Thank you to those who have donated in any form or fashion! As you can see a little goes along way! We'd LOVE to offer this opportunity to other girls that are affected by Human Trafficking in Debre Zeyit, and we will once we've secured a consist monthly donation that can support an additional girl's daily lunch ( <$1.50 a meal) and her transportation cost (if needed).
​If you like to donate please hit the button below.

Dear Ethiopia, this is Merron. (Everyone say "Hi"  to Merron)☺️. She is 8 years old and one of the cutest & sweetest thing ever!! And has an amazing story.  To start her mom used to work in a brothel where she unfortunately contracted HIV. Shortly after, she had an encounter with the Holy Spirit and left that lifestyle. But due to her mother'a condition she couldn't take care of Merron and left her with a neighbor. Well the neighbor abused her extremely badly. Sooo all this week we have been preparing a house (built a bed, painted, prepared a kitchen) that has been paid for, for the next two years and the surprised was reveal on Friday. Unfortunately on Saturday Merron's guardian purposely burned her face. Today we took her to the clinic to be examined but she is still all smiles and giggly.  She sung Mezmurs (gospel music) the entire way back!  Now that the house is prepared Merron can finally live safely in the care of her mother!  #butGod #ethiopia #Jesus

Yaaay!!! OMG I am super excited to announce the Dear Ethiopia After School Program is officially in the FIRST stage of fundraising! We have to raise $550 for initial renovation cost for opening this Free meal and after-school learning program! This program is offered to the daughters of the brothel, young elementary aged girls affected by Human trafficking and prostitution!

While working in Ethiopia this passed fall, I had many "Buna Time" meetings with women who were prostituting themselves. We where we would build up sisterhood and discussed the hardships they face and one major concern is they feared for their daughters repeating their mistakes. They also enclosed that sometimes their daughters have to go all day without food because their isn't enough money to send for both breakfast and lunch.

SOOOOOO thats were the After School program comes in!!! We are fundraising for the $550 for the opening day! Buuuut there is mooore ha while fundraising we are doing it Reverse Raffle Style, giving the opportunity to one lucky donor to win $550! Click the buttons blow for details!! 

I am suuuuuper excited! I've been talking to Ethiopia quite a bit lately and this program is super needed!
I am in Arizona at the moment so I will be recording a video pretty soon! Thank you for your support!!!

​Dear Ethiopia, we are ENDING human trafficking!

Hey Guyssssss I am super happy to announce that we are finalizing the budget for the After School program so it can launch!!! So far the budget for renovation is super attainable! I am just waiting on the pictures and videos of the condition now. 

Our plan is to do an initial renovation fundraiser, then later down the line a technology campaign and finally, we would need re-occurring monthly donations to fund the children's daily lunch, the tutor's salary, and the counselor's salary.  For details and goals of the After School Program click HERE.

We have some FUN and interesting ways to fundraise that I happy to be getting into! All that news and video updates will be coming next week!!

Her name means Queen, and honestly that what she truly is. She lovely wife and a wonderful mother of 6 (3 girls, 3 boys aging from preteen-late twenties) and has tremendously help me since I left Ethiopia. I send her blessings every month and she takes it to me meet the girls and advises them how to budget their money as well as any other spiritual, mental, and physical health guidance needed for their families. Let me tell you this woman has sown in tears and prays like a BEAST! Her heart has truly been captured by God, and is goals ha. I have never seen or even heard of her doing ill, or turning away someone in need. She opens her house and puts her heart in it! I want to bless her and her family so if you have any ideas let me know! I was thinking some sending her and Birhanu (husband) to a retreat or a vacation for a couple days! :) and much more of course. She and her husband also need glasses, so let me know if yall have the hook up on glasses lol i have the prescription written.​

Next we have the gorgeous……..

 Armed men from South Sudan have killed over 200 people,  wounded over 75, taken 2,000 head of livestock, and over 100 children have gone missing among many others in a cross-border raid into Ethiopia. This massacre was executed in the Gambela region.

Dear Ethiopia, Lets Pray...

