I got to sign it as a witness : )

Carrie and Tiba with all of the witnesses

Getinet's on the far left in the front...I wonder if he stood next to me on purpose : )

Beautiful Bride!

I also helped out with the worship for the wedding

It was very special to see Carrie get married.  She’d waited a long for Tiba.  If I had had the chance to give this speech, I would have.  Here’s a copy of it nonetheless…

Hi.  My name is Ruth.  I guess I represent Carrie’s family and friends since many of them couldn’t be here today.  Carrie and I have been friends since 2008 and up until very recently (as in today), we were roommates : )

I would not know Carrie if it weren’t for the country of Ethiopia.  I first met Carrie because she was the only person in the small town where I lived who had been to Ethiopia.  At the time, I was getting ready to move to Ethiopia for the first time and didn’t really know what to expect.  All I knew was that God had clearly called me to move to this country and I needed to follow His Lead.  My sister, who never goes to church, happened to meet a friend of Carrie’s when she was invited to go to church with a
friend.  My sister mentioned that I was moving to Ethiopia for the first time and the friend at church mentioned that she had a friend named Carrie who had lived in Ethiopia before.  So my sister got Carrie’s number for me.  I called Carrie, having never met her before, told her my story about how I was moving to Ethiopia and asked if I could ask her some questions.  She said to come on
over for dinner and I asked if I could bring my family.  She said yes.  So there we were…. my mom, my dad, my sister, and I, going over to the house of this girl we had never met to ask her questions about Ethiopia.  At first I thought we would bother her with our many questions, but I figured out pretty quickly that she LOVED talking about Ethiopia.  We kept asking her question after question.  I kept looking to see if she was tired of the questions, but she never was.  We spent three hours asking her questions.  When we left it was because we needed to go, but not because she was done talking about Ethiopia.  She could have kept going.

I got the sense from that first time of meeting with Carrie, that even though it had been a few years since she had lived in Ethiopia, she still really missed her life there, felt like she belonged there, and was just waiting for the day when God would call her
back.  And when I met Carrie’s friends, I could tell that they saw this in her life too.  It was obvious.  So in the two years that followed, when I would come back from Ethiopia, I would get together with Carrie.  She was still waiting on God for the right
timing when she would go back to Ethiopia.  When I came back, I found that I could relate to her better in how much she missed Ethiopia.  I missed Ethiopia too.  She was the only person around who truly understood what it was like to miss Ethiopia and I was so grateful to have a friend like her to relate to.

About a year ago, I was incredibly sick in America and not sure if I would ever return to Ethiopia, but I mustered up the strength to go to a class once a week at a local church that was about 30 minutes away.  It was very close to Carrie’s house and she would give me a ride.  We would talk in her car about God, Ethiopia, and how we hoped that God might call us both there.  I thought it was impossible given my health situation, and Carrie still hadn’t gotten her calling yet.  And we were both single.

As the year progressed, my health improved and Carrie and I both sensed God calling us back to Ethiopia at the same time.  It was wonderful to be able to share in the excitement of getting to go back to the country that we loved together!  God had chosen the same time for both of us to return to our beloved Ethiopia.

Shortly after I arrived in Ethiopia in October, Carrie started dating Tiba.  From the moment I arrived at Bole Airport and met Tiba for the first time, I had a hunch that something was going on between these two.  It’s been fun to watch their relationship
enfold and to share this new, surprising and wonderful chapter of life with Carrie.  This had always been Carrie’s dream—to live, marry, and settle in Ethiopia, although she didn’t know how or if it would ever happen.  So God has made this dream come true and I’m just so glad that she gets to do this with such a man as Tiba, who loves and cherishes her and is a man of God.  I know that we’re all looking forward to continuing to being a part of their lives and seeing all of the blessings that God has for them in the future.

The End : )

What you see when you walk in

Living Room

The Dining Room

Kitchen

Had to post a pic of the bathroom too : )

My Bedroom

Tiba, Carrie, Christine, and I

In about three weeks, I will most likely be moving out of this apartment and living with a friend.  I’m not sure where yet, so you can be praying for that.  So, I wish I had done this earlier, but I decided that it was finally time to post pictures of the place where I live.  When I first moved in, I had two roommates, Christine and Carrie.  Then Christine went back to the states and Carrie got married, so now it’s just me.

