Fun outside of the city!

Currently listening: to the competition of my iPod playing Bethel worship music with the church service next door going on its third day of (very loud) prayer service. We're all worshipping Jesus, so its all good.

These last couple weekends have been extra fun as there have been lots of opportunities to get out of the city and see the beautiful countryside with friends!


Bingham Staff Retreat
We have an amazing staff here at Bingham, so we took the chance to get out of the city and spend a weekend away from school and busyness of it all. We stayed at the SIM Babogaya Retreat Center in Debre Zeit- a place that holds many memories from my childhood. It remains to be a beautiful compound- the gorgeous, fragrant flowers, the cool, refreshing lake, the warm sunshine- all ingredients for a lovely weekend.

  

Debre Zeit with old classmates
I returned to Debre Zeit the next weekend with a friend Jay, former 6th grade classmate, to hang out at our friend Alessia's house, classmate in all of middle school, for the weekend! We went hiking, explored an awesome lake, rode some go-karts and had a fabulous time together.

Hiking Menagasha
Having last Monday off for the Battle of Adwa, a group of us decided to go hiking at a mountain close to Addis. Only one of us had been there before (me.), so we went on a bit of an adventure in finding new "trails" along the way. Thankfully, one of the guys had marked where the van was on google maps, so we did make our way back eventually. I still think those types of adventures tend to be the best kind :)

Activities Week 2014

Currently: trying to wake up for the day... maybe I should go get some coffee. 

     Every year, Bingham sends out their middle and high school students all around the country to participate in a week-long service learning trip. This year, I joined twelve tenth graders and two teachers and headed to Southern Ethiopia to work an NGO, Tearfund out of the UK. 

A few of the students with one of the Self Help groups 

One of the precious little girls in one of the villages we were learning in

      In Soddo and Nazaret, Tearfund has partnered with local organizations to create self-help groups. The purpose of these groups is empower its members, usually women, to start a method for saving money, which is not common in this culture. The members agree to save a certain amount of money every week and are accountable to one another for that amount. Once they have saved up enough, they can loan it out to one another for income-generating projects that work to support their families and their community.

My group of students with another self help group. It's so encouraging to hear how these ladies have worked to pull their families out of poverty! 

     

     Our students learned about these groups and hope to use this information in the future in some way. Whether instructing their classmates or working with groups here in Addis, the hope for this group is that their learning can become reality. 

The whole group with our Tearfund partners