Nickname: Mita, Mitmita 
Age: 7
Mom: Emabet Getachew
Favorite Food: Shiro & Pasta
Favorite Drink: Mirinda & Coca
Favorite Color: Pink
God Mom: ME :D
Fun Facts: Only child, placed #6 in BCI ranking for KG classes, Loves electronics, loves writing/coloring. She was born in Addis  & loves to help with cooking and making coffee. 
Unique Fact: Initially Bereket wasn't named when she was born. Someone else named her Bereket meaning blessing. & I chose her middle name of Tsion, meaning Zion. I’ve been praying about her name for a while and then Lauryn Hill hit me with Zion ha (just being real). But its perfect.
& Now lets look at her progression:

Look at that beautiful face!
​Special thanks to BCI, My Uncle Charles Henry, and Nigisti for making things possible.
Dear Ethiopia this is Bereket Tsion Getachew.

Meet the unfiltered, unadulterated, absolute, uncontaminated truth. This is Emabet, Bereket’s mother. I met her last year when her and her daughter stole my heart. This summer I was able to spend many days with them. Going to trips to the city, staying in cheap motels, enjoying the Blaze Christian Conference. She was a part of a “non” for profit “christian” organization that was supposed to support her by providing her basic needs.  BUT that wasnt the truth. This summer she was dropped from the program they day rent was due, and I did what I could to support her in the mean time. I only had enough to pay for August and September rent and thankfully found and anonymous donor that will be covering the rest of the months starting Nov 1st. Unfortunately that left a gap for the month of OCT and since she has a mouth to feed and no skills her option was to turn back into prostitution. This photo was taken Nov 17th, 2015 (two days ago). She was beaten by one of her John. Praise God now, she has her future covered in expenses and part of her agreement is to go to a counselor that I lived with for part of the summer. Unfortunately this isnt the case for some of the other women I worked with this summer coming out of prostitution. Some of their businesses are failing. Some find it difficult to work while having an infant. There are 8 women who need a total of $150 to cover the cost of food, child care cost (one month 4 babies), water, and rent. Would you consider donating? gofundme.com/dearethiopia or click the link in my bio and hit the “donate” tab for other options. Thank you!

​

“Oh, I am like Sammy & Cam!
Where she at, I am!
I’m her bestie, yes ma’am,
No you can’t steal my fran!”

(Ignore our eyebrows, we were young, ha just focus on them LAID edges!)

Ha, Man although I am over 7k miles away from the lil street we grew up on, the absence of her presence is still very near. I’ve had a couple post on Instagram, snapchat about the lost of my sister, but I regret posting some of them… I felt obligated to tell people I was hurting when I just wanted to be alone.

I can still recall everything that happened when I got the news. I was at work, and I texted her how she was doing through iMessage on my Mac because my phone had died and I was without my charger. We were talking about coming to see each other’s first house/apartment, and how she would stay the night during midterms and finals because I was closer to campus. We caught up on this an that, and she was asking me about my work study, after I told her how chill it was, and we were hiring I was gonna ask my boss if she can work with us. Then I left to volunteer with the youth on the westside. I came back and was chillen with my roommate in the living room watching TV and talking. Then I got a call from my mom asking had I heard the news, that Samirah had past. I remember saying “WHAT!?!” and running upstairs into my room to get my jacket so i can go for a drive so no one could see me; but I didn't make it. I told my mom “No were JUST talking! Thats impossible!” So as I hung up the phone and made my way upstairs into my closet and I couldn't hold it in. I fell on the floor bursting into tears trying not to make too much noise while enduring this pain. Then I heard one of my roommates say “Is she crying?” So I put my hand over my mouth the suffocate the loud uproar that was uncontrollably flowing from my body.

