Travel Companions

One of the best parts of our trip to pick up Jubilee was my traveling entourage. Honeybee and I were accompanied by my dear friends Michele and Heather. Michele has lived all over the world, and has a lot of experience traveling. She is also one of Lisa's closest friends, and is known as Aunt Michele to her children. When it became clear that Lisa could not go with me, Michele was the logical choice to accompany Honeybee. Heather is a dear friend of mine. When I was in Ethiopia last spring, I woke up one morning and thought that Heather really needed to see Ethiopia. She thought I was a little nutty, but when I told her we could fly through Germany and stop and visit our friend Laura, she began to see more possibilities in this little adventure. We got a lot of strange looks from folks we visited when we tried to explain how our little group came together. All I can say is that I had the best travel companions for this trip.

When I got home my very wise father said that if he had to choose someone to travel with he would go through their pictures from their last two trips. If they were taking pictures of the same things he would take pictures of, then they would be good travel partners. After going through our pictures last night I can see that I chose well. Heather was the designated photographer. She got some great portraits of the many family members that we visited. We also got a lot of pictures of donkeys, tractors, entertaining signs, machiottos, flowers, a very good mix of what we observed. Michele made a point of going over our day every evening so that she didn't forget what we had done. It worked and she remembered much more detail than I did. I had one day with Jubilee and Honeybee alone. In that day I managed to have them both with some wild hair, forgot my camera when Jubilee's family visited, forgot the address I had taken for a friend, and all of the gifts I was supposed to deliver to the orphanage. I managed to get it all together by the end of the day, but I would have been in big trouble if I would have been alone the whole time.

We also learned quickly that our plans were pretty much futile. Our operating phrase was "TAB" (That's Africa Baby). When we headed off to Jimma, a 7-8 hour drive, with no appointments made, we tried not to panic and enjoy the ride. Heather had the honor of choosing our hotel. When the social worker asked what kind of hotel we wanted, government or private? I asked if a pool was out of the question. It turned out that it wasn't, but running water was not a given. Heather had swiped the travel book from the guesthouse. She looked up what should be expected for hotels in the area and found one that was very nice. The social worker asked her if she loved it. She asked if she had to love it, or if okay was good enough. "I love it," also became one of our operating phrases. "Big sorry" also joined the list while at the hotel. Let's just say that came up when we had to change rooms at the last minute.

Each of us had met people through different connections before we reached Ethiopia. We met several American missionaries working in the country. We also met several Ethiopians that are doing their best to make Ethiopia a better place for the future. It was very encouraging to see so many people so passionate about helping Ethiopians learn to build businesses, care for orphans, care for the environment, and generally improve life in Ethiopia. It was an eclectic network that we had made, friends of friends getting us all together. It will be interesting to see how God uses all that we saw to change our lives. It was an amazing trip. We saw more of Ethiopia than I had before. I am really hoping to be able to go back before too long. The stories of what we saw just wouldn't make sense without knowing who was along for the ride. Thanks Heather and Michele for a great adventure.