Quick Overview

• Hike: Moderate, 1 hour to reach the church.

• Church Structure: Completely rock-hewn.

• Paintings: Well preserved, sometime between 13thand 17thcenturies.

• Views: Open view of the Hawzen plain.

• What I like: Moderate hike, great view, and unique church.

• Overall Experience: Top five.

Quick Overview:

• Hike: Easy, 1 hour to reach the church, no climbing.

• Church Structure: Only partially rock-hewn.

• Paintings: Vivid, end of 18thcentury beginning of the 19th. 

• Views: No views but beautiful landscapes and farms.

• What I like: Great for people who can’t do hard hikes.

• Overall Experience: Top ten. 

Ethiopia has been an amazing place to start a family. We have been so lucky to have had amazing adventures in this place. Here are the top ten things I will miss most about Ethiopia.

Quick Overview

• Hike: Level–Difficult. There are two sections of free climbing. For safety, I recommend asking your guide to bring a harness and ropes, but I have always done it without. One hour climb to the church.
• What I Like: I love how treacherous it is to reach this church and what treasures await you at the top.
• Overall Experience: Top five, I would only recommend this for children over twelve and please request ropes.

You don’t have to be a person of the Orthodox faith to enjoy this deeply spiritual pilgrimage past pastoral farms, up through canyon walls and into the mountains in search of these ancient treasures. The physical act of hiking to these hidden churches mirrors for me the life-long journey of the pilgrimage toward God. It is a unique opportunity to see yourself, away from the busyness of routine and habit, as you climb up into the ancient mysteries that these mountains hold.

I remember when my husband and I drove fifteen hours from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to our new home in the north. I loved every minute of the heat, the god-forsaken hotel, and the lack of water when we arrived at our new home. I vividly remember thinking, “I am the luckiest person in the world that I get to have this life.” Fast-forward six months to a year later, and guess who was crying? ME. Read the rest of this post on the Taking Route Blog. 

There are rhythms all around us sending us messages. The power goes out. The water tank is empty. The internet hasn’t worked in days. The car breaks down. The baby just wants to be held. In those moments there is a very critical choice that will make or break my day; will I listen to the rhythms or try to create my own? Read the rest of this post on the Taking Route Blog.

Maybe I’m the only mom that has ever been nervous about raising and caring for a child in the developing world. I try to calm my anxiety with reason—millions of moms have raised their babies in the developing world in worse conditions. I shouldn’t have a problem. Right after my daughter was born, the reality of living in Africa became real and I honestly don’t feel equipped for the challenge. Read more of this post on The Taking Route Blog.

I am named after my grandma Joy who passed away recently. I wasn’t there to say goodbye to her. I wasn’t at her funeral. And it was all so terribly wrong and unnatural. It was so wrong that I didn’t get to hold my grandma’s hand one last time. It was so wrong that I didn’t get to grieve with my family. It was so wrong that my mom had to pack up Grandma’s house without me. It was all so wrong, but it is just the way it was because I live an ocean away. Read the rest of the post on the Taking Route Blog.

I always envisioned myself peeing in a porcelain toilet to confirm my first pregnancy, but there I was squatting over a hole in the ground.That was just the beginning of new experiences while navigating pregnancy in the foreign country that I call home. Somedays I embraced the adventure of it all and on others I caved in to the fear and unknown. At the beginning of my pregnancy I didn’t know what questions to ask to decide where to deliver my baby. Through this Taking Route community, I have come in contact with many women that have had babies while living abroad, but when I was first embarking on this journey I hardly knew anyone with that experience. Read the rest of the post on the Taking Route Blog.

Need, I am finding, is one of the greatest gifts in the world. Maybe it is a gift to need redemption, to need grace, to need water, to need God to provide. I have never felt my need as clear as I do here in Mekelle; it’s a combination of the brokenness I have embraced in myself in recent years mixed with the vulnerability of our life here. Away from the familiar, distant from community,  and adapting to the unknown.

I hesitate to write this article, because I am worried that I will unveil one of the best kept secrets in East Africa: the Ancient Rock-Hewn churches of Northern Ethiopia. To get to most of these churches you have to hike up into the mountains, where you will find hidden 1600 year-old churches that have been preserved by the monks and priests of modern and of old. Most of the churches were carved deep into the rock to protect them, as well as their history, from invaders. Read the rest of the blog on the We Are Travel Girls Blog.

Quitting my job last summer made me face my real life, or should I say lack of a real life here in Mekelle.Greg had started a business, he had employees and friends and was getting a hang of the language. It had been tons of work for him, but it was paying off. He was blossoming and I was sinking in to the shadows.

For Easter I had my hair done in the traditional Ethiopian style. My friend owns a local hair salon. I went at 11am and was finished at 3pm. #4hourslater I will have to be honest that it was hard to sleep the first few nights, but by the fourth night I slept like a baby.

I will have to admit that thinking about my breakfast routine at my house in Mekelle, on a cold morning, brings me tons of peace while sitting in a hotel in the middle of nowhere Ethiopia. I can almost feel the fur in the bottom of my slippers as I shuffle around the kitchen in my bathrobe. I yawn as I pour oil on a hot pan and watch it sizzle. I breathe in through my nose to smell the freshly roasted coffee beans as I pour them into the grinder. I watch the blender hum with frozen bananas, canned coconut milk, peanut butter, dates, and almonds. Its more like a breakfast milkshake than a smoothie, but before you get too excited you will need frozen bananas for all these recipes.

In Ethiopia, the Melse is part two of the Ethiopia wedding celebration. The bride and groom wear the traditional Ethiopian clothes and partake in traditional dancing and food with a smaller group of closer friends and family. The word Melse means, ‘a return,’ and in this case ‘a changed return’. The significance is that the man and woman were recognized as single individuals before, but now they are welcomed as a married couple to the community by the Melse. Our Ethiopian friends and family wanted to welcome us as a married couple to Mekelle as we entered this new chapter of life with a Melse.

We all love coffee, but know what will take your brew to the next level? Roasting it by hand.  It doesn't take much time and is guaranteed to make your house smell amazing.  Join the Upper Barn Blog as I take you on a tour of Ethiopia and hand roasted coffee.

The Paradigm Project launched its first micro-manufacturing facility for the EzyStove on the continent of Africa in early 2016, and it’s anything but ordinary. Link here to the rest of this post on the Paradigm Project website.

If you were born in the Western world the concept of a wood-burning cookstove doesn’t make any sense unless maybe you are camping. Isn’t the point of the stove to be gas-burning or electric? This might come as a shock, but 3 billion people in the world, half of the planet’s population, still cook over an open fire.

My husband Greg & I live in a town called Mekelle, in the arid highlands of Northern Ethiopia. Greg manages a clean energy company called EzyLife that manufactures wood-burning cook-stoves. I wanted to share more about why we live here in Mekelle and how we are making this place our home in a #MakingMekelleOurHomeBlog Series. 

I forgot about the coming of Our Savior and Easter and Good Friday in the busyness of nothing.