We are up. We are packed. We are experiencing a lot of different emotions. Today, we will visit our last ministry site. We will be serving lunch to 1,000 Ethiopians. Most of them will be men who live on the street. We will have a glimpse into why there are 5 million orphans in Ethiopia. As I think about it, I am a little angry. Just knowing that if all of the children who have touched our hearts had a father, their lives would be so different, makes it hard to understand. It's a cycle though. Most of the men on the streets were orphans themselves whose father's left. It is a vicious cycle. One I do not understand. That said, it is so amazing to see the good things that Visiting Orphans is doing here. Their teams are truly making a difference in the lives of Ethiopian children and Ethiopian women. They are giving them hope in so many ways.I cannot wait to be part of another team.
Please pray for us as we finish our ministry and as we begin our travels home.
We love you!

As we spent our last day loving on the orphans, it was bittersweet. We have one more day at a ministry site, but it will look a lot different than what we have done so far. My group went to El Olam, which was the first site we visited when we arrived. It is a small orphanage and has a great family feel. Mike and I spent nearly our whole time in the baby room. There are 15 of them ranging in age from 6 months - 14 months. Our kids started out up there with us then left to go do exercises and games with the older kids. Mike and I got down in the floor with the babies who were awake and they brought in a box of toys for them to play with. They had a great time crawling, walking, playing, and laughing. We had to work hard to get a few of them to go down for a nap because they were having too much fun. About a third of those babies have families that they are waiting to go home to. A few of the babies can only be adopted in country. It was sad when it was time to say good bye. You could tell that they truly lov ...

Love Different -- That is the theme for Thursday.  Our scripture is John 15:9-12.  We are encouraged to go to our sites and find different ways to show God's love.  After yesterday, that might not be hard!   One thing that is really bonding all of the church groups here are the "family teams".  We do everything from kitchen chores to mission work with the same folks and it gives us a unique opportunity to get to know people.  Serving along side them in both grand and small ways, and learning from them as we go has made this enjoyable, even from that perspective. As we tried yesterday to "react different" some of our group had remarkable experiences.  Using talents we had in the group like drawing, singing, and even brute strength, we did everything from participate in the worship to carry a few kids around on piggy-back!  Part of our group was at a community center for kids and no doubt saw God there.  Drawing with the kids, and playing with them was a l ...

In spite of the poverty and the insane traffic and smog, there is beauty in Ethiopia! The people are truly beautiful. Even the homeless and poorest of poor people are just gorgeous! I wish all of you could experience this amazing country! Today, we started out with an adventure. We loaded up the vans and went to Entoto Mountain. The drive up truly was beautiful. At the top, we visited the oldest Orthodox church in Ethiopia as well as a cave church on the property. The paintings were beautiful and we enjoyed the break. On our drive we noticed a lot more men in this community than what we have been seeing. The sides of the road were quite busy with women, children and even men selling things, hauling things and just visiting. It was a much more relaxed pace than what we have been seeing. There were donkeys, cattle and sheep trotting everywhere. We saw folks peddling their wares. We saw children riding down the very steep mountain on hand made go carts. There was truly activity everywhere. It was interesting ...

Our theme for the week, as we have shared, is about being different.  Each day the worship time, and our individual quiet times are supposed to point us in the direction of a "new" different. On Monday we talked, thought, and tried to BELIEVE DIFFERENT. Tuesday it was ACT DIFFERENT.  Today we plan to focus on REACTING DIFFERENT. Everyone from the FBC Group was out on a mission project with their family team yesterday.  Once again we had neat experiences.  From dealing with nursing home patients with terminal conditions, to dealing with angry teens on the street, everyone is encountering what it means to be on mission!  None of us will ever look at things the same again, that much is clear Yesterday's scriptural focus was Isaiah 58:6-12 and its impact is STILL being felt.  We had a GREAT worship service last night, in which many of us were active participants.  The host church's praise band led in a wonderful time of music and fun.  We had praise songs, ...

Happy July 5th! I hope everyone enjoyed celebrating in the US of A yesterday! How blessed we are! Of course here in Ethiopia, there were no celebrations, but our new friend Maste (our lead guide and translator) prepared a surprise for us! He built an awesome bonfire in the courtyard of the Guest House. He bought us a cake that said Happy Independence Day complete with sparklers as candles. The evening was complete with some confetti cannons and some good old American tunes. The power went out for awhile, but none of us cared because we were having a great time outside by firelight.Our hearts were all smiling at the thoughtfulness of our new friend. Today, our group had to split because one of the government orphanages does not allow more than 10 team members. This was the orphanage that my team went to today. (Tami, Mike, Haley, Ally, Robert, Stephen, Davis, Kathleen, Emily and Maste) We had pretty much decided that after two days in Korah, we had seen the worst of the worst. How wrong we were! As we pulled ...

Postings from the Preacher will feature a "not so weekly" rambling from Shane about whatever is going on . . . or going through his head . . . or whatever he thinks needs comment. 

Day two from WV brought more devotional thoughts around being different!  With accounts of mission projects and summer fun, you'll want to see what the WV Team has to say!

The WV missions team has arrived and begins its journey on mission!

I did not travel with the team today, so Haley Ginther is going to be your storyteller for the day... Hey everyone! Tami didn't feel good today so I guess I'm the one taking over here.  This morning we all ate breakfast, prayed, and then left in the vans to go to a government-run orphanage.  The ride was 45 minutes away so we had a lot of time to talk and vent about the trip with one another.  Tracie and I talked a lot about our experiences so far and how we've been influenced throughout the trip.  We talked of sponsoring kids when we get home, buying them shoes and sending them back with others returning, and about how we're not going to let the meaning and love of this get away from us once we're back in Mocksville.  We eventually got to the orphanage and were surprised to find out that there were only 9 kids staying there.  As that seems kind of disappointing, that only 9 were left out of 30 and the rest were adopted.  Wow!  The adults and children greeted us ...