Day 6 Ethiopia - Thursday

Oh my goodness - there is just so much to digest from today and it's only 2pm.
Matt started his morning not feeling well, but went out with Jodi Stivers to meet an Ethiopian man whom Jodi had met at a men's retreat with his church a while back, for breakfast and a short tour of the capital city here. Micah Tirfe woke up early so he and I hung out in the room and once he was asleep in the little sling I had him in around 9:15am we went downstairs to meet everybody before going to the Bezetha (sp?) Children's Home Association at 10 - which is where Micah T was before arriving at HH in December. The children's home was actually alot better than I had expected it to be. The children were all sitting at tables and smiled and posed for us as we took pictures of them. We got to take a tour and see the baby room, school age boy and girls rooms and there was even a "special class" as they labeled it for children who needed more closer care. It was amazing and heart breaking. The women and men who work there are unbelievable. They have no washer or dryer and wash all those children's clothes (around 70-80 children) by hand. As we finished the tour we came across an Ethiopian man talking to the Stivers and soon learned that he was the founder of the orphanage! He was so kind and spoke of the Lord and praised him for the families that those children, who were once at this home he'd founded, had now. He asked us to keep praying for them and talk about how him and 2 other staff members from Hannah's hope had just visited the villages where our children were from in southern Ethiopia about a week ago. He too spoke of the miracle of each of their lives. He told us about their need for a washer and dryer and we took up a donation to try and help them get started on saving for them. I also learned that Almaz works with that orphanage or home because the man who runs it is so very trustworthy. She is very picky about what orphanages she works with - Sabrina, another mom on the trip, prompted me to ask Samuel (the man who founded the home) about the scars on Micah's eyes and so I did...
He said in the place where they are from, if they think something is wrong with their eyes (or anything for that matter), they will cut them because they believe the shedding of blood brings healing. So as a little baby his eye lids were cut in 3 places on each eye - We had seen these scars in pictures and speculated about what they may be from, but actually hearing it made me really get choked up - not just for how horrible the thought of him being cut, also it was happiness because I knew what happened now, - I will now have an answer for him - though it's not a pretty one, its an answer to a question he will have one day - He is going to have so many questions one day and I actually have an answer for one of them now.
I have gone through the papers Almaz gave us yesterday and they are priceless - they piece together so much of his little life. He has been through so much, yet is so happy and full of life.

Matt began puking not too long after we got back from visiting the children's home and Micah T went down for a nap so they are sleeping as I write and try to take all this in.
Alot of the families leave tonight - Micah T's 2 favorite boys are in that group too. It will be sad to see them all leave, but hopefully we will meet up again with the Stivers soon.
We still have all of Friday and Saturday and then board our 1st plane of 4 about 3 am Sunday morning. I hope we will soak in the next 2 days with Micah here, just us 3, with no real agenda and no where to go. I'm praying they lead to even more bonding.
I like it here, but I just can't wait to be home with Tyler too!!
Later in the evening.....

This afternoon was rough - but in the early evening, Tate, the mom of the little girl who has been in the hospital all week asked me and another dad on the trip who is a doctor to come look at her little girl who they had discharged from the hospital- to see what we thought about putting her on the looong plane ride home. She looked good and we told them to go - otherwise they wouldn't be able to get a flight home for another 3-4 more weeks!
I showed her how to do a neb treatment and a nebulizer machine that Almaz thought had been blown (due to the outlet/voltage issues) began to work again - We blew one up while trying to show her how to use it and then we tried the one already thought to be broken as a last resort and Almaz said a quick prayer out loud as we turned it on and it was this tiny, huge miracle to hear the loud humming come from the machine!! We were all amazed at God's provision! This helped me get out of the slump I was in this afternoon and see how good I have it!
Going to bed! Can't wait to see Tyler!!