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If you haven't gotten an update from us in a bit, could you please check your spam filter?  We recently changed our provider for sending out our email updates and are finding that some of them are getting marked as spam or potential scam by some security settings in some email programs. This may mean that you're not getting what we send.  So, please check your Spam filter and see if it got stuck. 

If you have any questions, please drop us an email at shannonjerry@gmail.com.

Happy New Year!

Day of Prayer for Ethiopia

Please join us in praying for Ethiopia on Christmas Day here in Ethiopia, January 7th.  We're asking folks to consider fasting and praying from 4pm EST on January 6th until 4pm EST on January 7th (so midnight Ethiopian time on January 6th until midnight on January 7th).  Together, may we seek God's heart for Ethiopia.  Please drop us an email and let us know that you can join us in prayer.

If you'd like a printable flyer, please click on this link http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0ByRBRQdrRr06Yzc0MDE5OGUtZDczNC00MzZmLTg2NDAtMGZlYzNmODdmYTBl&hl=en





To enlarge the flyer and read the prayer requests, please click on the image.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Hanna!

It's hard to believe our little girl is 2!

Here are some photos of her since we've moved to Ethiopia.

Making Injera

Well, we are now the proud owners of an electric injera cooker (the highly technical name...) or "injera metbesha" (literally - injera pan).  The first time Tigist made injera, she used our outside kitchen.  The poor woman was so smoked out since you make a fire under the clay cooking surface in a small outdoor room in order to cook the injera.  The injera was great, but Tigist told us the cooking surface wasn't good (you could see that to look at it), and with wood being expensive, we figured an electric injera cooker was the way to go.

 

So, we purchased the injera metbesha just up the street, and it was one of the things that arrived on a man's head on that strange day a little while back.  Tigist has been making injera ever since, and it is wonderful!  (For those of you who don't know what injera is, it is a large flat pancake-type bread that is eaten in Ethiopia at almost every meal.  It is put on your plate, and "wat" (something like a stew - there are all different kinds) is dished out on top of it.  Then extra injera is ripped into pieces and is used to pick up the wat and is eaten.  In traditional Ethiopian meals, there is no silverware.) 

Injera is made from teff flour, Ethiopian yeast, and water.  There is always a "starter" kept (like with amish friendship bread).  When it's time to make injera, part of the starter is heated and more water is added.  That goes back into the starter, and at some point, more teff is added (but I haven't seen that happen yet).  I also haven't found out what the difference is between "foreign" yeast and "Ethiopian" yeast.  Tigist tells me that "foreign" yeast is for bread, but is not good for injera.  But we couldn't buy Ethiopian yeast in a store.  We had to go get some starter from the neighbor.  That's the most I know about Ethiopian yeast.

Tigist is eager to teach me to cook injera.  She makes it look so easy... a pitcher is filled with something like pancake batter.  You start on the outside of the cooking surface and make a large circle and spiral inward.  You need to move quickly or the injera gets too thick.  I've made 3 pieces of injera, and well, it's not as easy as it looks.  We can always tell which piece Mom made at dinner, because it's twice as thick as the ones Tigist makes.  I'll keep practicing...

On Wednesday, Tigist let the boys try their hand at making injera.  They did well!

 

And Hanna - she just plain LOVES injera, no matter who's made it.  When it's being made, she runs around the house enthusiastically saying, "Injera coming!!!"  When Tigist is getting some ready for a meal, there goes Hanna again, "Injera coming!!!"  And occasionally, she sneaks into the kitchen and steals some from the injera pile.  She just loves it!

 

Video of last Friday's hail storm!

Here is some footage that Christy took last Friday of a freak hail storm that we had.  kind of crazy for the non-rainy season!


hail storm from jerry shannon on Vimeo.

My Girls!

Such good friends. Such sweet girls!

 

A Washing Machine

Today, we got a semi-automatic washing machine! I was ok with hand-washing until we ran out of the disposable diapers we brought with us and went back to cloth diapers at the beginning of the week. That was a bit more than I had bargained for...

And, of course, it arrived on top of a taxi.

