March 10th was our official start day in Asossa – I think! Between the jet lag, the time changes, and the culture differences, I’m getting my days mixed up.
Well, here is our looooooong March 10th….
We began with breakfast in the Upper Room, lovingly prepared by Anne from the Touching Africa Team. I wasn’t a fan of oatmeal, so I quickly learned the word for bread (daboe…I believe), and asked one of our dear helpers, Nati, to get me some bread at basically every meal. I had a peanut butter sandwich for every meal that had milk or that I thought my stomach couldn’t handle.
After breakfast, and a potty break at the Bamboo, we headed off to our first clinic in the sanctuary of a local church. Here we are having some prayer time before we opened the doors to the public.
This was the outside of the church where we held the clinic. It has the tin roof, windows on both sides, a few fluorescent lights inside, and many benches for seating. But that’s about it. No carpet, no majestic sound system, no artwork, no glass in the windows, no heat or A/C. People who came to this church came because they WANTED to, not because of what the church building itself had to offer. It was beautiful to behold.
This is Elise. The is the 13-year-old daughter of one of the team members who came along this year. Here she is donning her “doctor” gear. These were the typical things most of us wore throughout the day: scrubs, gloves, and the occasional mask.
This table was one of three for reading glasses. Here, Jessica is helping a woman choose frames in the reading strength she needed.
This is a view directly outside the front doors of the church. These people are waiting to get into the clinic to be seen. They sat here after they had gotten through the large gate at the front of the church. We heard stories of people at the gate who had slept overnight and others who had walked as many as four days to be seen by the doctors.
Some more reading glasses magic by Michael Elliot….
And these people are ones who’ve gotten into the church and are now waiting to be seen by the triage team. As I mentioned earlier, before people saw the doctors, we took a medical history on them along with vitals.
This is Alice. She and Marie, were team members dedicated solely to prayer. They would seat people after they’d seen the doctor and simply pray for them. It was a sweet sight to behold.
And now, after morning and afternoon clinic, we move on to the BIG church. This is the church where Pastor Califa preaches. It just oozes over with people. I tried my best in the next photo to show you how many people come to this place. The lighting is very challenging, but in this photo, after you can’t see any more heads in the far back and it’s just light…well, that’s more people sitting outside the church in even more rows of benches. It was just amazing to behold.
This little girl is one of many who were following me around during each and every church service. Apparently it’s not a common thing to have an American girl with a large camera walking around during church. I tried my best not to cause a stir, but some of these little darlings were too cute to resist snapping a photo of!
I had to shoot at 6400 ISO here, but it was the only way (I knew of) to capture all that I wanted to see. This is Betty, the Ethiopian singer I mentioned earlier, leading worship. I have some great video of this too that my husband is working on for me. Can’t wait to share it!
And lastly, I’ll leave you with Elise. This is during another late night pill sorting session. She just couldn’t last the whole time & fell asleep on the hockey bags!
