I’ve been back from Ethiopia for a month now, and as of yet I haven’t done a blog post of just photos. Usually I’ve done one by now. As I looked through some of my favorites, I realized there is going to have to be more than one blog of just photos. I simply have so many I’m happy with. This was my first trip to southern Ethiopia, and all of the following pictures are either from Borana, Arba Minch, or somewhere in between. Enjoy.
I am back in the land of the internet. I’ve spent the last few days in the Borana region of southern Ethiopia. The Petros Network was invited here just in the last couple years to partner with a largely forgotten people, and I can say that the transformation that I’ve seen happening is truly incredible. Whole villages are changing for the good in tangible ways through the power of the gospel. We look at the people there, and they are so young that your initial thought is that they aren’t capable of changing the world, but thank God, we are being proven wrong again and again.
I will have stories to tell later as I go through the pictures and interviews from this past couple weeks, but for now I have pictures from both Arba Minch and the Borana region. Usually I have a few photos that I know are going to be some of my all time favorites, but this time there are just so many I’m happy with that it’s going to take me a while. Enjoy these for now, and soon I’ll have more.
Today was not a people day, it was a travel day, so the pictures will reflect that. I took two short flights and landed this afternoon in the city of Arba Minch in Southern Ethiopia. Tomorrow we hit the road, but for today, we were able to recharge a bit. I have to say, this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, and that’s saying a lot.
Unfortunately I only get to spend one day here, but please enjoy these pictures from this amazing place, including one very atypical picture of Kifle swinging on a vine in the forest.
It’s been a year now since I was in Africa, and next week I go back. Once again, I’ll be going to Ethiopia. I’ll be taking my camera, not to show pictures of miserable children and flies as some like to do, but to capture a realistic picture of life; to bring awareness not only of the struggles but also the triumphs that people have on a daily basis. My goal is to capture the heart of the people and communicate what commonalities tie us all together on both sides of the ocean. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends, both from Ethiopia and North America.
I’ll be traveling to two different regions, one of which I have not yet been to. I will try to keep blog posts going as I travel, though internet is not always a possibility, so there may be gaps. I may not be able to be specific about where I am at times for various reasons, but I will be traveling to the East and the South. It’s been five years since I was in South Sudan, and the southern region I’m going to will be the closest I’ve been to that country since then. I’m curious to see how the two regions compare, so in that spirit, I’m posting pictures from South Sudan today. We’ll see if there are any similarities when I get to Southern Ethiopia. Until next time, please enjoy the photos.
Though I’m not quite home from Ethiopia, I am nevertheless sitting in a Canadian airport where there is good wifi. I had intended to blog while I was in Ethiopia, but I’ve been up in the mountains with very limited internet access, at least on my IPad. This trip has been many things; exhausting, thought-provoking, fullfilling, and hard. It put me way out of my comfort zone at times, which I would have previously said was a hard thing to do. I will be writing about these things in the future, but as is my tradition, my first blog when coming back into the country is one I don’t have to think about very hard. So you get pictures this time, which is what a lot of you are looking for anyway. Many of these I will write about in the future, but for now, you’ll just have to wonder and use your imagination.
As is my tradition, before I take a trip overseas, I write a test blog from my iPad. The interface is a bit different on a mobile device than on a computer, so I like to write at least one blog from the iPad to work out any kinks while I have access to power and bandwidth.
Saturday I leave for Ethiopia. This is also the time when a hurricane is predicted to be passing through, but we will pray against that. If Jesus commanded the wind and the waves, and we are acting in his authority, then so can we.
We are traveling to Ethiopia to do the finishing work on the Tesfa Center, which is a center designed to give destitute widows in the rural countryside a place to work and sustainably support both themselves and their children. James 1:27 came to mind today. It says, “Pure and undefiled religion before God is this: to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself unspotted by the world.” We have been given the awesome opportunity to do this. Notice that is not enough to be unspotted by the world? There are also things that must be done. Likewise we are not just called to be busy. Faith without works is dead, just as works without faith will not save us. By faith we show gratitude to the God that selflessly gave himself for us, that while we were yet sinners he died for us. We in turn should live as ransomed people. As God gave his life for us, we return it by giving ours back.
So long as I have internet I plan to give updates while I’m gone. Finally, I leave you with a picture of one of the widows we are going to minister to.
One of the most profound music lyrics I’ve heard is from, oddly enough, a song called “American Cheese”. One of the lines is, “And I know that, where the chains of doom are kept, I find my shoes.” I know there are those out there who believe that people are inherently good, and they’re welcome to their opinion. I’ve never taken to the Star Trek version of humanity, that we’ll just keep getting better on our own. I’ve seen too much with my own eyes to believe such fluff. I’m more of the opinion that “Lord of the Flies” had it much more accurately.
