———————————————————

A couple of days ago, Esther Havens and I were working in Gondar in Northern Ethiopia… we got out of the car and looked up to see
this incredible cloud structure overhead…

Time stood still as we sat there with eyes fixed upward, watching this irridescent orb slowly transform from one beauty to the next and
I remain in awe at this display of the mystique of His Splendor.

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

Psalm Nineteen

I also added a size specifically catered to iPhone (any generation) this month… Enjoy!

August 2010 Desktop - Click image to preview

After clicking the link below, right-click the image and choose “Save Image As”

Download for laptop/small screen (1280×800)

Download for big screen (2560×1600)

Download for iPad (1024×768)

Download for iPhone (960×640)

Download ‘em All!

Trent & Tabby Cox are veterinary missionaries in southwest Ethiopia with SIM (Serving in Mission) and CVM (Christian Veterinary Mission.)

This 6 minute piece shares about their work amongst these remote tribes over the last 9 years and also relays their vision to reach the last 3 people groups in SW Ethiopia with medical care and ultimately the Gospel.

austinmann.com
igoby.tk

sim.org
cvmusa.org

Music by Griffin Kelp.

This child hung on the mother the entire time we were in the hut… dependent on her, almost part of her.

Tomorrow (at 5AM) I hop on a bus for an all-day (possibly 12 hours) solo bus ride to Gondar to see Lane Davis. Lane is a stellar photographer in Gondar right now working on a project called To Tell a Story (www.totellastory.org) check it out!

I’ll be documenting this adventure up north and really don’t know what to expect! All I know is the bus was much cheaper than the flight, I’ll be crossing the Nile River in a bus and I speak zero Amharic. I can just hear my Dad… ”Son, why would you do that?”

TK McKamy, who was with me on the trip has started posted some stuff so check it out at http://www.tkmckamy.com/blog!

I don’t expect to have internet til I begin my journey home the 19th! Checking out til the 20th… hope you are all well -

I’m sitting down at a little cafe in Addis called the LimeTree and actually have some time to write and post images.

I really don’t know which images/stories to post first… We left Addis the

March 26th we met up with Trent Cox at the airport in Arba Minch and then drove nearly 6 hours on bush roads into Alduba, where he lives with his wife Tabby and family.

The next day we embarked on a 5 day journey around southwest Ethiopia. First we went to Hana which was an all-day journey on muddy trails they call roads…

On the road to Alduba. Roads have improved drastically in the past few years, which has increased tourism and foreign trade.

In Hana, we ate at pretty much the only place in town, and it’s called the Obama Cafe. It was amazing to see the influx of Obama related places/products in these areas… one dude was evening wearing Barack Obama underwear. WHAT?! I have a shot of it but can’t find it at the moment… will post that one later.

Along the road we went through tons of rivers and mud and stuff so I thought it would be cool to mount my new little waterproof Casio to the front of the cruiser… we got some awesome footage with this thing.

The little Casio stood up to the mud and water test. Got some sweet footage.

The main tribe in Hana is Bode. They’re one of several tribes that take stick fighting very seriously… not only for sport but also to settle disputes between men. Our guard, Barkathule, gave me a quick lesson on how to stick fight… it’s incredible how fast he was! TK shot some video but I can’t upload it now.

We did a ton of shooting along the road and TK got some awesome steadicam stuff hanging off the side and on top of our cruiser.

TK hangin off the cruiser for a shot.

We took the chopper into some pretty crazy areas and went in with a vet doctor that was providing medical care for the cattle. These are pastoralist communities and their well-being and livelihood is directly related to their cattle so this a fantastic mission and is a great doorway into these remote tribes.

CVM vet Trent Cox providing medical care for the cattle after landing by chopper in remote area of SW Ethiopia along the Sudanese border.

AK’s are everywhere. Ethiopia is surrounded by war torn countries and conflict zones… many of their weapons have been picked up by traders and sold at very low costs… although the weapons themselves have been distributed at incredibly low costs the cost of each bullet is nearly $1.50 US in some areas.

A couple of Bode boys in Hana. They live at the foot of the mountain range seen in the background.