Semi-automatic may not sound so appealing to you: 1. fill washer (eventually, it will be hooked up to water, but for now, we fill it by bucket) 2. Add clothes and soap. Turn on to wash. 3. Flip a switch after the wash cycle is done to drain the washer. 4. Refill the maching. 5. Turn on washer to rinse clothes 6. After rinse cycle, flip a switch to drain. 7. Move clothes from the washing compartment to the spin compartment. Put lid on, snap shut top. 8. Flip switch so the water drains out of the spinning compartment 9. Set spin timer 10. When the spinning is done, you are free to hang the clothes out on the line.

But, after washing diapers by hand, semi-automatic is WONDERFUL! Especially with a family of 6.

Joshua's Newspaper!

Joshua has been wanting to publish a newspaper of our time here in Ethiopia, but its taken us a bit to figure out the easiest technology to make it happen.  So, here is November's edition in the form of a link.  Just click on it and have a read of some of his recent thoughts and photos of Ethiopia.

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0ByRBRQdrRr06ZTJhYWEzN2QtZThhNy00NDhhLThhOWQtMzdhNGZlNzQyY2Rm&hl=en

Finally...A Video of Our New House!

Well, many of you have been asking, and here it finally is: a video of our new house!  We've had it done for a bit, but needed to get out and use a faster internet connection to upload the video.  I'll also add the videos of the "teff house" if you scroll down to that post.  Jerry's battery died in his computer before he could upload the videos of the hail storm, so those will have to wait.

Without further adieu, here's our house! (the video starts on the road outside our house.  Almost alll side roads look like this, whether there are shacks or mansions on them.)

http://www.vimeo.com/8174021

~c

Getting to the Church On Time

No, no one’s getting married. But it has been a bit of a challenge for us to get to church on Sundays! Today, we needed to go about a 10-15 min car ride from our house to visit an international church on our side of town for the first time. Since we don’t have a car, we take the “taxis” (you would call them minibuses) everywhere.
 So we left home 1 hour before church started to try to make it there on time. There are not as many taxis running on Sunday mornings, so it can be a bit tough to find one that has room for all 6 of us (although we are now quite skillful at loading into a taxi and only taking up 3 seats in a variety of configurations…). We walked out to the main road and stood waiting with a large group of other folks also waiting for taxis. We finally found an empty taxi (a rarity!) and were on our way with 12 other folks in the taxi. We made it over half of our journey in less than ½ hour, so I thought we were doing well.

Time came to get off the taxi. Jerry said the Amharic word that means “Stop, I want off the taxi,” and the taxi kept driving. He said it again a bit louder, and the driver rattled something off in Amharic and kept driving (farther and farther away from where we needed to be, mind you). Apparently, it was a no stopping zone (from what we can figure), but he did eventually stop and we hopped off. Now we had to hoof it to another taxi stop to go the second leg of our trip. It was a bit of a hike in our church clothes (of course, we were dressed up), but we got there and found the taxi going to the right location.

We hopped in that taxi for a moment, then were told to move to another taxi. All 6 of us piled out and piled back into another taxi. When you get on a taxi, it doesn’t leave until every seat is full. Sometimes you can sit for quite a while waiting for the taxi to fill up. Yep, you guessed it: time was ticking away and our taxi wasn’t filling up. But eventually, we were on our way again.

Only a few minutes down the road, the driver swerved and pulled off the road. Being in the seat behind him, I could see that the steering had gone out. Luckily we weren’t going fast, and could stop easily. The driver and the “money taker” jumped out and got under the taxi. They were banging and working…with 15 min. left before church started. Jerry looked out the taxi window and could see the building where we were supposed to turn to get to the church. The only problem was we’d have to cross 4 lanes of road that are under construction and jump 2 chest-high fences (in dresses, none the less) and a construction median to get to the right side of the road. Oh, the irony.

Tick, tick, tick. Time was ticking by. After about 5 min, we decided to walk, so started a fast trot down the sidewalk, past that landmark building, and a ways down the road until we could find a pedestrian overpass that allowed us to cross the highway and the construction, only to turn around and walk back the way we came (but on the other side of the road), back to that good old landmark building, where we turned and found the church.

We missed the first song, but did indeed make it. The floor below our seats was covered in mud from our little hiking expedition, but, hey, we made it!

I will never again wear dress shoes to church. I wore my “safest”, most comfortable dress shoes, but my blisters prove the day’s adventure, and are not something I want to repeat.

