Evaluation and packing

Last week was a week of showing the government officials my work for the project. It went well, and we visited 2 of my best places to visit the healers. And all of the healers we invited showed up at both places. Thankfully all of the people we needed were able to come so that it could be finished within the week. The officials were encouraging and really seemed to be interested in what I had done. They were also impressed that I went to the extra trouble to go out to the remote places. Thanks for praying. I know that it went smoothly because of your prayers.

 

Today I went to a countryside church, Ol Gabisa. I gave my lamb and goat as an offering to the church with instructions that they could sell the old nanny goat, but the young sheep needed to be kept so that she could have offspring for the church. (I explained that the giving of a young animal is done when a child has his naming ceremony and he has a start for himself as he gets older. In the same way the sheep is an investment to the church.) They seemed happy to get them especially when I told them the sheep was special because she had been given to me as a gift. (Her name, Kenna, means gift. They even said, “oh, you are giving us your child”. J

 

This week is a week of packing. I am glad to have Jensen  & Meghan here to keep me on task. Otherwise my house might just get reorganized. I have to keep reminding myself that I have to actually put things in boxes and not just find a better place for them in the house. I go up to Addis Ababa on Thursday to bring them back to the airport. Pray that I can get everything packed up and ready to go. I may make one more trip down here later in the month for a few last project things, but I want to have all of the packing done by Thursday.

 

 

Meanwhile...back at Yabello

Meanwhile…back in Yabello this morning the dogs chased the goat & sheep round and round while Denise and Baharnish chased the dogs round and round. In the end all was well and the goat only had a couple scratches. The lamb’s defenses of laying flat on her belly worked well.  Yesterday was the first trip into town with the new guests and an obnoxious boy welcomed Meghan by hitting her with a rock in her back (that was a first). Thankfully she wasn’t hurt, but it did scare her. We decided to walk out of town for the rest of our walk. My life has gotten a little more exciting after a couple weeks of focusing on paperwork in the city.

 

Meghan & Jensen arrived safely last week and didn’t get their luggage until 2 days later. So they have had quite the introduction to Ethiopia, but they are doing well and pitching in with everything from paperwork to working under my house to clean out the pipes. I am trying to avoid the fact that I have to pack everything up in the next month. I will hopefully be able to give away some of my vet things on Friday. The next week will be busy with travel setting up for the evaluation, so I am enjoying my time at home this week.

 

Yesterday, I sent someone to go get 160 Borana Bibles from Negelle for the Borana people. I am so excited about this. It seems that I have been trying to get a way to get a good number of Bibles for over a year, and many have been asking for them. Pray that they arrive safely tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UPDATE

I’m in the midst of paperwork work this week which means no fun monkey stories. The best part of writing up all of my research is seeing how much I have learned and accomplished over the past two years. So far I am on page 11 and I feel like I’m still in the boring parts and haven’t gotten to the good parts or added any cool pictures. Thankfully I have quite a bit of things already written down, but it is still more work than I thought that it would be. It feels like I am in school again except that I can’t stay up all night to finish anything because my mind seems to just stop before midnight.

 

Also this week I will be discussing with SIM the evaluation with the government for my research project that must be completed in February. It involves getting 9 different people (besides myself, my worker and my short-termers) from 4 different offices at the same place at the same time to show what I’ve been doing for the past two years. Getting this accomplished in Ethiopia is nothing short of a miracle. The last missionary who had a project in Borana didn’t even get to do his because not all of the people agreed to come. Doing the evaluation, however, is an important way to end well—so I hope to be able to show them “the works” of the Borana work as it also testifies to what God is doing in the area.

 

My new short-termers Jensen & Meghan come on Wednesday evening. I’m looking forward to their arrival and started making lists of specific things that they can do to help me.

 

Pray for a decision I need to make concerning my future: CVM and I are currently discussing my role starting June/July of this year.

 

My next update will hopefully have me going back to Yabello with my short-termers. I hope to leave for my Yabello home on or by the weekend.

Holidays and the Desert

Hi Friends,

It has been a few weeks since I’ve written an update. The holidays have gotten me off of my schedule. For those of you I didn’t have a chance to send greetings to, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I had a wonderful Christmas in Addis Ababa with Bob & Jane & their son, a missionary family from Seattle and another girl, Marcie who is helping with an agriculture project in the southwest. It was fun with a tree and presents to unwrap, a Christmas chicken and stuffing, pie (my contribution) and a puzzle to do.

