With that being said, welcome to:
The best way for me to start this series of, is to go back to the beginning of our journey which started 3 years ago when we traveled to Ethiopia for the very first time. We were on a different sort of mission at that time, as our focus was meeting and picking up our first son Malachi!
To be honest with you, that trip was pretty miserable for me. I was 10 weeks pregnant and super nauseated and exhausted. We were confined to a foreign hotel room with a 3 month old baby boy who we knew nothing about. We spent that week in Ethiopia just waiting for the opportunity to come home.
However, that does not say that this country did not capture my heart. After all, I was given one of the greatest gifts of my life from this country. I do not take the fact that we took Malachi out of his culture lightly. Peter and I both intend to spend our entire lives teaching Malachi about his heritage and giving back to this amazing country.
I remember as our plane took off from Ethiopia, having tears in my eyes. As difficult as that journey was for me - I had fallen in love with this country! It was more beautiful than I had ever imagined it would be. It was so much richer in history than I ever knew. The people were so proud and happy and funny and kind. And in that moment as we said goodbye to a country that unexpectedly captured our hearts. We knew that we would be back again, several times!
Our passion did not die down when we came home. In fact, if anything it has grown so much stronger as we learn more and spend more time learning about Ethiopia. For a couple years now, Peter has been researching options to go back. The timeline has never worked out as we have added more babies to the family and his vacation time is limited. We have researched and learned about so many worthy organizations that send teams to Ethiopia. Truly, there are so many great organizations out there. But nothing in the past had felt right.
But now, the time is right! I admit that I never really thought that I would be joining Peter on this initial trip back but I truly feel God calling me to return as hard as it will be for me to get on another plane for that long and as hard as it will be for me to leave my babies. We are thrilled to share with our friends that we will be returning to Ethiopia in January to serve on a team with Ordinary Hero! To make this even sweeter, we will also be dragging along (willingly) some friends from our church! Returning to Ethiopia with my husband and some friends is like a dream come true!
I can't wait to share more with you all as we dig in a bit deeper in the weeks to come on this series. I am very excited to get to spend more time sharing about the awesome organizations we will be serving alongside!
Unfortunately the not-so-fun part of gearing up to go is the fundraising. I don't want to spend too much focus on this, but if you feel led and want to support our going to Ethiopia, you can donate online at this link Keyser Fundraising Link and we will be grateful for your help on this new and exciting journey!
And to put one more plug out there - maybe you feel like God could be leading you on a trip to Ethiopia. Guess what? YOU CAN COME WITH US!!! Please, feel free to email me at amymkeyser@gmail.com if you want to come! There is still plenty of time to sign up and you don't have to be a local friend to join the team!
Okay, one last thing I leave you with is this video from Ordinary Hero! It shows exactly the types of things our team will be doing in country!
(for those accessing this blog through email, you will need to click HERE for the video link!)
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