Friday, April 29, 2011

Pizza party

One of our main goals while we were here on this trip was to do something fun for the boys at Kolfe. On our first trip, we didn't have a lot of time there and didn't plan well enough to take them anything. Brilliant of us. We saw enough though, enough to know that on our second trip we were going to go back and find some way to treat all the boys.

Thanks to an unexpected check from some very good friends, and some advice from friends at church who sponsor some of the boys, we had an inkling of a plan. But an inkling was about it. We knew the boys didn't get that much to eat, and what they did wasn't all that nutritious. So we figured we would buy out a fruit stand, or a chicken coop, or something.

The staff at the Ethiopian Guest Home helped us arrange it all. Their first suggestion was that we could buy a few sheep, slaughter them there, and have a big cookout. This idea sounded really cool. But then they called the boys, and it turned out that what they really wanted was pizza.

Where on earth do you get enough pizza for 200+ hungry boys in Addis? The staff called around and found a place that said they could make 150 pizzas. We were amazed. Which was appropriate, because the pizza joint didn't pull it off in time. But we did eventually get a whole bunch of pizza, and some hamburgers as well.




Luckily Ephrem's buddies hadn't beaten him up over lack of pizza when we arrived. Actually, they were just lining up for dinner so the timing was perfect.










The boys each got 1/3 of a pizza. It was almost heartbreaking to watch a bunch of boys try to figure out how to split 8 pieces of pizza 3 ways.













The kid in the middle reminded us of Levi... skinny, squirelly, and smily. He squirmed just when I tried to take a picture though.




They all wanted to pose for pictures.













We also got them a bunch of fruit, hopefully enough for a couple of pieces each.




Ella got no food, but hopefully her eyes opened a little. She just kind of stood there taking it all in, with a death grip on her momma.




She did eventually relax enough to actually let go and smile.




Ephrem and Solomon got their care packages.




And hopefully felt some love from their "mommas."




2 comments:

jeanette said...

thank you so much for loving on those boys!! what a blessing you have been to them ~and us!

Joy said...

Thank you THank you, THank you - this post brought tears to my eyes - what a blessing that was for all those boys and you got to witness it first hand. That sounded like a sort of long fiasco to get the pizzas - so thank you for going through that to bless them. Ephrem already emailed me to tell me everything you did for them - thanks!