Economies of Desperation (A field visit to Tigray and Afar)

Gash Tareka Gebreyesus

 "Man tends to regard the order he lives in as natural. The houses he passes on his way to work seem more like rocks rising out of the earth than like products of human hands. " I have been listening to Chezlow Milov's book The Captive Mind about life in Poland under Stalinism. In it, he is answering the question of a friend about whether or not Americans are really 'stupid'. 

I am hearing this on the week that Rebecca and I have planned a field visit to emergency projects in Tigray and Afar. Milov's point is that people who have not lived through a time of civil violence and war in their communities, such as existed in Eastern Europe in WWII, have a false sense of a 'status quo' that is basically just, and that any disruption of this 'normalcy' is assumed to be a temporary state that eventually must be rectified--brought back into balance. To see a corpse on the road or a neighbor's house blown open, daily, as a matter of course, changes that perspective. One loses the sense that the world is just or good. One simply does one's best to survive and ceases to believe there is a 'normal' that is better than what they are living.

The sense of a truly 'unjust' world greeted Rebecca, David, and me on our trip to northern Ethiopia to the wartorn Tigray region where we spent two days, then continued back south to the neighboring Afar region--one of the most brutal environments on the planet, home to nomadic people who subsist on goat milk, where temperatures regularly exceed 40C (105f). Both regions have been experiencing near-famine conditions due to extreme drought, this following several years of war. There is little evidence of a 'just' status quo or any idea of a return to 'normalcy' in the haunted eyes of the people we met there.

The reason David was with us was because it was his spring break, and while it is nice to take a snorkeling vacation from time to time, this week, Rebecca and I needed to do some monitoring of our projects and felt like it would be a good idea for David to see some of the work we do. (We took Oren on a similar trip last year.)

Getting to Tigray and Afar is best accomplished by plane, as it has become increasingly risky to travel outside of Addis into Oromia where there have been multiple kidnappings. And Amhara zone is impassable as well. Nonetheless, two of our staff, Wonde and Solomon, took the Landcruiser 2 days in advance and drove a circuitous route to Me'kele, the capital of Tigray, to meet our family, and our food security programs manager Gulma, who arrived by plane. We flew early on a Sunday morning and they met us at the airport in time to pick us up and take us to church. 

The reason we wanted to arrive on a Sunday is because our partner in this region is the Meserete Kristos (Mennonite church) Development Commission (MKCDC), and we wanted a chance to greet the local congregation before going out to the woredas where our project is running. Our flight arrived on schedule and we met our colleagues on time to get to the service and were even given a certificate of appreciation during the service.

Afterward we had an amazing traditional habesha lunch--- the best lamb tibs I think I have ever eaten, along with delicious shiro, spinach, and other accompaniments. We made it a quick lunch because then we needed to head out of town to do our first monitoring visit.

Bizuayehu led our expedition. He is the project manager for the cash transfer project we are doing to help about 3000 people with about $33 per month (for 3 months)--enough to buy a month's worth of rations (50 kgs of cheap grain like maize or barley). While crops have failed, it is still possible to get food in the market imported from other regions as long as one has money. Because of the war, all social safety net programs have failed in this time of drought, so there is almost no hope for those without means or money. Our contribution covers less than 10% of the needs in the 3 Woredas where we are running this program, but it is better than nothing.

Fortunately, the local govt. officials in the woredas have a list of the most vulnerable people in each village which can be readily distributed to organizations able to provide humanitarian relief. On our first stop, a town about 2 hours from M'ekele on difficult roads, we talked to some local farmers about the cost of food and fertilizer. We then talked to 5 local govt. officials. They admitted that their job felt nearly hopeless as they were not able to meet the needs of the most vulnerable households in their community. But they were grateful for the support we offered. They did say the govt. offers about $8 per month to a scaled-down number of the most vulnerable households, for a limited timeframe for each recipient. That is all they can do.

We interviewed several recipients of cash transfers in the first village we visited. Here are some of the stories from Rebecca's trip report. 

Behihu Desalegn is 66 years old. Dressed in a matching aqua suit and blanket, he talked to us about his 5 children and how he was able to survive with them, thanks to the cash transfer he received. He bought barley with the money. He’s a farmer but there was no rain for the last two years and so now there has been no production. He came to town to buy fertilizer like many of the people we met and hopes to plant teff, barley and wheat. He affirmed that in the past, they experienced drought once every 10 years. But drought years have become more frequent recently, and now it’s moved from once every 8 years, to once every 5 years.

