My Trip to Ethiopia, as a Missionary, Teacher and Sponsor
The next several pages feature highlights of a trip I and 10 other Chicago-area educators spent as missionaries in Ethiopia. For one week we conducted a teacher training workshop on child-centered learning for 150 Ethiopians. The following page overviews the highly successful workshop,which took place at a small school in Awassa, in the south of Ethiopia.
Following my comrades' departure after the workshop, I stayed on and toured the country for an additional week. Included in my travels was the historic tour/triangle of Lalibela; Axum, known as the resting place of the arc of the covenant; and Gondar, pictured below (and detailed on subsequent pages).
Lastly, I was privileged to be able to actually pay a one-on-one visit to the 10-year-old child I sponsor through World Vision. The World Vision people, headed up by supervisor Gemta Birhanu, arranged for me to be driven -at their expense- from Addis Abbaba, the capital, to their compound in Dessie, approximately six hours north.
I stayed at the World Vision compound for three days, during which they took the best care of me imaginable. One field supervisor, Tedele (whom I affectionately termed "my mother,") made it his life's work to be sure that I ate no fewer than two portions of every meal, was personally woken up for prayer, and had a comfy bed (HIS, because he moved out!)
Visiting my child Abdella in the northern highlands was the most precious part of my entire trip. (Pictured at the top of the page.) To forage to his house, we had to walk 1/2 hour up-mountain from where trucks would any longer go. For three days I did not see another White person, and one woman actually ran away from me because she had never seen anything so ghastly (or should I say ghostly) before!
To this day I keep in touch with Gemta and Tedele, whom I came to love as family, although I only knew them for hours....This is the story of my trip to Ethiopia.