Day 5 - Sunday Ethiopia

We are hurting for sleep at this point. In the 7 days we've been traveling, we have enjoyed 1 good night's sleep. Zane has kept us up with a nasty cough. He seemed to perk up a bit today so hopefully his antibiotics are beginning to kick in.

We went to an international church here in Addis Ababa today. It was very cool to be in Africa worshipping God alongside others from different nations. Besides Ethiopians, there are a number of other Africans (Somalians, Kenyans, etc.) that attend this church. Churches in the U.S. are unfortunately very segregated. The Bible talks about every tongue and every nation worshipping together and we felt like we got a tiny glimpse of that this morning.

Late afternoon we were picked up with our entire group and went to a town about an hour south of Addis in the Rift Valley. I can't remember the name of the town but it translates to Mount of Olives. There are 7 crater lakes in this city and we went to dinner at a restaurant called Dreamland that overlooks one of the crater lakes. Beautiful! It was so peaceful to be outside of Addis, sitting in this quiet balcony, overlooking a gorgeous lake and a view of the mountains. Addis is a cool city but extremely polluted, very crowded and muddy. Outside the city it is beautiful, lush and you can breath a bit easier. Plus the area we drove to gets less rain so the streets are more bearable.

We are so excited to now have Sunday behind us (it's Sun 9:30PM here). I am now beginning to feel like we are on the downhill slope of our trip. Five more days and we get to be with Lily and Claire! We miss them a ton and are daydreaming that next time we come to Ethiopia we can bring them with us (Hey grandparents - you up for joining us?!). We hear they are living in up back home. My mom took them to McDonald's the other day and they ended up lunching (and charming!) next to Coach Darrell Royal. I wonder if they told him their mom is an aggie??

Please pray Zane continues to heal up and that we can get some sleep!