Archived Blog
Weekend trip to Awassa
Continuing to enjoy my new location, settling down well into life outside of SIM. These past few weeks we've been looking for furniture, especially a new sofa and a wardrobe for my bedroom. It can be difficult to find good quality furniture here that isn't astronomically pricey, and won't fall apart in a few months. So I was extremely blessed to hear that another SIM missionary family who had worked in Ethiopia for many years, felt that God was calling them to serve in Nigeria. As the mission in Nigeria was providing their costs of setting up home, they didn't need the money from their furniture in Ethiopia, so donated it to recently arrived SIM missionaries. So I have been blessed to receive a couch and a wardrobe for nothing. A wonderful gift from God, I'm very grateful for their generosity. It's lovely to have a comfortable place to sit in our living room now, and we managed to get our TV working so I have access to international news to keep up with all the important goings on in the world (like the name of the new Royal baby.) The only thing that we need to get sorted now is internet, as I'm still having to take time to go to the school to get access to decent internet. Hopefully I can get something worked out fairly soon.
I've just paid my final instalment for language school before I have to leave and start working at Bingham. So I have just over 9 weeks of language study left. I am keen to continue making the effort for as much time as I have available before getting stuck into working at the school. I've been talking to some of the staff at the school a bit regarding what next year will look like, and what exactly my role will be. I'll be meeting with the other IT staff in the coming weeks to discuss who will do what next year, so I'm looking forward to being able to see exactly what time I'll have available for other projects such as mentoring and discipling. Will keep you all posted!
A language school field trip to an Ethiopian Orthodox Church. 
Our tour guide spoke in Amharic, but was aware that we were only learning, so stopped and translated the more complicated words. It was great practice.
This past weekend was a long weekend, Ethiopia had two national holidays. A number of the younger Bingham staff took the opportunity to get out of the city, to a town called Awassa, about 300km south of the city here. Awassa is a much more scenic town than Addis Ababa, it's much less crowded for one, so has a lot less pollution. It also sits beside a lake, creating a very scenic and peaceful setting for a vacation. Unfortunately, you can't swim in the lake, but it is very relaxing to sit down and have a drink in one of the many hotels which overlook the lake.
It was a great time getting to know the other staff who I'll be working with next year better, and we took time to say goodbye and pray for those of the group who won't be returning next year. 
Awassa lake
A couple of us took a boat tour to see some hippos. As hippos are considered one of the biggest killers in Africa, it was a little unnerving. Our boat guide assured us that even though the boat was fairly flimsy, they were scared of the engine. Anyway, thankfully these ones didn't seem too aggressive.
I haven't taken too many photos, though many others from the group did. If I can manage to grab a copy, I'll put some more up. I have managed to get some of the ones from Langano up too, you can take a look at them here.
One other thing, I have sent out my April 2015 prayer letter, download from here. Also, all previous prayer letters are available here.
Must run,
Niall
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