Team 1, Day 7...South to Hope Ethiopia site

We headed south to a different site in the country. There is a ministry called Hope Ethiopia that is doing great things for this south community so we decided to visit. The scenery on the way out there was just breathtaking. Africa is such a beautiful land.

 We arrived out to the site after driving one hour south and then another solid hour down a dirt road. I've never been that far down a dirt road before.

 We arrived to find some beautiful children living in this village.

 We pulled out arts and crafts, painted nails and played soccer with them.

 There were many kids who acted shocked to see us like they had not seen many people show up out of the blue like that and pull out the crafts in the middle of a field....I can't imagine why.

 This was the worst village I had seen with such a fly problem. The flies were covering some of the kids faces and we could hardly stand it.

 Some of the guys had a blast playing soccer with some of the older boys. These boys were good at soccer.

 Again, the fly problem was unthinkable.

 18 year old Christian, from TN, wiped off this little one's face.

 We then moved down to the bottom of the village where their office is gated off. We brought our bags of donations in and the kids lined up quickly before we knew it.

 Vanessa passed out some malaria nets as well. This area in the south is known for carrying Malaria. The Moms were so grateful to have the nets.

 Children came in one by one to get some clothes, shoes and whatever they could. Lauren and Tucker tried to wash off the boy's feet below and they found that his skin was like an alligator as they explained it. The dirt would not come off. It had become a part of him.

 None of the kids had any underwear and all their clothes were torn.

 Seeing that line and knowing we probably wouldn't have enough broke my heart. The kids kept coming and we didn't really have enough.

 In the end we passed out toys, school backpacks and whatever we could find. They pressed against the fence and the front gate so hard that they busted through it. That was when we gathered what little remained and headed to the vans. It was the saddest thing to see such a village with such need and have to leave some with nothing. I don't know if there is a worse feeling.  I can take some peace in knowing that there ARE many little ones with new clothes and shoes and we did make a difference with many of them. The need is so great!

 We realized when we headed out of the village that most of what we had left was little girl panties in a bag.

 So lo and behold, we all threw panties out the window to all the little girls we saw on the side of the road. It rained panties and they were so excited :) It also rained suckers and malaria nets and some clothes :)

They chased us for what we could give them. We occasionally stopped and dressed a little one. 

 We came back into Addis and made one last stop to Restoration Orphanage. There were many hearts in our group aching to see these kids one last time.

 The smiling faces and warm hugs from all the kiddos made a good end to a great day.