Friday, June 30th

With our official teaching work completed it was time to observe what God has been doing in Addis. We began by visiting the Hope Enterprise headquarters. It is here that 660 children are fed every morning. Before breakfast the kids sang a song to us in Amharic and Jeff "Active Learning" Zwiers led a rousing round of "Deep and Wide" which, of course, included hand motions. The team then participated in serving breakfast to the kids. This daily feeding is a great work that Hope Enterprise has been doing in Addis for many years.

Following the feeding we were taken to the Hope School in Addis which, like the school in Dessie, provides an education for the poorest of the poor from grades K-10, as well as two years of vocational training. The school is set on a large piece of land with excellent facilities that serve over 800 students. We spent a good portion of our visit observing the amazing vocational training facilities. Highlights included visits to the Wood Works, Electrical Technology, and General Mechanics programs.

When we returned to the Hope headquarters for the lunch feeding of adults one of our team members, Noelle, decided to sponsor two children who regularly attend the morning feeding program. It was awesome to see this outpouring of compassion for the poor.

Heidi Sherry inspired and organized our afternoon visit to Ellilta-Women at Risk, a ministry to prostitutes. In the afternoon we visited their headquarters and met their director, Cherry, a women with a life changing ministry. Currently her organization is working with about twenty prostitutes in a program that provides them with counseling, job training, and Christian mentoring.

We finished our day with a visit to the Crown Hotel where we enjoyed great Ethiopian food and Ethiopian folk dancing from different regions in the country.

Steve Hammack
12th Grade Physics and AP Biology Teacher