I live in a condominium/apartment complex.  I have really nice neighbors and I can always see them out and about in the compound.  The women work really hard here.  They are always washing clothes by hand, grinding coffee, cooking, taking care of children, hanging laundry, drying spices to make berberi, and many other tasks.  They amaze me.  I also love seeing the sweet little kids around.  They are so cute.  They smile at me, call me “farenj” (which means foreigner in Amharic), play soccer by my building, etc.  We also have a suk (a little shop that sells basic necessities), security guards and guard towers, and a slaughter house (a building where animals are slaughtered, usually before major holidays, both Muslim and Christian alike).

Getinet, our friend David, and I went to Kenya for five days last week.  We were gone from Monday to Friday.  The trip was good.  It was wonderful to meet my Compassion sponsored child for the first time.  More than that, it was great to bring Getinet to meet her and her family too.  It was really helpful to have another African along and he totally preached the Gospel to them.  They’re Catholic and we’re not sure if they have personal relationships with God or not.  Also, the ministry we visited is doing almost the exact same things that Getinet is doing at his ministry here in Ethiopia, so we asked lots of questions and got lots of practical advice.  We’re looking at expanding our ministry in similar ways.  And lastly, it was so encouraging to me because the whole ministry started with one woman’s vision to start Christian day cares for kids in poor neighborhoods and that’s exactly what I feel called to do.  So, I felt like God confirmed this calling and I feel new motivation to keep going on the day care!

The only bummer was that I did get some food poisoning.  Getinet got to see me throw up for the first time!  It was a bonding experience : )  But, I did recover quickly enough to fly back without being sick and I made an important discovery….if I take a strong probiotic (adding more good bacteria) instead of an antibiotic (which kills good and bad bacteria) it can cure my food poisoning often and it’s better for my body.  So, this was a great discovery and so encouraging that I didn’t have to take another antibiotic!

So, that was our trip!  Not sure why the formatting is so funky….Sorry!

About three weeks ago, Getinet, three friends, and I made our way south for three hours to the lovely lakeside town of Awassa.  The purpose was mainly to take a vacation, but we did do a bit of ministry as well.  We met up with Getinet’s good friend Josey, who is involved in ministry there and did some real touristy things.  We went to the fish market, went on a boat ride, went out to eat at some really nice restaurants, played card games, climbed to the top of a tower in the middle of the city, met Getinet’s sister and her two daughters, and just generally had a great time!  It was really good to get out of Addis for a few days.  Awassa feels more laid-back and relaxed than Addis.  We also went to a local church while we were there and we’re planning to come back and do more ministry there.  We’ll see what kind of doors God opens.  Lastly, it was also really good to take a road trip with my boyfriend and get a taste for how he is as a travel buddy : )

This is my new boyfriend Getinet : )  This is a recent photo of us in the gardens at The Sheraton Hotel in Addis.  He’s a friend of my friend Carrie’s fiance.  We met at the court house when they got legally married.  We started talking at a coffee shop and didn’t stop for about 2 hours.  Being with him is a wonderful surprise.  I wasn’t expecting to date an Ethiopian guy, but Getinet is different and he says the same thing about me : )

Getinet runs a local ministry here called Strong Hearts Ethiopia, focusing on Community Health Evangelism in the community of Kore, a very poor neighborhood in Addis where many people live off of the local trash dump.  We have many things in common.  We both love Jesus, children, the poor, and we were both in Navigators in college.  I’m still pinching myself that this is real as I’ve never been in a relationship quite like this one before.  I’ve dated other guys but this is the first on that I actually could see sharing a life with.

Please pray for us as we get to know each other better.

My Memories of Aunt Mary

                I’mwriting this because I’m halfway around the world in Ethiopia right now and I cannot grieve in the presence of my family members who knew Aunt Mary and probably also share some of these same memories of her with me.

It’s crazy to think that when I last saw Aunt Mary she was in such perfect health.  We had just celebrated her 90^th
birthday (I’m so glad we honored her in this way while she was so coherent) and I was coming down to Southern California one more time to say goodbye to people before I left for Ethiopia yet again.  I was so tired from the drive from Fresno to Glendale that I decided it would be best to stop and see Aunt Mary and skip the LA rush hour traffic and leave for Long Beach (to see my Dad’s parents) later in the evening.

I arrived at her home on Oak Knoll, we chatted for a bit, and then we went out to a nice local restaurant in the cute little town of Montrose where there’s one main street with cute little shops and restaurants on it.  I remember that I had a delicious salad (I so miss salad in Ethiopia!), that I can still sort of taste.  We talked about life.  I asked her if she had any plans to move out of her home and live with her friend Nell who had just suffered a recent stroke.  Aunt Mary was sort of taking over her care since she had no family in town.  How ironic that just a few months later, Aunt Mary would suffer a stroke and would
need the same kind of care and support.