Hadesh Hailemariam, 32, is a woman head of household. Her husband left her with their 4 children, ages 12, 8, and twin 4-year-olds. She makes a living braiding hair and collecting firewood for sale. She received 5625 ETB ($100) over 3 months and used it to buy sorghum and barley. Normally, people prefer to eat teff, but right now it’s far too expensive, and so Hadesh, like most desperate people, is just buying the cheapest grain she can afford. She said that she has no words to express what the money meant to her. She was hopeless and then received aid. She hopes that somehow, she could get a loan to open her own beauty salon and braid hair full time as a job. She was born in Saharti and has lived here all her life; she has no desire to migrate to a city as many others have done. She’d like to try to make a living at home.

Bertawit Leul shared with us that she has 5 kids and is raising them on her own because she is divorced. When we asked her children’s ages, she said the oldest is 18. She used to earn a living by making local beer, T’alla, but due to poor health, she can’t do that work anymore. And then as she kept sharing, she confided that she had lost her 18-year-old son in the war. This is what happened: two Amhara soldiers came to her compound. One of them kicked her to the ground; the other said that he was going to rape her. She begged him not to, saying that she is HIV+ to try to dissuade him. But the soldier raped her anyway, and then they stole all her property. Her son witnessed this atrocity and was devastated with anger. He joined the TPLF army and was sent down on the offensive against Afar. He was killed at Chifra (Afar). 

We interviewed a half dozen people and most reported losing a child or loved one in the war, and the desperation of crop failure resulting from the drought. We heard reports that over 120 people had actually died of hunger in the woredas where we were working. 

The road to and from the first woreda we visited was long and very rough. We returned at about 6:30pm in the evening. We had a decent hotel room, had a light dinner, and went to bed. 

The next day we went to a second woreda (Gera Alta), equally far away to the north, an area particularly hard hit by drought. We drove into the central street of the small town of Tsigereda and found a crowd of people gathered around the bank. They had all been registered to receive their first cash transfers (2 months’ worth) and were going to pick up money at the Wagagen bank branch. We entered the bank to meet some of the people who were withdrawing their money.

I appreciated how systematically beneficiaries were selected in collaboration with officials in the woreda and the pains the bank takes to register each one and open a bank account for them. Each person has a bank book and the cash transfer is done right into their account. They can either withdraw it all or over time. This gave us a lot of confidence in this method of providing relief. 

We talked to Timnit Desta, a distinguished and solemn older lady sitting in line. She was holding her bank book proudly, and very thankful to be getting some money. She has 9 kids who are mostly older and live in other parts of the country, not able to support her. 

After visiting the bank, we headed to a nearby community to visit some of our beneficiaries at their homes and talk to them about the challenges they face and how (and if) the cash transfers are helping. We particularly wanted to be sure there was sufficient food in the market to be able to buy something if they had money. 

Here are a few stories Rebecca recorded during our visit:

We first stopped at the home of Atsede Tadesse, who is 46 years old. Her face is thin and drawn and her inner pain shows clearly on the outside. She has 5 children, 4 older boys and finally a girl. Handeya Getet, 7, hung close to her mother and observed us carefully as we talked together. We learned that her 18-year-old, Fetele Getet thankfully did not go to the war, so she still has her oldest son. But there is no husband in the picture. Atsede has some farmland, but she has never used it and it is not producing. She really was living hand to mouth for the past few years, depending on the safety net program and begging from neighbors. The money she received came at the right time. She got 2 months disbursement at once and was about to buy 100 kg of maize for 3800, leaving her enough money to take the grain to the grinding mill.  The one good thing in her life is that she has a solid Hidmo house, passed down from her mother. And she is fortunate to live close to a handpump.

We moved further into the countryside and next stopped to talk with Abrihet Kiros, 27. We learned right away that Abrihet does not even have a home of her own. She is currently living in a stone house that a neighbor is letting her use for free because she had nowhere to go. If the neighbor kicks her out, she has no money to pay rent, so she prays this will go on for a while. She came from a community farther away. During the war, Eritrean soldiers came to her home and stole everything from her. It’s possible that even worse things happened but she didn’t say. She was living on the street with her two children, Abel Guursh (6) and Yonas Kahasai (9 months), begging for dry injera from her neighbors. For a while, her younger son was very sick. We could see that Abrihet herself is impossibly thin, and yet she is still trying to breastfeed her baby. She was not getting any support from the government, so she had to take a loan from someone to try to buy food. When she got the cash transfer, she had to use half of it to start repaying the loan. So she could only buy a little bit of maize, and after that, she had no money left to take it for grinding. She has no choice but to simply roast the maize and try to eat it whole. With controlled anger and frustration, she picked up the few grains of maize she had in front of her, showed them to us and then flung them back into the bowl. It is hard to imagine a young woman in worse circumstances, and so greatly at risk of starvation herself. 

