The Farenji's have arrived!!

I finally got a pic of Benjamin smiling!
My little Balditu. She's had a cold in her eyes (why her eye's are so watery). She's so cute during the day, but I tell you she is horrible at night. She wimpers herself to sleep and without fail wakes up at 2:30 am, crying, and doesn't go back to sleep until 5 am. Her new adoptive mother is going to have so much fun with her!

My Fabulous Ringworm!! Allelujah for the Clinical expedition that brought some medication to treat all of us! Me, Margitu and Benjamin all have had it for about three or four weeks now.

Fayissa, the Ethiopian cowboy and my Ethiopian crush. The nicest, most humble and honest man you'll ever meet in the WORLD, honest.
An attempt at group photo. Balditu decided her half eaten sponge would look great in the photo.
Emuti and Mariama on the swing. They have really grown to be good buds in the past three weeks while all the kids have been away with their families.

This has been quite a week. Steffanie's cousin, Carolyn arrived last Saturday and has been staying at the compound for the week working on some additional research for her Master's Degree. The three of us have been busy working on the youth group and finalizing some policies for the manual. The youth group also had 200 square km of land "donated" to them by the Kebele, the local town government. Fayissa drew up a plan already to have a soccer field, track, volleyball pits and a vocational training center built. We are all so excited!!

Most of the week slipped by pretty quickly. The Youth group did another service activity, plowing people's fields in the village again. Tuesday we had a really fun activity where we had "mini-Olympics". We played a sponge relay game, had a three-legged race and some other fun games. The Youth absolutely loved it and it reminded me of a summer camp in America. They are such amazing young people and Steffanie has been so excited by their successes thus far and how well they have been supported by the local village people!!

The expedition arrived Friday night. There are 12 American's here for the medical expedition, three of which are doctor's, two nurses and some other people that have come

along to help. The whole group brought along 42 suitcases and rubbermaids full of supplies. It was absolutely insane to unpack it all yesterday!! The storage closet and pharmacy are now packed to the brim!! It has been quite busy with everyone there and all the patients, but it is so great to see so many people that have been sick for who knows how long finally get an accurate diagnoses and free medication to go along with it. Yesterday I helped with the scabies wash and dressing the kids. We only have freezing hose water to wash the kids with and those kids screamed and screamed- probably because a) they had never seen a white person before and were scared to death and then b) because the water was so cold. I can already tell this coming week is going to be exhausting but I am so happy for all the people that will be treated. I tell you it is the most rewarding to see someone improve in their situation almost immediately. When a sick person receives hope that their sickness is treatable, or that they can get free medication their face just lights up and it makes everyone feel so rewarded by the experience.

We took the whole expedition to church today at Emmanuel's house. I don't think there had eve been so many people in his living room before. We had women sitting on each other's laps, people sharing chairs and other's sitting on the arms of chairs pushed together. Three of the adults were our "speakers" today giving spur of the moment testimonies, and then everyone asked Emmanuel to share his story of how he found the church. Apparently a friend of his had received a copy of the Book of Mormon about 5 years ago from some missionaries he had run into in a train station in London. The friend didn't have time to read the book and so passed it onto Emmanuel. He read it after a year and contacted the church, who further put him in contact with the branch in Addis. Him and his family were baptized about 3 years ago, and continue to be in the only members within 250 km of where the branch is located in Addis. He is so amazing and until today I had put aside in my mind how truly inspiring his story is and that he is very strong to keep going like he has, even though his wife has left the church, he keeps his three sons going!!