Aunt Mary had this way of being timeless to me.  I remember I coveted her beautiful white hair and wished that hopefully when I was as old as she was that I would have such beautiful white hair instead of the brittle gray that’s more common.  Aunt Mary would talk about World War II like it was yesterday.  I loved that.  It reminded me that the history I studied in books was real, that real people lived during that time, and that they were human beings just like me.  Whenever I came to Aunt Mary’s house there was this sense that time stopped.  I would sit next to her on her pretty flowered couch with cushions that were starting to sag and I felt like we could talk for hours.  She would always ask about my family members
on both sides, ask about Grandma and Grandpa Gus (especially if I had just come from visiting them), how school and or work was going, etc.  Here’s a kind of history of my relationship with her.

It wasn’t really until I came back from living in Germany that I really felt like I got to know Aunt Mary as an adult.
Before that I think I still had a relationship with her like that of a child—a cute younger person to look at and smile at but not someone with whom I could have an adult conversation.  When I lived in Germany I got to know her nephew Burt, his wife Seble, and their two children Lucy and Mary (who was named after Aunt Mary).  Little Mary was born the year I lived in
Germany.  I went and visited them before and after she was born, once alone and once with my family when they came to
visit.  It was fun to get together with distant relatives who also knew Aunt Mary and talk about her and the life in
Germany that we shared.  Burt talked about Aunt Mary with such admiration.  I could tell that he loved and admired her very much, particularly in how she had continued to care for her husband Bob, who had been suffering from diabetes and
multiple sclerosis (MS) for years.  It was during this time that I realized that I needed to talk to Aunt Mary more
and get to know her better.

So when I came back from living in Germany, I was still going to school in Long Beach (just about an hour’s drive away from Glendale).  I made more of an effort to see Aunt Mary whenever I drove through Glendale.  I would sit on her flowered couch and she would tell me stories about World War II, the USO, moving to America, meeting Uncle Bob, getting married, having Jim, what it was like to live in America as a foreigner, her latest volunteer work and classes, her church, her groups of friends, etc.  One time I even went with her to her friend’s house (Jenny McDonald I think whose husband was best friends with Bob in school) where a bunch of older ladies were.  They also talked about World War II like it was yesterday!  I was very proud of Mary for finding such a wonderful group of women to be a part of and befriend for the many decades that
she lived in America.  She made a life for herself here, along with Bob and Jim of course, and found a home in America.  Which leads me to some of her stories…

Aunt Mary liked to tell stories about the past. She would tell the same stories to me whenever I came to visit her.  Sometimes she would repeat the same stories during the same visit, because she had forgotten that she told them to me.  Sometimes this would annoy me and would take more patience the second time around, but then I realized that I wanted to get
the story right and she loved telling them.  She lived by herself after Bob died and just loved to sit and chat.  Now I’m rather thankful that she repeated those stories, because I remember them better.  I’ll always regret not recording them on my MP3 player, but I want to type out what I do remember nonetheless….

Aunt Mary’s family was from Britain but she grew up in Brazil.  Actually I should go back further.  Before her family moved to Brazil, they lived in the Southern part of the United States.  They owned a plantation (Big bummer in my opinion) and after the Civil War when they lost their livelihood, they moved to Brazil, in hopes of a better future.  This is a bit controversial to me since they owned slaves and got wealthy on the backs of poor, trafficked Africans, but the past cannot be changed, only the present and future and I’m so grateful that we no longer have such slavery in the United States of America
(my thoughts).

So, Aunt Mary grew up in a large British family in the warm, tropical country of Brazil, in Sao Paolo (a place I’ve always wanted to visit!).  She was the youngest, I believe.  She grew up speaking English with her family and schoolmates and Portuguese with her maids and other locals.  She never completely forgot her Portuguese, even after living in the states for so long.  She said it came out most often in her kitchen.  Both of her parents died before she turned 18 and she lived some of the time with older siblings.  I don’t remember many details from her childhood, except that her brothers taught her to sail by pushing her out into the water by herself in a little sail boat (if I remember correctly).  She loved to sail and she and Uncle Bob would do this often together.  Uncle Bob even built a boat for them to sail in.

One time her parents and older siblings went to Britain/England for a time.  They were dropping two of their sons off at boarding school.  They lived in a hotel or small space for several months and Aunt Mary’s mom had to take care of a few
of their young children while her father worked and took care of other business.  The weather was horrible for those few months and Aunt Mary’s mother felt very isolated in that little place taking care of the kids by herself.  Aunt Mary’s mother gave her husband and ultimatum saying something about how she was going to go back to Brazil where it was warm and sunny and he could join her if he wanted.  Aunt Mary would laugh as she told that punch line.  Of course, they did go back to Brazil.