 

Shortly after Christmas SIM Ethiopia had a conference for all missionaries in a resort place called Sodere where we all got to ring in the new year. It is a sweet place with African sounds like monkeys in the middle of the night. All of the water supply comes from a hot spring so all of the water from the Olympic-sized pool (which is as hot as a hot tub on the first day) to the toilet water is quite hot. The monkeys are a big part of life there…I tried to open the door to air out my musty room and to unload things from my landcruiser and the monkeys kept sneaking in the room when I turned my back. In all they stole 4 pieces of candy and a banana (the 1^st monkey took those in the gold shiny wrapper first then the next one took the candy in the clear wrapper and the third monkey tried to take all 3 bananas in a bag, but only ended up getting away with one). After that I dug out some squirt guns (brought from the States just for this occasion) and that helped keep the monkeys at bay. I must admit that the monkeys were quite entertaining to watch—jumping through the trees and peering in through my window to see what treats they could find. OH yeah, we had the Christian author Philip Yancy come and share with us on prayer during our retreat. I was impressed that he could not only write, but was also an interesting and challenging speaker. I remember his summary of the three things Jesus taught on prayer from the first night: Keep it simple, keep it honest and keep it up. Good words to remember and to follow.

 

I am currently trying to finish paperwork for my project in the next couple weeks and then a short term couple (Jensen & Meghan) will come to help me for a month in Yabello. (They arrive Jan 13). I really need to get the paperwork done by that time so I’m hoping that I can be focused. Before I get going on the paperwork I was invited to go along to visit some desert people in the northeast. There is currently a drought in that area and I expect it to be hot, dry and barren with skinny camels.  I have never been to the real desert before so I am excited to go. It is only a short 2 day trip so I leave tomorrow & I’ll be back on Tuesday.  If you could keep me in your prayers I would appreciate it…my back is a little sore from sitting in a conference all of last week so I’m praying that the drive won’t bother it too much.

 

Blessings to you in 2010,

Dr. Denise

 

 

 

 

 

A week of God's provisions

This week has been a week of God’s provisions. I left for healer meetings on Tuesday on my own (of course I had Amber, Baharnish (my personal assistant/houseworker) and the dog with me). But my main worker, Daniel needed to stay and finish a drivers license test. (Which he passed!) So an evangelist who lives in the area was able to help me find the people I needed to make an appointment to meet with them tomorrow (Monday). It turned out the evangelist was God’s provision as we prayed for one of the healers we visited who was quite sick.) The next day, Wednesday I assumed that Daniel would be with me, but his driving portion of the test was delayed (because the scheduled vehicle for them to take the test didn’t show). Frustrated, I left on a further trip to meet healers without him. It went well and I didn’t really need him on that day. I ended up getting sick Wednesday night from food poisoning, but Daniel was finished by then and able to come and make all the arrangements so that I didn’t have to do anything that required more energy than sitting and talking. He shared in devotions that morning from the end of Isaiah 40 of how God gives strength to the weak. It was God’s provision that Daniel was there that day because the healers said some important things that I would have had difficulty picking up on otherwise and that was the day I needed him. Amber felt miserable all day Thursday, but thankfully we made it home safely and after consulting with the SIM doctor were able to get treatment for the food poisoning. Thursday night I realized that I was still quite sick and the rest of the week was a lot of resting, eating rice and crackers and slowly introducing real food back into our diets.

 

These last meetings with the healers are a part of saying thanks to them for the help and assistance they have been to me over the last couple years and to get any of their feedback. I’m able to give them a couple gifts of some nice needles and needle holders. (It is quite interesting to see these illiterate fellows who have probably never held a pair of scissors in their hands learn how to use a needle holder.) The rains have stretched out  a little bit making it nice for travelling and good for visiting.

 

I was sad not to get to go to church this weekend—both to help teach children and attend the worship service, but instead was able to enter into some of God’s rest and have our own little English service and fellowship.

 

God has restored my health this weekend and I am ready for another couple days of travel and healer meetings in the beginning of the week. The end of the week I’ll be preparing a trip back to the capitol where I will work on the paperwork required to finish my project and also spending the holidays. Thanks for praying for me as God provides for me.

