Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

There are two other Islanders staying at the guesthouse with us now, Steve and Chad Townsend. Steve is a pastor in Belmont, this is his third time in Addis. During his stays he likes to preach at some of the local churches as a guest speaker. We decided to go along to one of the Read more

One of the biggest issues we run into traveling in the countries we have been in is that we are a very visible minority. We had become quite used to standing out after living in Korea for a year but in Ethiopia it’s a different story. As a white person in Ethiopia we are often Read more

Our main mode of transportation while we are in Addis has been public minivans.  They are all over the city and are the easiest way to get around – much nicer than the public buses which are stuffed beyond standing room or the minibuses that are much the same story. A regular taxi is just Read more

When Jim and Marion said they were traveling south to the Boorana tribe we decided we would join them to see what it was all about. They have been ‘front line missionaries’ in this area for five years now and it has become their passion. We knew setting out that it wasn’t really our thing Read more

The first weekend we were in Yabello we had the chance to go out to really rural Ethiopia. We packed our food, tents, sleeping bags and water for the two days and piled into the Land Cruiser. Nati took us about 150km out of the city through nothing to nothing. As we drove along the Read more

Even though we were starting to hit our groove in Addis, we had an opportunity to travel south through Ethiopia with Jim and Marion. We spent a day driving from Addis Ababa to Yabello, where they will base their mission work out of. We rented a van loaded up the truck and hit the road. Read more