We have successfully arrived in Ethiopia and are now in our hotels catching up on sleep (or trying to).
The plane ride over consisted of flying to Dallas, Texas for a night where I met everyone on the team and even tried my first Whataburger Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit (what?!) This deep fried chicken sandwich doused in honey butter reminded me that soon we will not have access to such luxuries in Addis Ababa with the exception of McDonalds, maybe.
After an early morning group Bible study, the staff members brought us up to speed on what to expect culturally, mentally, physically, and spiritually when staying in Addis. We then flew nine hours to our first stop, Frankfurt, Germany. We had the pleasure of watching the beautiful sunset and sunrise from the window with an unending twilight in between. We landed safely in Frankfurt where we loaded up on bratwurst, burgers, and coffee.
The next flight we took went from Frankfurt with a quick pit stop in Khartoum, Sudan. It honestly looked like Mars due to the smog. It felt like another planet. This was the first striking image that made me realize how far out of my comfort zone I am:
Once we arrived in Addis, we regrouped and were greeted with flowers by some of the staff members from the Great Commission Ministry. We packed ourselves tightly into a van with our luggage and headed to the hotel.
And here we are.
This is a link to a brief, 1:30 video diary of our travels thus far. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up, though the quality of the video may decline in the future for the sake of faster uploading time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOcV1u6ohbc&feature=youtu.be
Stay tuned for more!
