Hard to depart

My last few nights in Addis Ababa was some of the best and some of the hardest. In Korah, a looked over community by the city, and the poorest in all of Addis if not all of Ethiopia. They had shown all of us what it is like to serve as they warmed water with a fire they had to start, then washed all of our feet. As they did this, I cried for the most part of twenty minutes. My heart was just broken. I held this one little girl by the name of China who was just the most beautiful girl you would ever lay your eyes on during the whole process. As I held her she was holding me as I cried. They honored a wonderful lady who spent most of her time giving to the community. She was their very own Mother Threasa.
Two nights later they would do the same thing to a lady by the name of Kala and myself, except for the foot washing. We were so honored by their actions. These who are the least of these were spending their money and honoring us. I was broken again. What a night it became.
They gave us shoes and Ethiopian outfits to take back home with us. What wonderful people with big hearts to help their own people.
I have to go back a few days to share this that is on my heart. June 28th we went to the community called Korah. Korah is a over looked community that started out deep in the woods for those with leapercey. A british doctor opened this colony up to heal those with leapercy. Now the city has grown in the last thirty or more years, and lepercy is no longer an issue there, but HIV/AIDS is as big there as anywhere else. People live on less than a dollar a day there. Houses are made of nothing but mud and sticks. People who use to have lepercy no longer have it, but show the scars of it. Some no fingers, some no hands, some no legs or even eyes. Children are sent to work as shoe shiners, gum sellers, or anything else they can sell. Sadly some have to go as low as selling their own body just to feed their family. This spreads the dease of AIDS even faster. As we were visiting some of the houses, (Sammy who grew up in the community still lives there and is giving back to the children there by teaching the english for school and getting them sponsored to go to school), shared with me about two of the teenagers there had contracted AIDS due to prostitution. My heart broke. Why? Why these little girls. I wanted to tell Sammy to lead me to them so I could just wrap my arms around them to show them that they are still beautiful and loving. Wrap my arms around them and pray with all of my heart that God would heal them completely.
That day I left changed.
We would later return to Korah, but only for a few hours that day. We set off to Uganda and spent three hours on the road from Entebbe to Jinja. The next day we went and spent the whole day with Katie Davis () and all of her children and the many children who are blessed with the word, food, and fun. Then we were off to a small little town called Pallisa, Uganda.