Seven years ago, almost to the day, I boarded a flight into the Sudan. I had never been to Africa before, never been to a developing nation, never been involved in missions. I was incredibly green. I didn’t even know enough to know what questions to ask.  All I knew was that God had called me to go. I had a camera with me, and I knew that God had given me the skills to use it.

I look back now and question how effective my work was on those first few trips. I don’t know if much direct and lasting fruit came from my work there. However, in the bigger picture, I know that what I learned from those first difficult trips was incredibly fruitful. It has allowed me to be useful in ways that I never could have imagined. The path I’ve traveled was definitely God ordained, since he put people and organizations in my path that I never would have found without his help.

Having said that, I’d like to thank Linda and Ray at Petros Network for giving me the opportunities to work with them and to use my skills for Kingdom work, and not just for myself.

I’ve been back from Ethiopia now for a few weeks, and I’ve had a chance to go through a lot of the pictures. I’m not satisfied with my work unless I can look at the photos and know that I’ve conveyed the sense of where I’ve been, touched the heart of the people, and done both of those things in a way that I feel is respectful to the subject. I can honestly say this time that I think I was able to do that. As I promised, I’ll be bringing more stories of the things that happened on this most recent pair of back to back trips. For now though, here are a smattering of some of the shots that struck my eye as I went through the thousands of shots. All can be clicked on for a larger view.

Also, since I keep forgetting, here is a link to my ebook that I’ve had out for a while. It covers some of the things I’ve learned on my travels, as well as having lots of photos. Most of the proceeds goes to missions.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/704141