(There was another week where when we got on a taxi, Jerry asked specifically if it was going where we needed to be, and both the driver and the “money taker” told us yes. But that wasn’t the case. The closest place we could get off that taxi was a good 20+min. hike at a really fast pace to the church. We missed the first THREE songs that day…but at least I was wearing my sandals!)

~c

Hail!

This afternoon, the sky got black.  We thought we might have a rain storm (unusual for this time of year).  We even heard some distant rumblings of thunder.

Then all of a sudden, there was a sound.  A loud noise.  Surrounding us.  I looked out the window to see small balls bouncing every which way.  It was hail at least the size of a chick pea, some larger.  It was coming down fast and furious.  And on our metal roof, the noise was almost deafening!

It kept up for at least 15 min.  I have never experienced hail like that.  The ground was covered…white!  Eventually, it turned to rain that melted most of the hail.  But that’s the closest we’re gonna get to a white Christmas here in Ethiopia!

~c

Video about Food in Ethiopia

Here is a video about the current food crisis in Ethiopia which I shot by going on a 5 minute walk from our house.   It shows a couple of women who must beg to get food for the day because they have no other supports.  It also raises the question....would you pay $30 for a kilo of oranges?  to help us better understand why people just can't make ends meet with the growing cost of food, yet what seems very cheap to our Western minds.

food from jerry shannon on Vimeo.

Birthdays & Christmas

Today, I made my first injera.  I didn’t pour fast enough, so it was too think, but Tigist said it was good.  She’s too nice to me.  I have lots of time to practice...

Then, I made my first high, high-altitude cake for Jerry’s birthday.  It was probably the best chocolate cake I’ve made in years!  Go figure!  What luck!

The kids have been asking about a Christmas tree.  But trees are hard to come by here, and I have not seen an evergreen.  We could bring in a potted palm, but that didn’t seem to fit the bill. 

So, today, after we celebrated Jerry’s birthday, we decorated our tree!  I think it might be the prettiest tree we’ve ever had!  The kids did an amazing job, don’t you think?  And no needles to clean up!

 

They even made some paper snowflakes to add to the mood.  I love my kids!

The finished product!

~c

Beds for the Boys!

We were able to pick up the boys’ bunk beds today!  We stopped at a place that makes furniture yesterday, and they had a set of metal bunk beds that just needed the top rail added and a ladder made.  So, while we were buying them, Jerry asked the guy at the shop if he knew anyone local that had a pick up that we could pay to transport the beds home.  He said yes, and we all talked with a man and made arrangements to pick up the beds today and have him be there to drive the beds and Jerry home.

I heard the bell ring at the gate and went out to help.  Here’s what I found:

See the bunk beds stacked on top?

Apparently, it was not a truck, but a car with a roof rack.  But it works!  We’ve got beds!

~c

Buying Bookshelves

We went out shopping for bookshelves today.  Quite the adventure, but we ended up finding some.  One came in a box and needs to be put together.  The other is Ethiopian-made and is wood, so it was already assembled.  So, without a vehicle, how does one transport large purchases home?  Why, by taxi, of course!

the six of us, 2 book shelves, and the taxi driver - not bad!

~c

Some Days Are Stranger Than Others....

Don’t get me wrong.  Each day hear is full of it’s own adventures.  But today has been fun.  I walked into the kitchen to find a strange young man standing with an electric injera cooker on his head.  Apparently, we are now the proud owners of an injera cooker – which is indeed a good thing.  Our wonderful help, Tigist, knows how to make injera, which is better than buying it.  Cool.

I then headed out to our “market street” just a block from our house with Tigist and all the kids.  We stopped at the “teff house” (teff is a kind of grain.  It’s teeny tiny, and is used to make injera.  We would call this place something like a mill.) to buy fresh wheat and teff.  There are tons of bags of various grains sitting around.  Tigist pulls out a handful of teff and shows it to me looking for my approval.  I stare blankly back at her, my eyes pleading with her to handle this and just pick!  I have NO clue what I’m looking for!  She then askes me if I want red teff or white teff.  Again, blank stare.  She proceeds to buy 10 kilos of white teff, along with 10 kilos of wheat.  We then leave the grains to be milled into flour. 