 

Thanksgiving in Boranaland

Hi Everyone! Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s a quick synopsis of my thanksgiving: I wonder if yours was just as exciting.

 

Amber & I were in several “Thanksgiving parades” in the last few days. We were staying in a neighboring town and 2 white people and one german shepherd dog walking along a road draws a crowd, and so we provided our own little parade—and even walked down the middle of the main road (everyone else does that anyway). Then later while eating lunch we saw a boy with a mattress on his head (we decided he must have chosen a mattress when he didn’t have a big helium balloon), then a goat followed by a donkey pulling the nicest water cart I’ve ever seen here. –so that was the TG parade we got to watch (oh, and it took approximately 9 people to disconnect the donkey from its cart). We had some lovely tibs (roasted/fried thinly chopped meat served over charcoal) for lunch. Yum! It was even tender, and we invited a church guy to eat with us. The lunch excitement was the dog lunging at a cat under the table which spilled some coke and ended our nearly finished meal. Miaa had been doing good laying under the table until that point but the cat snuck up pretty close to her and was just too tempting. (We were sitting outside on the porch and of course EVERYONE had to comment on how awful my dog was.) TG evening we had French toast (after all there was no leftover turkey). Oh, and on thanksgiving eve we roasted some marshmallows over my camp stove.

 

My first couple weeks at home in Yabello have been nice. I’ve been catching up with everyone here. A few of my Ethiopian friends thought that I would have came back married since I was away so long. I thought that was pretty funny. The first week was spent getting settled back into my home. The friends that stayed in it kept good care of the house and my helper also kept my dog and cats looking healthy too. Last week was spent preparing for some veterinary meetings with the healers. And this week we (Daniel, Baharnish, Amber & I) went out to visit them. We had sent messages, but in true African fashion we found 1 out of the 6 guys we were looking for during the week, so instead of having the meetings that I wanted to have we made appointments for meetings next week instead. I actually had a nasty cold this week and could barely talk, and so I was kind of happy not to have to do as much talking, and it was still a worthwhile time of visiting people. They were happy to receive us as guests and gave us fermented and fresh milk to drink (at separate places). The short rains seem to have stopped, but it seems that most people have received rains and their cattle are pretty healthy and giving milk. We got to pray together with one village/family of Christians, and during our visits I got to collect one of the plants that I wanted to identify.

 

My guard was happy to see me, too. I have been treating his sheep if they get sick and he let me choose a lamb from his flock. I also bought a pregnant nanny goat at the market a couple weeks ago. With my 2 dogs, 2 cats, 7 chickens, goat & sheep I feel like I have a lovely little farm here, and will have some nice animals to give away as gifts when I leave.

 

Thanks for your prayers. I have been thankful to be here and for the home I have and people I get to work with. Please continue to pray for me in the next couple weeks that I can meet with the healers, have a fruitful time with them and that I remain safe & healthy in His hands.

 

 

 

Travelling to my Borana home

I’m in the last phases of packing to go to my home and meet my team in Dilla and then Yabello. The first couple days here in Addis Ababa were rough dealing with being back (I swear the potholes in the streets got bigger while I was gone). It has been fun to connect with missionary friend her, and now I am so excited to go down and see my teammates and my home. I hear good news that we have had good rains in the Borana area and so I am looking forward to a green yard and seeing people full of hope.

 

My helper, Amber came in last week uneventfully. We had some issues with her visa and so her orientation to Ethiopia was visiting immigration to get a longer visa so that we don’t have to cut our time in Borana short. We were able to get a new visa, but it meant about 3 hours in lines and visiting something like 7 different rooms. What a first day. She is doing well and even braved the world outside the compound gates to retrieve the visa yesterday. I look forward to her being with me for these 6 weeks.

 

I am now the owner of 2 dogs, my African dog, Gegeessa and I just got my German Shepherd, Mi’aa Dha back yesterday. She was causing a little trouble at her old home with the neighbors and so I hope that she does ok with me for the next few months.  I was so excited to see her and after she got in my Landcruiser I felt like a little kid at Christmas with a really cool new toy. She will be travelling with me the next couple days.

 

Thanks for praying for a safe and smooth journey!