Ethiopia is another one of those unknown to me countries. If you know me well, you know I don’t always do well with first impressions of others or having expectations prior to an experience which is why I am choosing to not research into Ethiopia more.
What I do know about Ethiopia is this: God’s children live here and we have a lot to learn from them! I have a heart for refugees as I have spent the last 3 years building relationships and tutoring high school refugees in Lansing, and I know all of their stories are different, but their stories are so beautiful and intriguing to me. Ethiopia has many refugees that flee from Sudan and Somalia, and I hope to hear some of their stories as well as work with children here, they are some of the most beautiful children in the world! Also, every meal has coffee served with it, so I dont expect to sleep much, which will leave more time for connections made and to learn about this culture and the people of Ethiopia!
Map:
Flag:
Language: roughly 29% speak the official language of Amharic, 34% speak Oromo, the rest speak broken Arabic
Religion: mainly abrahamic religions most numerous is Christianity at 62.8% followed by Islam at 33.9% also a long standing, although small Jewish community.
Population: as of May 15,2019 there is 109,773,851 people living here
Unique Animals: Ethiopian wolf (one of Earth’s rarest canid species), walia Ibex,Mountain Nyala, somali wild donkey, yellow fronted parrot, bale mountain vervet, menilik bushbucks, glada baboons
Special Foods:injera (sourdough flatbread), tibs (sauteed meat chunks), coffee, Tej (alcoholic honey beverage), shiro be Kibbe (legume stew)
Cool Geography: 42 million people live without improved water and 71 million people live without improved sanitation. Recall that according to Water Aid;
• Around 700,000 children die every year from diarrhoea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation. That’s almost 2,000 children a day
• 768 million people in the world don’t have access to safe water. This is roughly one in ten of the world’s population
• 2.5 billion people don’t have access to adequate sanitation, almost two-fifths of the world’s population.
Fun things to do: feeding hyenas in Harar, Gondar (Gonder), Simien Mountains (God’s playground)
Prayer: Dig enough wells for fresh and safe water for each village.
If you’ve been to Ethiopia, or know anyone that has, I would love for them to share their stories in the comments and send some prayers for my team and the people of Ethiopia. God is going before us, and is already there, I cannot wait to partner with what He has going on in Ethiopia! <3 KJ