If I want to know the potential of what evil is possible in the world, all I really need to do is look in the mirror. I can tell myself, as many do, that I’m not such a bad person. But I know perfectly well that the potential is there. All I need to do is take my focus off of God and place it somewhere else, whether it’s myself, or money, or power (the latter leading back to self anyway.) But that’s the great thing about following Christ. He takes his own perfections, (yes, plural) and in an incredible act of grace and mercy, decides to let me with all of my imperfections, be His representative. I can look in that mirror, look at my face with all the potential for evil, and see the face of Christ instead. All I have to do is make sure my focus is not on me, but on Him. 2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “And we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us;”
As I get ready to go to Ethiopia, the spiritual warfare has already started. God chooses to let cracked, broken pots hold the fullness of His glory. The devil tries to drive wedges into these cracks and make them larger; cracks caused by all our imperfections, whether it be pride, or a lack of faith, or a lack of trust, or fear. I speak of myself with some of these. But the perfection that is Christ is made more full because the larger the cracks, the more opportunity for God’s grace to abound. In the same way, the worse things are, the more opportunity for God to do miracles. In all this, the defeat of the enemy will be all the more bitter because he will be defeated by such imperfection made perfect through Christ. So I must maintain my focus on Christ. When I go to the place where the chains of doom are kept, I don’t want to find my shoes there, and by God’s grace I won’t.
On my third trip to South Sudan, half way through the trip, someone gave me a patch of the flag of South Sudan. I thought it was pretty cool. They had one for everyone who came on that trip. I proudly sewed the patch (let’s be honest, my wife sewed it) on my camera bag. It’s the bag that carries all my camera gear and enough clothing and other items that if my other bag didn’t show up, I could still get through ten days in Africa.
Ten years ago, I was working for an insurance company. I could never have imagined that the gift God gave me for photography would take me to such incredible places, to meet such incredible people. I’ve met people who I’m sure will be lifelong friends in countries one of which didn’t even exist ten years ago. I am truly grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given.
Later this month, I leave for Ethiopia with the Petros Network, the same people that gave me the South Sudan patch when I met them in 2013. This time I’ll be with them, and I’m looking forward to all that this trip brings. I have no idea what to expect. I’ll be traveling alone until I get to the capital, Addis Ababa. Once I get there, I’ll have a night in the capital, then travel about four hours, I’m told, west into the mountains. I’m working on being able to stay with a local family once I get there. Many of the soul-capturing pictures of people happen when you’re just sitting outside in the village, and I can’t get that from a hotel. This trip is a completely blank slate, and as Kenya was for my wife, at this point all I have are preconceptions. I have preconceptions of what the people are like, preconceptions of the food, preconceptions of the landscape. I’ve tried googling images of where I’m going, but virtually nothing comes up, and that is very unusual. I’m both nervous and excited.
So with that, I’ve now sewn the third patch on my bag. I only sew patches onto the bag that the bag has been to. So I now have South Sudan, Kenya, and one clean patch, Ethiopia.
Feel free to subscribe to this blog to follow my trips. I will update, internet allowing.
As the wedding season slows a bit here in the south (it gets really hot here), I find I’m able to catch up on the things I’ve been meaning to get to for a long time. I no longer feel like I’ve got all the unedited files snapping at my heels like a herd of badly color corrected schnauzers.
On one of my previous trips to Africa, before I left, I had my old 30d slr camera converted to shoot 720 nm infrared light by Digital Silver Imaging. They take the old filter that’s opaque to infrared light off your sensor and replace it with one that allows certain wavelengths of infrared light to pass through. This allows for some really unique photography. I’ll say right off the bat that people seem to either hate it or love it, but it is a totally different way of seeing things. Objects reflect infrared light differently than visible, light, so the processing of the photographs is really an art form unto itself.
So why would I carry the extra weight of an additional camera body when I have tight weight restrictions and literally need to be able to carry everything on my back? Because as far as I know, nobody’s done it before, at least not in South Sudan. All photos were taken either in South Sudan or in Kenya. I wanted to get a new perspective, and by doing so, perhaps catch peoples attention who have never paid any notice to what’s going on in that part of the world. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, there is a tremendous physical and spiritual need in South Sudan. Having said that though, I’m not sure I’d carry the extra weight again.
I am currently getting ready to go on a missions trip to Ethiopia. I’ve been asked to take pictures for the Petros Network, which is doing extensive work there with church planting, medical missions, and widow and orphan missions. I am excited and honored to be able to help them. Their website is http://petrosnetwork.org
I will of course be blogging and posting photos of the Ethiopia trip when that happens. In the meantime though, between now and the end of October when I leave, I need to raise about $2000 more to cover my expenses. I have put my infrared photos up for sale as a fundraiser. The gallery can be viewed by using the following link. There are a variety of sizes available, and custom sizes can be ordered by contacting me though the online gallery. Please visit http://www.enjoyphotos.com, and fill in the following information:
Username: Infrared Africa Prints
Password: 43975
Enjoy my photography, and if you’d like to own some of it, you’ll be helping a good cause.
South Sudan Traveler 