Our Trip to Ethiopia, Day 7

 Wednesday, January 10, 2024

We had breakfast and devotions at the guest house, then went back to Korah to distribute baby formula, clothing, and Bibles. We heard heartbreaking stories of the women who received the baby formula. I hugged one older woman who was taking care of her grand baby and told her I loved her. She hugged me back, and was so thankful for the baby formula we gave her. We then walked to the leper hospital and bought some things in their craft room. Tesfaye bought a bag for me…it was so kind of him! We then went to one of the churches in Korah and Tesfaye shared his testimony with us. He has lived a heartbreaking and incredible life. 

After stopping by the Hope for Korah basket shop, where they served us coffee and sambusas, we visited Sabahar textile shop, went to Fili for lunch, and did some leather shopping. In the evening, we were very surprised when Nafkot came to see us! Nafkot was our driver back in the summer of 2022. He didn’t know English, but he did everything with us that week and called us his family. He used to run drugs and had spent time in prison, but had become a Christian. We had so much fun with him a year and a half ago. In March of 2023, we asked Wass if he could contact him so we could have lunch with him, but Wass had no way to get ahold of him. Apparently, he had changed his phone number and no one knew it. Before this trip, Ashton asked if we could see Nafkot, but I said we had no way to get ahold of him. Today, however, in a city of 9 million people, Nafkot just happened to run into Wass, who told him that we just happened to be in town. So he showed up at the guest house! I was upstairs, but all of a sudden heard Ashton yelling, “Nafkot! Nafkot is here!” And there he was. 😊 We then played some pretty hilarious games with the team. 

We bought some rugs that this man made. He has leprosy, so most of his fingers are gone. While we were walking out of the hospital compound, we ran into him and visited with him. He is so happy! 

This is Tesfaye when he was in grade 5:

The man on the left is Bissy, our friend and driver for the week, back when he still lived in Korah and weighed about 90 pounds. He is absolutely amazing. I have never seen someone happier than Bissy, and he tells everyone he meets about Jesus. We will be sitting at a stoplight, and he’ll talk to the people in the vehicle next us about Jesus. He has absolutely amazing life stories. I wish everyone could meet Bissy. He is probably the most inspiring person I have ever met.