My Aurora Borealis

Its been so long since I have been able to post on here.
Its hard to find a computer fast enough to do that. Especially in Ethiopia.
Right now I am on a small outreach to Kenya. It is so crazy how different the two countries are.
Addis Ababa is far less developed than Nairobi, so finding a internet place that is fast is a huge blessing.
A lot has happened since I have been here. It would take forever to write so here are some of the main things that I have done and been apart of:

I arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the beginning of January and the first two weeks there we adjusted to the culture and met lots of people around our compound that we are renting. I also went several days to help at a feeding center. It was hard but really good.
On January 15 I left for the south of Ethiopia to the Karo tribe. That was an experience I will never forget. We stayed in the tribe for about a week. It was really cool and really crazy. Lets just say I felt like I was in jurassic park. When it got dark we all had to get in our tents because that is when the hugest spiders I have ever seen and scorpions came out. Plus in the middle of the night there were these freaky baboons that made really strange creepy noises. We were also camping near this river that is said to have to most crocodiles in the world. And yes I saw several.
The main reason we went to that tribe is because they are a really good example of extreme poverty, they really have nothing. Another huge reason we went is one that breaks all of our hearts and is something we hope to see change.
The Karo people believe in this thing they call mengi. It basically means a curse. They have these traditions and rules that apply to the mengi. If a woman gets pregnant outside of marriage her baby is considered mengi. If a married couple does not annouce to the elders that they are planning to have a child, that baby is mengi. If a child's top teeth come in first or fall out first, it is mengi. When the child is mengi they kill it because they believe it will bring a curse upon the tribe. While we were there God led a group from our team to the next village over to see a famlily who had a little girl with teeth mengi. Her tooth teeth had come in first before her bottom teeth. So they went and talked with the family. The women have no say in anything and it is a very male dominated culture so they talked mainly with the little girls father. They said that the pain in his eyes was so intense and that he had tried for 5 months to keep her from being killed. But the community basically shunned their entire family because of it.
One of our contacts that we have in that area is from the Karo tribe, but he is educated and actually did a dts in Herrnhut last year. He has a huge heart for his people and wants to see this killing of innocent children stop. So he wants to start an orphanage in a town outside of the Karo lands for the children who are mengi.
So while our team was visiting that family they asked if we could take her and when. The father said they had about 2-3 days before she would be killed. So a group went back the next day and got her.
It was so incredible, when they drove up to our camp she was asleep in the arms of my leader Kristen who has a huge heart for these children as well. Just one look at her and I started crying. She was so beautiful. Later on I got to play with her and hold her and I can't describe the feeling of holding her and knowing that if God had not led our team to her or to the Karo tribe she would not be alive right now.
We gave a lot of our team money to help start the orphanage and I am going to keep raising money to give because after being there and seeing her and holding her, my piece of my heart is there.
Bale (pronounced Balay) is the first one in the orphanage. She is two and a half. I left with the team I am on now for Kenya the day after that, but another team stayed there and were going back to get seven more mengi children. Its so amazing what God is doing through our team.

But now I am in Kenya and I never thought at the beginning of outreach that I would be coming here. I know it is God and I feel like He brought me here for a reason. I am still trying to figure that out but slowly it is making more sense. He has given me a huge heart of this place and these people.
Tonight I leave from Nairobi for Mombasa which is on the east coast right on the Indian Ocean. I am pretty excited. I hear its really beautiful. But I am going there with 4 others on my team and we are going to help at an orphanage for children with HIV/aids and also with a lot people who have been effected by famine. It should be really great and I am so excited. I wish I could write more but there is so much and I can't even process it all.
Basically what is comes down to is:
God is powerful and amazing and has given me a heart for Kenya and orphans, He speaks and leads us to the places He wants us. He has given me a heart for the mengi babies in Ethiopia.
He is so good and has the most compassionate and loving heart of us all. He loves all these children and people way more than I can even imagine. I am on an incredible adventure and He is by my side teaching and guiding me all the way.