Day 4 at Trees of Glory was a fun day! During our time we taught Vacation Bible School lessons, served Lunch, & played. We enjoyed reading the notes in the Care Packages to the children & seeing their faces light up at the words that their sponsors wrote. 23 children live at Trees of Glory. A parent or caretaker dropped each child off at some point unable to meet his or her basic needs. Simret takes care of these children & considers them hers. When asked if they were available for adoption she quickly said, "NO! Those are my children!" She even has older boys that live there & are in their teens or early twenties. They help to raise the younger ones & help around the CarePoint to keep things running smoothly.
Trees of Glory CarePoint has about 8 cows & 600 chickens that help provide for the CarePoint. The chickens lay about 130 eggs per day & many of those are sold to provide income for the CarePoint.
For the Care Packages we learned a lot in regards to what is good to send & what isn't. For example, these are some good ideas of items to purchase & send:
-World Map
-Poncho
-Photo Album
-Shirt
-Underwear
-Toothbrush
We learned not to send bubbles or broken toys.
To distribute the Care Packages we set up 5 stations with 1-2 translator(s) per station. When I read a letter or note aloud in English it was translated to Ethiopian, then to the Tribal Dialect for the child to understand. Most of these children do not know the Ethiopian language!
Simret & Me- LOVE HER!
At the end of the day upon leaving the CarePoint Endalem told me goodbye & said, "I love you" in English. Yes, I cried!
The pictures below show Ethiopians celebrating after their Soccer team edged out South Africa 2-1 to book a place in the third round of the 2014 World Cup qualifiers in Addis Ababa. Everyone was elated & they told us it was the biggest thing to happen in the history of their country! People were running around everywhere, storming the streets & celebrating. It was a wonderful cultural experience for all of us!
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