We returned to M'ekele in the afternoon and had an evening meal at the restaurant we loved so much with some elders from Meserete Kristos church. They were deeply appreciative of MCC's efforts to relieve some of the suffering from drought. 

The next morning Solomon, Wonde, Rebecca, David and I set off for our next stop, Semera-- the capital city of the Afar region. Honestly, it seemed strange that we were taking one of the roads that must have been the main assault route of the TPLF two years ago when they were trying to cut off the port of Djibouti from Addis Ababa. It is a decent highway, and fortunately is not difficult to travel since the signing of the peace treaty. It was hard not to think that many of the people we met probably lost brothers and sons on this route as many TPLF fighters were killed along the border between these regions. 

Afar, like Djibouti, looks like an otherworldly desert. Some areas feature tumbles of black volcanic rock, resembling piles of broken asphalt; in other places the soil dry and sandy. One thing which grows in abundance is 'Prosipis Juliflora' also known as mesquite. It is an invasive plant, introduced from Central America in the 1960s to increase soil stability. It has taken over almost all arable land in the Afar over the past 40 years as it has no enemies here and grows like kudzu in Alabama. It cuts out the niche required by grass for grazing land. 

It is hard to believe anything can grow in the dry heat in Afar. It is really hot and dry! We arrived in Semera in the afternoon without incident. We stayed at a place that is supposed to be a 'resort' but the only thing it had going for it was AC in the rooms. It is Ramadan right now and Afar is a Muslim region, so finding a place to get lunch during the day was not easy. The hotel also had a number of dignitaries staying there as well so we spent a lot of time around armed soldiers in all of the lounge areas. 

We did manage to get dinner and went to bed early. We were up very early the next morning to meet Muhammed, a program manager from APDA, our Afar partner. The project we were planning to see was a food distribution. APDA made us aware that there were many young pregnant women who were so weak from hunger that they would die in labor. There were also many malnourished children under 2. We had arranged to have enough FAMIX (a supplement for PLWs and children) to feed 1500 pregnant women for 2 months. 

The intervention site was about 5 hours south of Semera in a Woreda called Burimudaiyto, which has been badly affected by drought which has killed livestock and crops, although the Awash river runs through it. We went off-road for about an hour and came to one of 9 distribution points where APDA health extension officers were just beginning a distribution. There was a crowd of women and children around who had been selected by arm circumference for supplementary feeding. They received 15 Kgs of FAMIX and 5kgs of sugar per malnourished mother or baby. 

It was very clear that the children were malnourished, and we were told there had been a measles outbreak and many of the children were recovering but extremely frail. 

We talked to several women. Here is Rebecca's report:

Adeh Hamed has two children, Erbe Musa (4 years old) and Mohammed Musa (2 years old). Her younger child is no larger than most children 9 months old. He was just recovering from measles, like many children in the community. The measles outbreak in the community has been a major risk factor in increasing malnutrition among children under 5, as it weakens the immune systems of young children and decreases appetite. Last week 5 young children died; 2 died this week in the woreda.

We asked Adeh why it is so hard to get food right now. Her first concern is that there is no good way to get treatment for their sick children. MCC Partner APDA trains local people to be village health workers. They are able to give basic training on prevention, hygiene, and maternal and child health. They can treat simple health problems. But they are not doctors. And because of the difficult conditions in this area, government health workers are not excited to be out in the rural health stations. They stay in town and it is almost impossible to get health services near this settlement.

Hasooni Hamed doesn’t know her exact age -- perhaps she is 20? She has 7 children, 3 boys and 4 girls. She was holding her youngest child, Fatuma Dula (18 months). She explained that her family has no income now and can’t buy food when their livestock has no value at the local market. There has been no rain and no grass with which to fatten their animals. When a woman like Hasooni receives 30 kg of Famix for herself and her severely malnourished child, she will not be able to horde it for herself and her baby. Any mother would certainly have to share the food with her other hungry children because there is no other food in the house. But by sharing her food, Hasooni will not be able to recover from malnutrition. 

