.  He was so sweet and LOVED for us to take our picture with him. I believe we bought every rug in the market that day.