Doro Wot, Doro Wot!

So Sunday night the older girls were in charge of making Doro Wot, a traditional dish made with chicken and boiled eggs. Two chickens were bought and literally sloughtered at the Village of Hope by the guard! Helen and I had fun taking pics of the older girls and helping stir the very spicy stew that the chicken is simmered in.


Longaley (15) liming the chicken

Stirring the wot!!

Mariama, one of our little children has gillyworm and the eggs have started to burst from her head. In order to keep her clean she had to have her head shaved. She cried and cried, but after Helen gave her some gum to chew on she seemed to do fine. Emuti, another little girl here really wanted her head shaved and was screaming "yes, yes, yes" the whole way to the barber. As soon as both girls got home with their new do's the kids ridiculed Emuti and she cried the whole night. It shouldn't have been funny, but with how ironic the situation was, Helen, Steff and I now have a running joke, "Yes, Yes, Yes" "No, No, Nooo!!" I've been playing miss nurse, and last night I tried to soak Mariama's foot to coax the worm out. It's head broke out but I was too aggressive and it retreated back into her foot. Helen and Steff are fine with my interest in parasites, and Helen and I are fine with Steff taking on diaper duty for the twins since their mom was asked to leave.

Mariama!!

Balditu, the twin that has been pretty sick, is doing much better and has been keeping down her meds. That's her in my arms. Last night we played night games outside ane everyone had a blast. In the pic: Chaltu (13/14), Me, Balditu, Teyeba (8), Helen, Mariama (7/8), Ayisha (12/13)
This is cute little Benjamin. I mostly put this pic on for Sister Lee to send to Nicole Brouwer. He's 7 months old and so adorable. He's left out of most pics due to his inability to walk and lack of desire to cry for attention, he is so well behaved.

A Rush of Blood to the Head!

Wow, it's been quite the week here! I have so many exciting things to tell and share! The Village of Hope is incredible and the 15 (now 14) kids here are so much fun and I love them all! There are 14 because, unfortunately, there were a lot of behavioral problems with the 18 year old mother of the twins here and she was caught beating the girls, so she was asked to leave. The twins are still with us and are going to be adopted soon by a family in Utah. We're working on starting a "primary" and "mutual" group for the VOH kids as well as village children and Steffanie and I have been busy busy busy trying to organize how to coordinate 60 kids at once!! Helen is here, the Kennard's daughter for a few weeks until her dad comes out for an expedition and then she will leave me. She's been great to have around. She was adopted here as a child and so every Ethiopian wants to teach her Oromic, the local language. I am trying to pick up some Oromic as well, as I learned Amharic last year and so I have to start all over again with a new language! It's fairly easy and my favorite words so far are "Da Duffi!" (quickly) "Ko-sha-sha" (Dirty) and Doo-gaahh (kiss). The kids seem pretty entertained. I took Teyeba (the little girl in blue with thumbs up) to the clinic this week because she has hook worm, and just about all the kids have a cough. A few kids have ring worm as well as Steffanie. One of the twins has girardia and has been vomitting up her medicine. We've given her a Oral Rehydration Supplement and are feeding the kids Atmit, but she just doesn't seem to be getting much better. Steff and I are headed into Addis next week for a church conference and wants to take the baby into the hospital. Bad news too. President Duke, the mission president for the Uganda Kampala mission, which covers Ethiopia as well, just passed away this Thursday from a car accident in Kampala. His wife was with him in the car and survived. My condolences to the family. The missionary couples in Addis are taking it pretty hard, as well as the missionaries. Guess what, just my luck. The first week here and I caught typhoid fever, despite the fact that I had an immunization last year for it. One night I got a very high fever and the next day I woke up and Helen told me that my face looked like I had gotten my wisdom teeth out. My hands, arms, shoulders and ankles swelled up and I couldn't walk. I was very sick to my stomach and the fever got higher. Everyone was saying it was malaria, but I just prayed it wasn't. Steff got me to the hospital and her friend who is the director there took a look at me. When we went to get my blood drawn I was "This" close to passing out. I could feel it coming on but I told Steff I was going to fall over and so she has them stop and wait until I could sit up on my own. Whewww! What an experience. I am fine now, taking some good meds and seem to be doing just fine. I also got a blessing today at church from Emmanuel and he seemed glad to have the opportunity to give a blessing since there are all of five members out here (myself and Steffanie included). We washed the kids clothes in the new washing machine that Abu (a workers at VOH) bought for us as well as a new fridge and stove. The kids clothes were so filthy. I had to take a rag and scoop mud out of the bottom of the basin!! We decided the kids will be washing their clothes on a weekly basis since Steff can't remember the last time they did it on their own. Here are some of Helen's pic's since I forgot to bring the chord for my camera today. The twins (above)

the kids goofing playing around one night after Helen and I introduced them to the jams of "I like to Move it, move it" and "Hey Ya" (Steffanie is there buried under the kids)
Teyiba (8) thumbs up for having hook work!
dirty hands after unloading the new washer, fridge and fruit trees for the garden (Steff, Dubabe (16), me, ?, Longaley (17))

me sleeping on all the kids clothes we folded one day (the same day that my fever started) hmmm, an early sign?