We happened to stop for a battery change while driving back to Alduba and TK, sitting atop the truck, spotted this dude in the country side.

The Bunna collect termites by lighting fires all over the country side… the termites fly into the flame and burn off their wings and gather one the ground. Then they scoop 'em up at have them for dinner.

Sorry this post is so scatter-brained!! I am hoping to have internet tomorrow but want to make sure I get this updated in case I don’t… thanks for all your prayers! Look for a ton more soon.

Today, Aaron and I visited the Women at Risk compound. Women at Risk is an organization that has been here in Addis for about 14 years and works with women in prostitution very closely. At any given time they have roughly 20 women that are in their program.

Their mission statement is as follows: To love, accept and reach out to urban commercial sex workers with a view to building community through relationships and improving their quality of life. To challenge civil society about the issues they face through effective advocacy and education programs.

It’s really neat to see how the well-trained staff interacts with the women and shows them Christ’s love. One of their directors mentioned that 87% of the women that join the program come out successful, working healthy jobs to support themselves.

I spent a couple hours with some of the young women and got to spend some time making portraits.  Many of them have come to know Christ through the program and it was really amazing the joy they had, it was so contagious! I wish I had more time to upload images but for now I’ll give you share this one.  I’l upload a more in-depth post later.

Click here to view all of these images and many more full screen.  

Well.. sorry its been so long since a serious update… Ethiopia was tough because the internet access there was slim to none. Then we came to Tanzania and we were constantly busy. Right now I am sitting in the transit lounge in the Nairobi Airport and have been sitting here just about 10 hours.

This morning we unfortunately missed our flight out of Kilimanjaro airport and thus missed our connection flight to Zambia. We were supposed to be in Lusaka, Zambia at 10AM and now we will get there at 11PM. It will be a miracle if we still have time to get to Victoria Falls tomorrow — but we will have to wait and see.

Ethiopia was an amazing and unique place. We spent our first few days in Addis Ababa with a friend, Aaaron, who works as a regional director for Samartin’s Purse. He’s living with a couple of guys that work at a private Christian school that is attended primarily by missionaries kids and kids from well-off Ethiopian families.

Injera, the staple Ethiopian food, is amazing. It’s made from teff, a grain that we won’t see in the States and its like a spongy ciapatti kind of. Very hard to explain. Anyway — you take this spongy ciapatti thing and dip it into one of like thirty different sauces. Some of the sauces have meat, others don’t. Most have a bit of spicy kick to them as well.

Here’s a shot of a typical injera dish. Our guide was kind of enough to take us into his home and his mother gave us a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony which is given to guests on rare occasions. She also made us injera and we got to sit in the home with their family and spend time with them. It was pretty cool.

Lalibela is the home of the buried churches where King Lalibela literally carved 11 churches out of rock. Story goes that he was told by God to build these churches and that he would do tons of work on them during the day but then at night angels would do twice as much work. A bit far-stretched, yes, but they are quite extraordinary.

Click here to view the rest of the images and text in this post.

The churches at Lalibela were amazing and beautiful but the canyons and mountains on which they rest are not to be overlooked. They presented us with some amazing panoramic opportunities.

Click here to view all of these images and many more full screen.  

For those of you that may be wondering why this post is entitled “We’re in Heaven!” its because we stayed in a hotel named HEAVEN! Ethiopia in general and Lalibela especially have strong roots in the Jewish community and many believe that King Lalibela began building the churches to create a so-called ‘New Jerusalem.’ As a result, some of the hotel names included Jerusalem, Heaven, Bethlehem and more.

After we went to Lalibela just one day, we flew onto Bahirdar to see the headwaters of the Nile, the Blue Nile Falls. This place was beautiful and I got one of my favorite shots from the trip there (below.) There were some kids playing down at the bottom of the falls in the water which really helped to give some scale.

We had to cross the water at one point and Dad had some of the people carry him across. I had my water shoes on though so I opted to cross myself…so I can now claim that I have waded through the waters of the nile! Yahoo.

Click here to view all of these images and many more full screen.