We made a few stops on the way home (including stopping to buy barley, when again, Tigist dutifully shows me the barley, only to be met again by a blank stare), and finally came through our gate into our compound to find a man with a pick-ax breaking up our driveway.  Hmmm.  But the owner was here, so I assume he’s supposed to be doing this.  Upon closer surveillance of the scene, I realize that they are patching the potholes in the driveway.  Here’s how it happens:  1: use pick ax to make an even bigger hole in the cement driveway.  Step 2: clear away the debris from the hole.  Step 3:  fill the hole back in with the rock and broken cement you just used the pick-ax to remove, starting with large chunks, then adding some small chunks.  Step 4: mix cement by hand,  Step 5: fill in remainder of hole with cement.  Step 6: finish off cement, making it smooth.  Works well!

I went past the window and saw a man entering the gate with a bag of cement on his head.  Must be a day for things on your head.

Then, Joshua went out with Tigist to go back to the teff house and pick up our flours (the first time any of the kids had gone out with her alone).  It’s maybe a 5 min. walk away.  After a half hour passed, I began to worry.  Jerry happened to call and told me to give them an hour.  After an hour passed, I rounded up the other kids and we headed out to try to find them with a sinking feeling.  We walked to the teff house and I looked in the gate to see Joshua sitting at the door of the teff house surrounded by Ethiopian woman, and he was sorting wheat.  I found out later that the wheat we bought was not “clean”, but had some pebbles, etc in it.  So, they were sitting sifting through the wheat by hand picking out everything that didn’t belong.  Joshua said he wanted to stay, so we went on to pick up a few things we needed.  It turned out to be a 2 hour adventure for Joshua –but he got to watch them mill the wheat into flour (above), and seemed to enjoy his time.  Tigist said that people would walk in and do a double-take, then say “What?!?  Foreng (foreigner)?!?!?  Working at the teff house?!??!”  Only Joshua!  :)

Here's a video of the teff house.  The first scene is of the room where they grind peppers into a much-loved spice called "berbere".  The orange stuff all over the ground is berbere. 
http://www.vimeo.com/8174557

This video is of Tigist buying wheat.  The videos are choppy because I was trying to keep the camera discretely in my hand while shooting video.
http://www.vimeo.com/8174808


~c

Meet Tigist!!!

Tigist is a woman we met at the guest house.  She was working there when we lived there, but was going to be finished at the guest house soon when they changed locations and moved from having 2 houses into 1.  We got along well with her, and both enjoyed meeting in the kitchen to swap words - her teaching me Amharic and me teaching her English.  The children also loved her.

When we found out she would not be going to the new consolidated guest house, we inquired about hiring her.  After talking, she agreed to move with us and start working for us.  She lives in our compound in a service room directly behind our house.  She does our cooking, cleaning and laundry (which is a HUGE help as we figure things out while home schooling the kids).  She has quickly become a member of our family, eating meals with us, playing with the children, teaching us language and culture, laughing with us at our "foreng" (foreigner) moments.

She is an AMAZING cook!  She has made us wonderful Ethiopian food 3x a day...and we don't miss Western food a bit.  She is so willing to teach us how to do life here...letting me tag along shopping with her, explaining what is in every meal she makes, taking me to the mill with her, explaining her culture to us.  She is indeed a gift from God to us.

~c

Moving Day!

It’s finally the day we get to move in to our own home. We have LOVED staying at the guest house, and have met some amazing people while we were here (the 3 Brits who kept us laughing and taught us proper English, the wonderful guy with a big heart for Ethiopia who’s currently working with Ethiopia adoptions, the great American family from Singapore here to adopt 2 beautiful Ethiopian twins whose girls brought great joy to our kids, the missionaries who’ve been working here for 40+ years, and of coarse, our old friends who run the guest house, and the Swiss woman who’s living here, but attended a Vineyard Church in Switzerland).

It was hard to leave them all. Tears were indeed shed. But in no time, the pick up was loaded (complete with a man to ride on top of our belongings) and it was time to go.

(see the white pickup? That's our "moving truck", complete with a man riding on top of our stuff (the entire min drive to the new house) to keep everything in!)

It’s finally time to unpack for good and end our 2+ month stint of living out of boxes and suitcases. We may not know how to act, but we’re ready to figure it out!

~c