Kindri Van Puffelen recently returned from Ethiopia. The following is an excerpt from her diary:
“The greatest picture of contrast though was in the kids. Menlo Park Presbyterian Church has been working in Roggi for 9 years now, so their first kids are now in 7th grade. They walked us room by room starting with the newest kids in kindergarten and we were greeted with smiles and songs. It was really amazing to see the stark improvements as the kids got older. The newbies were tiny and shy and still pretty dirty and unhealthy. Even with just 2 years of being in the Hope School, the kids were more confident, their personal hygiene had improved so much and they seemed to be huge for 7 and 8. The 7th grade class was pretty phenomenal. They still have all 50 of the original kids with no dropouts which is amazing in and of itself. They were able to communicate some with us in English, although Amharic is the national language. They are looking forward to finishing 8th grade and having a very good chance of moving on to high school and even university. Most kids in these rural villages drop out by 4th grade, if they even go to school at all. It was impressive and encouraging to see what impact Hope has had here in Roggi and look forward to seeing the transformation of Sintaro.”
Sintaro Village 2020 