Asiyah Hamed (blue dress) also showed us her 2 year old daughter, Asaukah Manda. The child’s skin was still peeling as she was recovering from a measles infection she got last month. The APDA health workers will join a government team tomorrow to go house to house, on a vaccination campaign against measles. The government has the resources to organize a mobile cold chain, but APDA has the local health workers, recruited from their own communities and trained, who can lead the government staff to the households that need their help. 

When we finished our visit, we stayed the night in the town of Gewane, the closest place to the project site. The plan was for Wonde and Solomon to continue back to Addis Ababa by road, while Rebecca, David and I returned to Semera to fly back. We did so the next morning and had time to spend several hours in the APDA office in Semera and do several administrative tasks related to monitoring and partner updates. 

We had a leisurely lunch in a restaurant then were dropped off at the Semera airport and flew back to Addis, to arrive around supper time. 

It was good to be back and see the dogs and cat. Fortunately, Bereket had been off of school that week and spent time with them at the house. We are coming back to a lot of work as our fiscal year closes on March 31st. We will try for another update when we can get our heads above water again. 

Top of the month (and what's below the surface)

Tacazze Sunbird and hibiscus at the Sheraton

Since we returned from Uganda, we have had some fairly quiet weeks back in Addis Ababa – at least quiet on the surface. We’re on a plane again, on our way to Mek’ele for a work monitoring visit and we will have stories to tell about this trip in a blog of its own. So, I need to at least publish a place-holder blog post about the last few weeks.

Orienting Gulma

On the first Monday of March, Paul and I were able to take a day off. That’s because a national holiday fell on Saturday, and we typically close the office the following Monday in order to give our staff the time off they need. I was very thankful to have a day of solitude at the Sheraton, with a great swim, a nap, a time to admire the garden birds, especially the little beeeater I don’t usually see in the city.

Unknown flowering tree
and pool in the background

The next day, we welcomed our new Food Security Programs Manager Gulma Tekeste. When we sadly accepted the letter of resignation from Mesfin, we had to mount a rapid recruitment for his replacement in January. We were very happy that Gulma applied for the position, moving over from his past work with one of our MCC partner organizations, the Meserete Kristos Church Development Commission. Gulma has a background in Plant Science and more than 15 years of project management experience with World Vision and MKCDC.

There’s a lot of work in orienting a new staff member, and each one of us had a role to play, from discussing financial procedures to going through every project and every line of the national staff policy handbook. Mesfin came for a visit to “the family” and helped Gulma with background he will need on each of the partners and projects. It was nice to include him in teatime and lunch that day as well.

Ordinary evening playing HORSE

Solomon and Wondwesen were actually away for the whole week, accompanying a local photographer and journalist who is on contract with MCC to collect stories. This month, we are doing some cautious travel, only in the middle of the day, to nearby cities where our partners work. In January and February, things were very tense as one of the armed groups in the country declared a moratorium on all travel outside of Addis, threatening murder and mayhem if one tried. But that moratorium seems to be over – nothing is ever officially declared, which does not make for a very relaxed situation. And it also matters who you are. Our Ethiopian staff feel more secure to travel short distances, but don’t want to have any foreigners in the car. Thus, the necessity of contracting a local photographer instead of bringing someone in from North America.

Times with good friends

Wednesday get-together

So, while we are penned up in Addis, we remain so thankful for some great friends we’ve made here in Ethiopia. David gets together weekly with his group of buddies at one place or another. Last month, they were working on sawing up bamboo and lashing it together. This month, I got out the clay from Ash Wednesday and gave it to the kids to work with. They love playing spikeball and other outside running, yelling games. Peter has been host of several very fun Minecraft parties, which gives us parents time to talk as well.

We’ve had a couple of really nice weekend evenings around a firepit. Granted there is too much very serious conversation about the state of the nation, what will happen here, possibilities of sudden, disruptive transitions, concern over our kids’ education, etc. I don’t have photos of most of the occasions, but there have been several evenings with Polks and Kempens. We had a lovely time with the Kontra family following our last youth group gathering in March. Paul and Yemi are so fascinating to talk with as they bring a unique perspective, very integrated into Ethipian culture, and also having many years of living in China. David really loved hanging out with their son, too.

