A Day Out These 24 Children Will Not Soon Forget

I thank the Lord for our trip to Debrezeit! We made it!

We were 24 children (12-13 official Drop-In Center beneficiaries and 10-11 SAFE Project beneficiaries) and five staff and three guests! Indeed it was hard to control children. They are movable and cannot stay at one place.

Let me start one day before the trip…

All the staff was busy helping Abezu (Cook). It was an enjoyable time to have fellowship.

Early in the morning Mitu (Drop-In Center beneficiary), Emu (Staff), Soddo (Staff), Bisrat (Staff) and I went to the office. While they were arranging things, Bisrat and I went to pick up the children to bring them to the Drop-in Center. I drove all over Addis Ababa to bring far and late children. At the end we could not find two children (Nibrete and Edalawit). Nibrete went to beg with his mother and Edalawit went to countryside with her guardian for her guardian’s treatment.

Then we had breakfast together, gave clothes to all Drop-In Center children, passed out some rules for travel, and prayed.

We rented a big bus for all of us!

While we are going we stopped at some places and told the name of places and showed some new things to the children.

We arrived to Kurfitu (Debrezeit) and went near to the lake and stayed there for a while. All of them were excited to see a lake. We had a fun time with drama, Bible stories, songs, football (soccer), basketball, and jump ropes. We even visited an agriculture project where we saw cows, chickens, vegetables, and many other interesting things.

We came back to Addis Ababa around 6:00 p.m. and did one thing. Guess what?

We killed a sheep for a special dinner!

It was really fun to see children around the fire in the night. Each child got a chance to share about his life testimony and how they were exited about the trip. All of them thanked God and the children in America who gave them these gifts.

Yes, it was exciting! We had a bottle of Highland water for each child on the trip (this is a huge deal, because many of the children have never had bottled water and even some children beg for old Highland bottles); we brought a lot of Kollo (a special Ethiopian snack made from barley) to eat.

On that night I drove all the staff and some children to their houses. I realized that CHE staffs are from different directions. Emu, Mitu, and I came to the house at 10:00 p.m. in our time.

Wow, it was the busiest day and a wonderful day!

~ Nega Meaza
CHE Director, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Joe and Karyn Bridges

We are really just ordinary people who have fallen in love with the people of Ethiopia, especially the children. Many stats report that 100,000 of these children live on the streets of Addis Ababa. After experiencing this firsthand in 2006, we helped start The Forsaken Children, Inc., which exists to bring lasting hope to Ethiopia through these, Ethiopia's street children. We are all about partnering with Ethiopian ministries to carry out this task and have loved doing so with the Onesimus Children Development Association! We know that The Forsaken Children and Onesimus are not these children’s savior, but we know who is and aim to direct those whom God puts in our care to Jesus. We currently live in NC where Karyn is a stay at home mom and Joe is about to be a full time student at UNC - Chapel Hill (studying social work with an emphasis on international development). The loves of our lives are our three kiddos - Jack, McLaine, and Silas!

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