Laughner's Journey to Ethiopia

Looking ahead to my mission trip to Kombolcha, Ethiopia  in 2013, I would like to put together hygiene kits for 200 kids. I am thinking that we will have little bags that contain wash cloths, a bar of hotel (travel soap), a tooth brush, tooth paste, nail clippers, wide tooth combs, and a bandanna. We will need 200 of each of these items, my dentist will donate the dental supplies (Thank you Amherst Dental Center). If you could donate any of the other items, please let me know. Even if it's only 10 of something, we can all work together to get enough! I would also like to take 200 inflatable beach balls again! They were a big hit this year! There are amazing things happening in Kombolcha, and I would love for you to be a part of it!

Hey everyone. I'm still finishing up writing my blog entries. In the meantime, we are scheduling next year's trip. The dates are March 9-18, 2013. There are 20 spots, and half are already taken. If you would like to go, let us know. There is a Facebook page for the trip. The link is: https://www.facebook.com/events/321747424561877/ I don't get to go, as it is Lori's turn. I'll go again in 2014. Tom

I'm still sorting through photos, and weeding out the ones that aren't anything. However, in the mean time, I've added a link to our Picasa album. Enjoy! Ethiopia 2012

April 29, 2012 Today is our last day in Ethiopia. Tonight we begin our long flight home, back to a culture that may now seem foreign to us after a week immersed in a different country. This week we will go back to our families, our jobs, our friends, and the daily hub bub that constitutes our American lives. We'll have to take the kids to th eir activities, help them with homework, shop for food, catch up on our television shows, learn what's going on in the world since we left, pay bills, all while doing our best not to forget what we experienced here. We vow not to forget what we experienced, while acclimating to our new sense of self after these life changing events. For some of us, that reacclimation started today. After buying coffee and making sure one of our team members finally got her ice cream fix, half of our group went to a church service in Addis Ababa. It was remarkable how much the service felt like those at our home churches. The service was conducted in En

April 27, 2012 Life in Ethiopia is hard. Our Ethiopian daughter had lost both her parents and two siblings by the time she was four. It's not an uncommon story here. Electricity and running water are commodities that many can't afford. Poverty is rampant and getting worse. We spent the week with children with a wide variety of living conditions, but most come from one room houses with stick and mud walls, dirt floors, and tin roofs. They walk and run up to thirty minutes to school with their toes sticking out of their shoes (if they have shoes). You would think that such a life would harden these kids. You would think that they would push people away for fear of losing them. You would think that emotion was something they could not afford when they don't know from where their next meal will come or if they will have a roof to sleep under the next night. You would think wrong. Our last day in Kombolcha was full of emotion. As the day began, we were anxious because we