Mission to Ethiopia

Joshua, Alvarado grads lead way at schools, on trip

By Matt Tasler/sports@trcle.com

Jordan Cherry and Katie Garrett recently returned from a trip they won’t soon forget. The two recent high school graduates — Cherry from Alvarado, Garrett from Joshua — went on a mission trip to Ethiopia from April 27 through May 8.

The trip was sponsored by their church, St. Matthew Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Burleson.

Outreach Minister Melissa Hagler said the church has worked in conjunction with Joe Robertson from the Adera Foundation on past trips, and he set up accommodations for the nine church members who went on the trip.

Cherry and Garrett led a backpack drive at their schools to help gather supplies for the Ethopian children in the months leading up to the excursion, but they wanted to do something more.

The duo believed they had a calling to help in some other way.

“It’s kind of funny because we went into this going, ‘Well, what are we good at? What do we know? How can we help?” Garrett said. “We said. ‘Well, we play soccer.’ We didn’t really go into it with a plan. As we got the ball rolling we just kind of went, ‘Well, we love soccer. Our teams could have a backpack drive. Or we could have a soccer camp. Hey, that’s a good idea.’

“Then it just kind of kept building and building. It’s really cool though. It’s exciting to see how it forms. I’m confident that whatever path it takes it’s still going to improve and grow.”

The sports authority in Guncheri, a small village outside of the capital city of Addis, informed the girls there were 28 teams in the area that could benefit from the soccer camp, but they expected only three or four teams to be on hand for the camp.

Soccer players in the U.S. typically compete on well-manicured fields, so Cherry was taken aback when she saw fields mainly consisting of dirt and rocks.

“I feel so bad because Katie and I — and any soccer player — we complain about the field conditions at some places here and that would have been like a professional soccer field compared to what they have to play on,” Cherry said. “When we met with the sports authority he said this was a huge event for girls because over there in Ethiopia girls don’t play. The girls getting to see us play was a huge impact on them, to see that they can play. That they have the chance to and they have the capabilities to play.”

When the mission group arrived, they expected a handful of teams with a few dozen players. What they found was 38 teams consisting of more than 1,000 players in mismatched uniforms ready to play, with one team of girls.

The mission group handed out supplies to each team, including colored jerseys, an air pump and soccer balls.

Because so many teams showed up prepared to play at the soccer camp, a lottery was held to determine which teams would play in special exhibition games.

Cherry said it was difficult getting the male players to pass the ball to her, but once they figured out how skilled she was, they relented.

“When they were playing, a couple of times Jordan made these amazing moves and just schooled them,” Hagler said. “The crowd would just erupt. Then Katie would get in goal, and she made these amazing saves, and the crowd, once again, just erupted. The way these two girls handled themselves was just a sight to see. They were so impressive.

“Being around 1,000 people who are wanting to be as close as possible to you, and they just handled themselves amazingly. They handled it better than most adults could have handled that situation. They are being very humble because they were exceptional.”

One aspect of the competition made a lasting impression on Garrett.

“They played barefoot,” Garrett said. “They were all mismatched. They all wore their shirts, and that was kind of exciting because for the first time they all got to wear the same color. The field was basically a pasture with two goals on it, and people were the sidelines. It was crazy.”

Cherry said communication on the field was difficult because the other players primarily spoke Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia.

“They were all boys teams, and they could run,” Cherry said. “And they don’t have a halftime. They do, but it’s not even two minutes long. It was just enough time to change sides.

“I was like, ‘Water? Please?’ They were like, ‘Do you want to come off?’ and I said, ‘No, I don’t want to come off. But I would like some water.’ ”

During one of the exhibition games, Garrett made a humanitarian gesture that stood out in Hagler’s memory.

“One of the boys got hurt, and he was laying on the ground,” she said. “The crowd had taken Katie some water because she was hot, and Katie got it and gave it away to the injured boy. That was just something really cool to see.”

“That means something in Ethiopia — having that water bottle,” Cherry said.

Cherry and Garrett said they had the chance to connect with several of the locals, and they looked forward to continuing those relationships on future trips to the village.

Cherry said she formed a bond with several young boys at an orphanage called Kechene, located in Addis.

Although this was Cherry’s first mission trip, Garrett has been to Mexico on past trips with the church.

“I think anyone that has ever been on a mission trip would agree that you definitely get out of it more than you put into it,” she said. “It really affected us a whole lot too, being there. It was really different because at the Mexico mission trip we went and we built houses for people. When we were here, we were really just interacting with the people, building a relationship and a strong foundation for communication for further trips. It was a way to get to know the people better, which was different. It impacted everyone that was involved, but it was definitely different than anything I had been on before.”

In December 2007, the church raised $25,000 as part of their Gift to the King offering, which funded a garden and other agricultural items for a transition center in Guncheri.

This past Christmas, the Gift to the King offering totalled $35,000 to help provide a water system for the village.

“A lot of the people there get water out of the rivers,” Hagler said. “They walk an hour, two hours, three hours — however far away they live from the river to get water — so we’re building four water stations in the village of Guncheri. We’ve completed one, so we sent the funds to do three more and to provide bathrooms for the junior high in Guncheri. We’re working on a five-year plan to help the community.”

In preparation for the trip, the mission group attended meetings for six months, Hagler said, They discussed the pros and cons of everything involved, and members who had been on previous trips were able to give the first-timers, like Cherry, an idea of what to expect.

For a majority of the trip, the mission team stayed at the Nagosh Lodge in Wooliso.

“We stayed in huts, which was really cool,” Garrett said.

Monkeys at the resort provided a better experience than some of the other animals the team encountered while in Africa.

Cherry and Garrett were awakened by a loud noise one night during their stay.

“There is no air conditioning, but the weather is really nice, in the 70s all year round, so we keep the windows open,” Garrett said. “[Cherry] woke me up at like 1 in the morning one night, She was like, ‘Katie, we have to close the windows. There’s something outside.’ It ended up being a hyena. It was pretty scary.”

“Yep, pretty scary,” Cherry said.

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