When World War II hit, she worked for the British Embassy doing secretarial and intelligence work.  She worked in a place that was hidden away from sight so that her work was a secret.  But she said that her work there was so boring for her, so she decided to quit.  She talked about how later she met up with her old boss who was shocked and somewhat horrified that she didn’t have her British citizenship while she was working for them.  He had assumed that since she spoke British English and came from a British family that she must already have her British citizenship.  It was a slight technicality but during World War II with so much intelligence work going on, it was a bigger deal.  So her old boss quickly processed her British citizenship for her and never told anyone above him that a woman who hadn’t been a British citizen had worked for the British Embassy!

I’m not exactly sure, but I think shortly after that she worked as a secretary in another position.  After her parents
died, it became very necessary that she work to earn her own living.  But not long after that, she was hired to work at the USO.  There were many American GIs in Brazil and few local Brazilians who spoke English, so there weren’t many people to choose from when hiring someone to work at the USO.  Aunt Mary said that she never had to apply for a job in Brazil.  People just knew about her and her skills and would call her up and ask her if she wanted a job.

So Aunt Mary entertained American GIs in Brazil during World War II.  Aunt Mary was always very beautiful, particularly in her younger days, and when I think of this time in her life, I try to imagine all of these homesick young American men who didn’t have enough pretty girls around to dance and talk with.  I’m sure that she got lots of attention!  She
told stories of dances and other things that she and her co-workers would arrange for the men.  I don’t remember all of the specifics.  I wish I did.  I hope someone does.

While Aunt Mary was working for the USO, she and an American GI fell in love and got engaged.  After World War II, she decided to move to America, Oregon to be specific, and live in the same town as her fiancé before they got married.  So she
made the long journey from Brazil to America to a tiny Oregonian town.  She lived with or very close to her fiancé and his parents.  But soon after she moved there, her fiancé decided that he wasn’t ready to get married and they broke off their engagement.  Aunt Mary said it soon became very awkward for her to stay in this town because suddenly everyone there knew that she was no longer his fiancée.  So, she soon left.  Decades later she said that she had a phone conversation with this man.  She said they had a pleasant conversation and I think they both realized that it was all for the best that they didn’t get married to each other.  He later married someone else and so did she.  That’s a wonderful story in itself.

So, there was Aunt Mary, in a foreign country by herself, and not sure what to do next.  I think it was shortly after this
that she moved to California and got yet another secretarial position.  She had planned or was thinking very seriously of returning to Brazil when she went on a weekend ski trip and met a very special man, my Great Uncle Bob.  They quickly fell in love, but they waited until after Bob’s sister, Martha (my grandma) married William Gustafson (my grandpa) to announce their engagement.

Aunt Mary liked to tell me the story of when she first met Bob’s parents (Nana and Papa).  They were a bit apprehensive that their son had decided to be with a Brazilian woman.  They didn’t know what to expect when first meeting Mary.  They weren’t sure what kind of a Brazilian woman she was.  Aunt Mary definitely sensed this when she first met them, but as soon as she told them that her family had lived in the Southern part of the United States, she noticed that they breathed a kind of sigh of relief (Aunt Mary always laughed at this part of the story).  Bob’s parents grew up in Texas and Mississippi and were very much Southerners, so the fact that her family had lived in a place that was familiar to them was a bit of a good sign.  Although I got the sense that Papa and particularly Nana maybe didn’t completely approve of Aunt Mary, as if there couldn’t ever be a woman who was good enough for their son.  It was just a sense I had though.  I don’t have much evidence.

Nonetheless, Aunt Mary proved herself to be a very devoted wife to Bob and more and more as time went on.  She married him knowing that Bob was infertile (from a childhood illness, I forget which one) and that they would never be able to conceive children together.  They adopted a beautiful baby boy named Jim.  Since I’ve always had a heart for adoption, I asked Mary what that process was like for her.  She said that adoptions at that time were always closed and she didn’t have much or maybe any contact with Jim’s birth mother.  She met Jim for the first time right after he was born.  When I asked her how she felt
about bonding to this brand new baby she said, “The moment I saw Jim, he was mine.”  (That’s for you Jim!)  I love that and hope and pray that when I adopt a child or more that I will feel the same, without any difficulty bonding with my new baby.