Did you say ONE carry on?

I have made it! Hoorah, Hoorah! I forgot how lonely traveling alone can really be, especially 24 hours of sitting on a plane by yourself! The first leg from SLC to JFK I can't really recall at this point. The British Airways people at JFK were very rude though, or maybe it was because I had such great service from them last year I held them to such high expectations. What can I say, I don't like being told how to check myself into my flight by some women breathing down my neck. Anyways, sat in the JFK airport for six hours for my lay-over, got some good reading in.
Red eye to London. Slept very comfortably in fact. The BEST article I brought on this trip thus far has been my down pillow. And guess what? It doesn't count against you as a carry on! In London I discovered that security has reduced your carry-on's to one. I therefore shoved everything from my backpack into my messenger bag and had one, very heavy carry on, in addition to my pillow, which still did not count against me! London to Addis was nice. Not very many people on the plane so I got to stretch out on my own row. I tried to sleep as much as possible so that I wouldn't have horrible jet lag. Drank lots of water too. As soon as I got off the plane in Addis Ababa the distinct smell of Ethiopia hit me and floods of memories came back from last year. There is a certain smell for Ethiopia, and not necessarily a pleasant one at that. The best I can describe is dirt, spoiled milk and body odor all rolled into a smooth distinct fragrance that permeates from every building, body and bovine in this country.
Steffanie from the Village and the Woodruff's, the new charity missionaries from Alberta, Canada were there at the airport right on time to pick me up. I must say it was quite different from last year when I waited around for ten hours to be picked up by perfect strangers. We drove out to their house on the eastern outskirts of Addis. They live in a very nice house for Ethiopian standards. It has multiple bathrooms with flushing toilets, showers, sinks and they even have a MICROWAVE! We had pancakes for breakfast which is something I should not even think of getting used to because it will be Ethiopian food from here on out. Steffanie and I are staying one more night here and then we'll drive out to the orphanage tomorrow after she has finished some business here.
I love you all! God bless!
Jenelle

VOH Sibling Group Needs Help

Yeah!!
I got a contact tonight from Sister Lee (my bishop's wife) about a couple she knows looking to adopt. I'm going to get them in touch with Lon sometime this week(end) to see what can be done about getting them connected with the adoption process for one (or more?) of the orphans at VOH.

I also got this email from Lon tonight. Please take a look. . . such adorable kids!!

Dear Supporters:

Six Kersa Illala kids (siblings) have been neglected by their mother and have been moved to the Village of Hope High Risk Children Center for protection. High Risk Children are educated, fed, provided medical care, housed, clothed, loved and made a part of one of our families with a loving mother and a couple of aunts to take good care of them. It costs us about $600 a year to do this for each child. If you can help one or more of these children, please make it one of your priorities.

Thanks so much for your continuing support of the children,

Lon

Where I'll be is where I am

I leave in approximately 13 days and counting down!!

For those of you reading this, there is some special help that the Kennard's need, I've included here Lon's email. If any of you know someone that can help please pass along an email to me and let me know!!

The Kennard's have a problem. They have humanitarian supplies that need to be in the village, being used by destitute villagers in their garage (crutches, wheelchairs and boxes of shoes, in their bedrooms and on the stairs (hygiene kits, children's clothing, newborn kits), and in their storage sheds (boxes and suitcases and bags of all kinds of things needed in Ethiopia! (Glasses, medicine not available in Ethiopian, medical equipment)

What are these supplies doing in all of these places? We don't have enough funds for shipping to get them over to the village. Can you help us, it will literally take several thousand dollars to get it all there. If we could get it shipped over time, even just a little bit faster than our loving supporters bring it to us, it would be so helpful to the villagers (and we could move into our house again). If you could help us with some funds designated for shipping, it would be very, very helpful.

Please don’t think this means we don’t want things like these. The villagers of Ethiopia desperately need them and we appreciate them very much, it’s just that we also need the funds to ship them, or we can’t get them over to the abjectly poor villagers who desperately need them. Please keep these kinds of supplies coming, along with funds to ship them!!

Thanks so much for your kindness and love,

Lon

P.S. The rainy season is coming and the people of Turge, our village next to Kersa Illala, has no bridge. When the rains come, there will undoubtedly be several accidents, with probable fatalities, because the bridge is so unsafe. Falls from this bridge have injured many in the past few years. They have to cross the bridge to get to the market, to get clean water; really for everything they need from outside of their village. If you can find it in your heart to help with this project (we think it will cost about $5,000), it would literally save many lives annually.

To see some pics of the orphanage please look at their website. Please look for yourself at many of the wonderful things VOH is about!!
www.villageofhope-ethiopia.org