Saturday night cookout

And we were very happy to welcome Lukas and Hana back to Ethiopia after a year away to complete their studies. We got some of our old bible study members back together one Sunday afternoon to share with each other and pray. And then Hana and Lukas were able to stay a bit longer to play a game with us.

Activities week

After two weeks of exams, And then a 1.5 day break, David’s class went off to Activities week in the nearby by town of Bishoftu. This year, they really scaled back the program because of the many security issues we are dealing with. No one went to the ordinary far-flung locations, and each grade spent just 3 days in two shifts. We had some questions about security going out of Addis, but were reassured from various sources that it was reasonably safe for our kids to stay at the mission compound on Lake Babogaya. 

Homemade sushi before activities
week

We have no photos to show for it. But we know that David’s grade 9’s joined Grade 11 in staffing a kids’ camp for children from the Government school just next to Bingham. The Bingham girls and all the Birhan Ber kids stayed in the cabins. The Bingham boys slept in tents. David expressed how glad he was to finally have learned to set up a tent by himself, and he enjoyed staying in the big tent by himself. He also really enjoyed the time with his classmates. He had more of a challenge enjoying the service aspects of the 3 days. But he could tell that the younger Ethiopian kids had a great time. Everyone returned home exhausted.

While David was gone, Paul and I snatched 24 hours for a very brief required renewal leave. We dropped him off at school (having forgotten to remind him to pack about 12 essential things! It’s hard to be working and also to parent well) 

And then we drove downtown to the Hilton hotel – we had just signed a corporate agreement with them and got a pretty good rate. Immediately we needed a nap. Other highlights included some good laughs playing minigolf at the ridiculous little golf challenge, viewing the art gallery,  a drink on the terrace at sunset, a good dinner with no dishes afterwards, a night swim in the wonderfully hot geothermal pool. The gym there is fantastic, and a good morning workout also was refreshing, along with the amazing breakfast buffet that includes cheese, dried fruit and nuts. We finished up with some time to reflect and pray and then went back to work by lunchtime. It was short, but much needed.

The other 2 evenings of  David’s absence were not so restful or romantic. On Wednesday afternoon, shortly after getting back to the office, I took our housekeeper Yeshi for her final follow- up visit with the surgeon. We are grateful that she has healed up so well after knee surgery. Now she has to do the hard work of rebuilding strength and stability. She started physical therapy yesterday, and may be able to return to work in April.

Church movements

Teens playing spikeball in the compound outside
the NLM Chapel where we had our
Annual General meeting

On Thursday after work, I headed into town for a church meeting. And that is actually a subject for great Thanksgiving, but it requires a brief history first. In the late 1950’s the English-speaking International Lutheran Church (ILC) was planted, and in May 1963, the congregation completed and inaugurated a sanctuary in the Lideta neighborhood. Shortly after, they began to invest in planting an Amharic-speaking congregation, supporting an evangelist and then a pastor for many years. ILC developed the church buildings and built a home for the Amharic speaking pastor, and it was their prayer for many years that this church plant would grow and be a self-sustaining congregation. Over the years, that prayer has truly been answered.

In the past months, our church leadership has been dealing with more and more questions having to do with sharing space with the Amharic-speaking Lideta congregation. They are huge and vibrant and use every space on the compound all week long. It would really help them if they could start their services earlier, but our congregation can’t meet any earlier than 8:45 and we need until 10:15 am.

Farewell to Kai and Kristiina in the NLM chapel

Finally, we woke up to reality in January: we must decrease so they can increase. We had two very significant congregational meetings to talk about how the growth of Lideta congregation is an answer to the mission and prayers of our spiritual forbears; to encourage their further growth, we should look for a new space in which to meet. This kind of decision will put us in a place of being renters somewhere, rather than owners, with less security. The NLM space is a bit small for us and not perfect for Sunday school, but good enough. Yet the move will give us more of a sense of sharing in the work of God’s kingdom by making room. At the very same time, we were able to meet in an underutilized, small, cozy chapel at the Norwegian Lutheran Mission compound for those congregational meetings. And this space has been made available to us at just the right moment. The congregation decided that we would be ready to move, as long as the Lideta congregation would give us their blessing to do so.

So we had 2 very sensitive meetings. In the first we shared the above history and our observations about Lideta’s growth, our thanksgiving to God for that, and then our sense that the Holy Spirit was calling us to go. The mood in the room went from warm and earnest to palpable shock in the room of Lideta elders as we broke that news. But immediately, a few of them were able to thank God that we were listening when the Spirit was speaking. Often, churches part ways over conflict; we assured them that they had not wronged us in any way. Other elders were too surprised to know what to say. We anticipated this, and asked to meet again after they had a chance to process and think it over on their own.