When I think about the marital vows, “in sickness and in health,” I think about Aunt Mary, my Grandma Gus, my Granddad Van, and my dad (Aunt Mary once said that my mom just fell in love with my dad, and that it had nothing to do with the fact that he came from a wealthy family.  I love that too, because it’s true.).  These are all people who have shown me the true meaning of sticking by a spouse in sickness and in health.  Their example both inspires and humbles me.  What a huge commitment!  Those vows are so very serious.  They mean to care for someone when they’re disabled, when they can’t go to the bathroom on their own, when they’re crying almost daily in pain, when they can hardly speak to you because of their
condition.  With Uncle Bob’s diabetes and multiple sclerosis, Aunt Mary showed the true promise of her words to stick by
Uncle Bob in sickness and in health.  She became his advocate, his caregiver, and a lifeline for him to keep going, no
matter what the day held.  I’ll always be grateful to her for showing such devotion. This is my greatest and most precious memory of her and will always be my first thought of her whenever I think of her and her life.  I think it is her greatest legacy.

At the moment, I am dating a wonderful, Godly Ethiopian man and as I start to contemplate the possibility of marrying him and all that means, I will remember Aunt Mary and Uncle Bob and think of the words “in sickness and in health.”

So thank you Aunt Mary, for wanting to befriend me as an adult and telling me all of your wonderful stories.  Thank you Aunt Mary for showing me that in
marriage when the going gets tough, the tough get going.  Thank you for all of your wonderful hosting of our family for Christmas mornings and other special gatherings.  Thank you for being such an example to me of what it means to age gracefully and with dignity.  Thank you for joining our family, our community, and our country.  I’m so glad that you didn’t go back to Brazil so that you could be a part of us in this way, although I still hope to visit your Brazil one day.  I’m sorry that I didn’t get to say goodbye to you in person.  This is the best that I can do for now.  May you enjoy the wonderful Light of Jesus in Heaven and all of the people you love there!  Someday, I’ll be there with you too!

Love,

Your Grand Niece Ruthie

Evening Ceremony

View from my window. They danced and sang!

My neighbor friend showed me around : )

I love the colorful umbrellas!

Timket was on January 20th.  Timket means Epiphany.  It’s a celebration of Jesus becoming a human being, His baptism, and something to do with the Ark of the Covenant but I’m not sure what exactly.  It’s an Orthodox holiday and my roommates and I had the privilege of watching the whole procession go by our apartment.  We just happen to live on the road that they take from a local church to the central square of the city.

It was very moving to watch.  I was surprised to find myself a little teary-eyed.  The Orthodox Church has its origins from the book of Acts when Phillip converted an Ethiopian eunuch.  It’s amazing to think of all that a eunuch could do : )  I don’t agree with everything about the Orthodox Church here, but I can’t help but notice the level of devotion Orthodox Christians have to God.  This ceremony obviously meant a lot to the people participating.

Here he is!

This is a picture of the sweet boy who looks for me as I come down the stairs and runs out of his house and says “Hi!”  His sweet hello reminds me that every day is a good day simply because it was given to me as a gift.  Thanks Amonyal!  You light up my day!  BTW, he loves looking at this picture : )

This was the view out of my window one night.  It’s the African Union building all lit up with the full moon.  So pretty!!!!  It was magical!!!

Rwandan Sunset!

Carine and I with my new dress.

Love this picture! Wish it wasn't upside down!

So, I’ve felt like a bit of a spoiled American lately, because I’ve been to three countries in the course of a month.  Rwanda was my third.  Right after I spent three days in Uganda, I took a short flight across Lake Victoria to Kigali, Rwanda, where my friend Carine and her three kids live.  I met Carine during my first year in Ethiopia.  We were in the same Home Care Group together.  We quickly related to each other because we had both just moved to Ethiopia and were getting used to things together.  We also had wonderful times of prayer and fellowship and I loved hanging out with her 3 kids.

After a year of living in Ethiopia, Carine and her husband felt like they should move their family to Rwanda.  Both Carine and her husband are Rwandese but grew up in Congo.  So much to the sadness of our Home Care Group, they moved away, but we never forgot them.  Carine is one of my African mamas and I knew that I really wanted to visit her and her family sometime.  I was so excited when the opportunity came up!

So, I spent three days with Carine and her three kids.  We had a great time of just being together, talking about the Lord, praying, going to church, and just sharing life with each other.  The kids have become more and more beautiful and lovely.  We also got to go swimming in the “Hotel Rwanda” pool and Carine had a dress made for me.  Altogether, we had a great time and we have hopes of seeing each other again sometime soon, maybe even for a vacation in another country nearby.  That would be so fun!