The Beautiful Children of Ethiopia
Music: "Jesus Loves Me"
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A touching and very pleasant memory I have is a little girl in church. She was dressed in a lovely white dress and was about three years old. During the praise and worship time, she stood with big eyes upturned to the large white man with gray hair (Alan), as her small fingers held tightly to his hand...a precious site.
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The first week we were there, Ethiopian children joined in the celebration as their Olympic heros came back into town. People of all ages crowded the streets, stopped traffic and rejoiced together for a day. We drove through town tooting the horn on our van, waving the Ethiopian flag out the window and giving thumbs up as we shouted, "Yeah, Ethiopia!" How good it was to see smiles on those worn faces. For a day, they were all children.
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I did not see toy stores, nor did I see children playing with toys. I did see a young boy kicking a ball tied to a string and suspended from a telephone pole. And a couple of times I saw a small child running along with a stick or wire pushing a small wheel. I had seen pictures of this type toy in old pictures, years ago.
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One of the most distressing things I witnessed was a
child about three years old filling her water bottle in a manhole
opening after a rain ! That is still hard to believe.
Ethiopians rarely take their babies out in
public. The threat of disease is too great.
They do not name their children until they are about a year or
two old because the mortality rate is so high among infants.
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The haunting picture you see here with the
pleading expression of the young boy in the foreground was taken
as we closed the door to the van on our departure from the church
our last day.
That one face tells so much.
Two of the pictures are Olympics celebration day.
The last picture is a happier farewell with
Kelli, our missionary, holding up a child in the background.
Mesfin and Asrat are left to follow up with these precious lives.
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Children are beautiful the world over.
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Copyright ©2000 Barbara Jenkins. All rights reserved.