Meeting with Lideta elders

And so we hosted a second meeting this past Thursday evening, and it was such an answer to prayer to hear their response. They understood our motivation, warmly gave their blessing, requested that we have a joint celebration as part of our closure of this chapter of our shared history (something we were hoping for but hadn’t yet suggested), accepted the same day that we had already thought of, and finally, expressed a deep desire to come to our new place of worship on our first official day there at NLM to pray for us. God has been so good to us in the process. This decision was announced in our service this morning, so I think I am free to share it here. It has been such a satisfying part of ministry to be part of a big decision in our church and we are excited about what the future holds.

Women's bible study farewell for Hannele

Sadness and Rage

The final realities of our life here are two-fold. The first is sadness at the transience of everything. That is always the case for those of us on the mission field. But this season, many, many long-time missionaries are departing from Ethiopia. One of the most significant to us is the Secchia family, who have been amazing community builders, attended our congregation often in the last two years, and with whom we have enjoyed joyfully making music at choir and on the worship team. Hannele was one of the co-leaders of the women’s bible study I attend. Another significant loss is an ordained Lutheran priest and his family; Rev. Kai helped us often with Holy Communion, with preparation for baptism in the Lutheran tradition, and Kristiina is someone who really knows how to pray and minister. Many others are also departing and I can’t name them all. Teachers from school are leaving; other families from our youth group are leaving; I’m sure there are people leaving and we don’t even realize it yet.

Many of these decisions are indirectly related to the state of the country. And that leads me to the deep anger we are living with all the time. How many times have I mentioned the security situation above? It’s so frustrating that we can’t visit our partners; that they can’t do their work.

Expensive mustard

And then there’s the economy. One of our partners has been working the past 3.5 years, trying to address the massive hygiene problems at government schools in the town of Ziway. Schools with almost 2000 students had NO latrines built for girls. ZERO. Imagine open-defecation at that population level.  This church-based local NGO decided to work on building adequate latrines for students. Their intervention has really decreased illness, increased school attendance and improved morale at the schools. But between 2021 and 2024, the cost of building an improved latrine has increased by 400%. The plans that we made together last year for a new phase are impossible now, because of the high cost of imported goods. All this is related to a lack of foreign currency in the country and a distorted bank exchange rate on the dollar (about 1/3 now of the actual free market value). We can’t get any more dollars to help our partner fulfill their agreement with the government. The only choice is to scale back or stop. It’s the same story with our partner that drills wells for communities in Amhara, communities where women currently spend 4-5 hours a day walking to fetch water. Imported well building materials are too expensive; but actually that’s a moot point because there is active war happening in the communities where the well-drilling was planned. No wells any time soon.

Fleeing to the hammock

The economic woes of Ethiopia filter down to us personally in trivial ways, like a bottle of normal yellow mustard costing $30 USD. Or the Chinese lawnmower we finally had to break down and buy: $79 USD on Amazon and $800 in Addis. But our gardener was developing real back problems trying to use the manual push mower.

How about our car? Every was properly paid and processed, even duty was paid, it was cleared in November, and then blocked again suddenly. It’s been sitting in Djibouti ever since. It has cost our office at least 3-5 person days a week, as we have tried every possible avenue to get a waiver for the car and get it imported. Meanwhile, I am not allowed to own binoculars, with which I might have experienced the joy of bird-watching in the Horn of Africa. They are too dangerous as optical instruments.

These are all just annoyances, compared with the impossibly high price of staple foods like teff, or the thousands of displaced people flooding into Addis to just live on the streets and beg at traffic intersections. They have come from horrible situations to be willing to live this way. On the causes of the above problems: suffice it to say that there is a lot of sin and depravity in this world.

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I keep being challenged this Lent season to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus, to remember to be content with what is, to see the small mercies that are new every morning. We work out hard to get the cortisol out of our bodies at the start of the day. When I have a moment in the evening, I flee to the hammock in the back yard to breathe. We pray a lot, morning, evening and in between. But we live in a place where there is no escaping the outrage for very long. I guess that lends more and more passion to the prayer, “Even so, Lord Jesus, Come!”

Please keep Ethiopia in your prayers