Team 2, Day 3 in Ethiopia....Headed to the Countryside

 We arrived out in Wolisso in the country to visit an orphanage and give them all new clothes and shoes. This area is very poor as are most all areas way out in the country. We drove for almost two hours and arrived to find a pocket of precious children tucked away down a long dirt road.

 We took in our donation bags and then brought the children in one by one to clothe them while some of the others played with the rest of them outside.

 The older girls so often times get over looked. I know some of these girls from our wait list in the past, who have since aged out of the system without ever getting adopted. They are older but young at heart and remain in this orphanage that they now call their forever home.

 As always the children outside the orphanage break our hearts. They live with nothing and always stand around at the gate in wait of us to turn in their direction. We attempted to clothe them with team 1 last week before it became to chaotic because there was so many of them. Oh, how I wish we could help them all!!

Each little one in the orphanage received a new outfit and a new pair of shoes.

It's amazing how a child can transform by just a new outfit. 

Precious!!

 Lauren attempted to dress the little girl above.......

She had her pink outfit all picked out, only to find out that she was a He!

 Did I mention that none of the children wear underwear and that is part of the outfit that we give them?

 This little guy was transformed and walked away very proud of it.

 All the little girls just LOVED their new outfits!!

And one by one they waited at the door and patiently came in to receive their new gifts.

Kate on our team became the expert face painter. All the boys LOVED their Batman faces!

 It was so sad because every time I looked out the window of the orphanage or through the gate, there sat the little waiting faces of the community. This is the community that we hope to set up a sponsorship program for.

 And in the end, all that was left was a trail of their old shoes that they gladly left behind...replaced by their new ones.

 They wanted our whole team to gather around to pray. The whole orphanage gathered in a circle and they put us in the middle. One of the older boys began to pray the most heart felt prayer I'd heard in Amharic as the others said "Amen" every other sentence with their heads bowed.

 They were all thanking God for sending us there to help them.

 Carol, our team member who prays for a living on the 700 Club, has the gift of prayer. She prayed a very powerful prayer in the end over these little ones.

 We all sadly said our goodbyes to these precious children who touched all our hearts. You could tell by the length and strength of their hugs that they were so utterly grateful.

 One man was so engrossed in the children's bible we passed out that he never even looked up. It was like he was soaking it all up as fast as he could.

 They all stood in their new outfits and proudly waved goodbye as we pulled out of the compound in our vans.

 And of course we were met by our favorite village residents outside the gate. Children had gathered as far as the eye could see. There were many more than even last time we were there. They ran behind our van until their little feet couldn't run anymore, with us passing out candy the whole way.

What beautiful children....what beautiful spirits.....what a beautiful day in Africa!

Next Blog post will be by Lauren....some street kids hit the Ordinary Hero Lottery by being picked to be taken back to the guest house for showers and new clothes.....Great things ahead!