Christmas Day in Ethiopia

The Dump:
Today is Christmas Day in Ethiopia. We spent it at the dump. Yep, that's right. We took Christmas to the dump today. The dump is in a part of town called "Korah". Korah comes from the Old Testament word that means "cursed". It got its name because Korah began as a leper colony. Today, The slums of Korah, backed up against the city's trash dump, have close to 80,000 people, consisting of lepers, HIV/AIDS patients, prostitutes, widows, orphans, etc. To find out more about this area, visit Michael Halcomb's blog at helpkorah.blogspot.com. It is a very informative site dedicated to helping the impoverished people of this area.


One of the purposes of our visit to the dump was to bring Christmas dinner to the kids living there. Goat is the meat of choice for Christmas dinner in Ethiopia - fresh goat - very fresh!
We spent 3 hours at the dump. Truly, it was the longest 3 hours of my life. I must admit - I hated being there. I was so uncomfortable. I really just didn't know what the appropriate way to respond to the people was. On the one hand, I didn't want to go in there snapping pictures of the poor kids living on the dump - capturing images of the "freaks". Then, when I tried to be friendly and "chat" with the kids, they played me. Most of these kids don't speak English, and when they do, it is usually limited to the standard, "What is your name?" and "How old are you?" Unfortunately, names in Amharic are very difficult to understand and pronounce. So I played the "game" with a group of boys, probably 10-14 years in age. I would ask a boy his name and he would tell it to me. I would attempt to repeat it. The boys would snicker and we would continue around the group. I thought the snickering was due to my poor pronunciations. A few minutes later, one of the boys (who spoke a little more English) came up to me and told me that I was repeating bad words in Amharic. Awesome! Joke is on the stupid, white girl!

So, I settled in to a routine of singling out one of the kids and praying over them from a distance. Really, I found that in this awkward situation, it was all I could do, but it was also the best I could do. I had been reminded on this trip of the story in Mark 10:14-16. "People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kindgom of God like a little child will never enter it.' And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them." Bless means "to invoke God's favor upon". I just prayed for God's blessing on each of these kids. "Please God, may your favor rest on each of these kids......" and then, "How might you use me, Lord, to bless them?" I continue to be plagued by this question.

The following is a compelling video put together by Michael Halcomb from his visit to Korah.