All donations acquired from this book will go toward mission trips and mission work in Ethiopia. You can order the book in many formats online at www.HelpKorah.com. Thank you for supporting HelpKorah through your donations. To learn more about our organization, visit www.HelpKorah.com. HelpKorah: Advancing the Gospel in AddisCODD We Will Take Our Cameras I think about going to Korah and taking my wife and kids, We stop in Rome to shop and ‘explore the plazas and the coliseum, ‘Then we get back on the plane and fly to our destiny of destitution. ‘We will wear our old shoes and clothes certainly not the new ones we bought ‘We will keep those at our hotel with our wallets, phones and kindles. We will shake hands and give hugs and tell our son even more of his people. He will hear their voices and ‘marvel at their skin and wonder. He will think about what might have been if love didn’t exist And we will take our cameras, (of course we won't forget those) And we will have someone take a picture with our camera It might be awkward and ‘we might have to explain it thrice Our smiles will be captured if we can all smile at the same time. ‘And we will get on a plane and fly over Rome wishing we could sleep. Touching down we will be delighted and when we get home, we will buy a frame And then we will find the perfect place to hang that picture of us trying to smile. And we will all wonder what Silas was thinking as he watched that man in Ethiopia take his pictureCODD 5 How You Stole Me In Addis (Pt. 1) She plays the piano, slow, like the waving silk curtains float away from the open window. She escorts us out of her home. and walks us to the ve- hicle. Her smile is a beacon leading me past the makeshift kiteh- cen where there are boulder-sized sacks of refuse, and open-faced shacks tied together with sticks and twine from the dump. "What is in those sacks, really?" I think to myself. Big, bulky boulders of brown, Analyzing squinches, my eyes fail to register an answer. I turn to her and look at her. She is konjo, beautiful ‘The sun is out now, after a heavy, muddy rain, and it beats on ry back. I'm wearing too much protective clothing, I wonder if incamational visits mean risking just a T--so what if you get wet, and uncomfortable? Am I so important, really? Shouldn't 1 get wet, if they do too? Thoughts of self-condemnation flee as the children gather around, Feringe, feringe (foreigner, foreigner) Her friends gather around, all smiling, standing at the edge of the road in a row. I get in to the vehiicle and look through the muddy pane. No one else is in yet, I'm all alone. Children gather around, Who is the feringe? Did he bring something? Does he have birt, money? The girl and her friends look into the vehicle at me, What are they thinking? Has she told them about the food? The prayers for her mother? Her listening to my story and me telling the story of stories? The church service tomor- row with the meal? Like the flickers of lightning bugs in June, thoughts advance and retreat, I'm just “here.” Ach! Was kann Mann tun? What can I possibly do here! Hands up in the sky ‘She plays the piano, slow, like the waving silk curtains floating away from the open window. ‘The smell of the dump cakes my tongue and the vision of blucish gray mucus on the faces of the little ones clinches my jaw. Equidistant, straight streams oozing even down. Think of something else. Quick, I get out and swing my pack around my shoulders and shake some hands. My pack is strapped tight to my chest. I'm protected from theft. Ten years ago, they murdered for food. Things are better now. People have been praying. Still "Salam," I say and shake her hand, Its all | know to say: Its hello, but it's really goodbye. 8Refuugee Camp or Hell? A Haiku “Not for sale: I'm nine!” “But you wanna eat don't you” “Yes! Can Ihave bread?”CODD Where Is She? Where is she, who beyond shores upon shores Lies makeshift in crowded bed? Is she weeping today or smiling’ Bending the back like a limp tree Over the muddy pale the laundry to tend? Anoble child who cares for her mother Onward seven days without end? Let my vexed soul be bled So she in her school be warm and fed.All donations acquired from this book will go toward mission trips and mission work in Ethiopia. You can order the book in many formats online at www.HelpKorah.com. Thank you for supporting HelpKorah through your donations. To learn more about our organization, visit www.HelpKorah.com. HelpKorah: Advancing the Gospel in Addis