04/01/2021
Many have told us that they didn’t even know we were going to see our kids at Thrive Academy, and to be honest with you, neither did we😩. There many roadblocks along the way and our status's changed daily. Those who planned to go, couldn’t, we had to be COVID tested twice within a certain period of time to even get on a ✈️ plane. Those tests had to be negative within 120 hours of landing in Ethiopia and many of us didn’t get our results until the final hour. 😬 We wore our masks 😷 for the 10 hour flight to Frankfurt ,We sat in the deserted airport for 10 hours with no businesses open and very few people around. It was eerie to say the least. After the 10 hours in the Frankfurt airport we had a final 8 hour final leg into Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We were stopped multiple times all along the way to prove our negative COVID tests results and our temperatures were taken very often. I must say that even though this team is much smaller than our usual size they have gigantic hearts to sacrifice so very much to get here by on literal wing and a prayer!
Upon arrival at our school, the children appeared frightened by us due to what they heard about the pandemic in the US. They are wearing their masks and of course so were we. After our initial greeting, they became our sweet little soldiers asking about all Thrive in the US that supports them. They are worried about your health and your families. There is this one little Angel Kalkidan who asked about Wade N Linda Charlesworth (her sponsors). When I told her that they are healthy, she pulled this out picture of her backpack. She has carries their picture with her all year in her backpack. Wow!!
Everyone often asks me about what kind of gifts you can give them? The greatest gift is that you can do is sponsor one of them to go to school, and get a good education with uniforms, food, medicine, and our wonderful staff who take care of them daily. Along with all of that, all these little pictures that you send over are a constant reminder to them that someone in the US loves them dearly and helps them know they are worth saving!
Our school is constantly growing so quickly and now their are 241 kiddos after we've added a new kindergarten class of 33 cuties.
If you would like to sponsor a child https://www.thriveacademyethiopia.org/sponsor please click the link and pray over who God may place in your life. They will steal your heart!!❤️🇧🇴
