Dec. 16th, 2007

We arrived! (almost in one piece!heehee!) I think it was close to 9:00pm when we finally landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Wow, was that a long flight!! Stacy was able to catch a few z's, not me, I just sat and let my mind wander and cried on and off for almost the full 18hrs:)
Amazingly all of our luggage made it, halleluja! Now was the fun part... trying to load 6 families luggage onto the top of a van!! God bless Danny and Yohanas(sp?) They are master packers if you ask me! All of us then crammed into another van and off we went through the city to our hotel. I really was dilusional by thinking that I had read and seen enough pictures of Ethiopia to be prepared to see the city. I don't think you can truely prepare your heart and mind for seeing small starving children running along side of speeding cars, barefoot, begging for one burr(about 9 cents). It broke our hearts to say the least. But even in the midst of such poverty, these beautiful people were so lovely. Every single child and adult I met eyes with gave back the most heart warming smile. What lessons we Americans can learn! That was about it for that night..... and no, we did not sleep!