One of my roommates helped me take of my jacket, which I only successfully mafr one arm in my sleeve. And I began shaking and crying sooo hard I couldnt even speak. Even now as I type, the muscles in my arms and hands are revisiting that encounter. As much as I fought, but I couldn’t stop shaking and crying. I’ve never been so distant from my body where my emotions had complete control! I was guided to my bed, I was crying so hard I had to run to the bathroom from almost choking and throwing up. There was a weeping that came from me, my spirit screaming “OOOH”, but I honestly had no control over my mouth. I had to let this pain take it’s course and fully have authority of my body. Yes it was scary.
I woke up the next day with a sore throat, a lost of voice, and an absence from the person who knew me best! ​

We grew up together on the same street, and went to the same middle school. So form 6th-8th grade I’d see her everyday and spent pretty much (if not every) after school day at her house when I “conveniently” left my key. We’d copy each other homework, and  helped work on projects together. But even after going to separate high schools didn’t hinder our friendship. I was still always over…leaving my keys, we’d shared hair tips as we were the original naturals (before it was “cute”) and still helped each other with classes since we were both at early college high schools. She is good at natural sciences and I am better at social sciences. We helped each other practice for the drivers test, I remember going into the parking lot down the street and helping her with her maneuverability…


Then I graduated and went to OSU, and she had one more year left of high school because her high school was a five year program. The following year is when we became a lil distant when she went to Toledo. Ha she hated that school! But even that didnt stop us, we’d still Facetime in between study breaks. I’d complain about my crazy roommates and she’d tell me about how ghetto Toledo was. Although we’d never stepped a foot each other’s campus we knew exactly what our dorms looked like. Until she came and visited my dorm where I met Durrell (her boyfriend at the time) for the first time face to face after the years of hearing his voice over the phone. She’d also talked about how he was helping her deal with the craziness at Toledo where he attended also.


Then she started applying for OSU for the fall! She sent me her essay and I helped her with it, and it was about the first time she had heart surgery and her family. Later she got accepted, we were to be reunited in school! I could finally effortlessly excel in those natural sciences :P 

That summer I left for Ethiopia for 9 weeks, and whenever I had a strong enough connection we’d iMessage or Facetime (S/o to Apple tho). I came back and of course went over to her house, we caught up on summer travels and mishaps, exchanging photos and talking about any drama we were dealing with. One of the days I was over, her dad walked in and was surprised to see me, he said “its real nice to see y'all two girls still friends after all these years” while grinning “real nice!” We’d just smiled and went back to our business!

You see Samirah and I were the type of friends that always got each other. She KNEW me & I knew her. Our moms were friends and they would always walk in and complain, “they not even talking, how are they even hanging out”, but we WERE communicating! Always. (Mainly through facial expressions, eyebrow raises and noises “mhmm”) We’d literally make inside jokes in any given second, and any time we’d try to do something slick there was no need in explaining, we’d just follow suite. We were the same, but had enough differences to balance each other out! We weren’t boy crazy, we weren’t about that “turn up” life, we weren’t starving for attention of others, we were both just cool and laid back and trying to make it.

Actually, now that I am reflecting on it. It’s kind of weird it was like our spirits were twins. We’d had each other’s back, and was down for what ever! I literally had no problem talking to her about ANYTHING, as I’ve been doing it for years (and vise versa). Not worried about hidden thoughts, reading in between people’s lines, or any of that back stabbing fake stuff you have to worry about today. Like she was a bomb friend and if I was needing something from her I never had to worry or overthink if I could get it from her…it was already mine. Everyone needs a friend like that.
The day of her funeral was so hard! She past on Wednesday and her funeral was on Friday. When I seen her light pink casket roll past me all I could think is “that surely that cannot be MY friend in there!” Everything felt like a twisted joke or dream. Then we went into the grave site, and I was walking back to the car holding my breath so I wouldnt cry I ran into Morgan (Sam’s niece’s mother). And she said “….Samirah didnt open up to a lot of people, but she opened up to you!” then I started crying again “Awee I didnt mean to make you cry!” I continued back to the car.

But after the funeral I expected things to get easier when till this day almost 11 mo after the pain is all too familiar. Right after her passing (I’m guessing) some people hadn’t heard the news were texting me “Camille, can you give me a ride to here” “Sis, can you help me with this?” It started to drive me crazy! Not a hello, wassup, how are you doing? I KNOW you’ve seen several of my post, heck you “liked” it. Then I would be in a room full of people rather church, or some event on campus that considered me their “sister or friend” yet had NO clue what was going on. I had to pull away and sort out my thoughts on my own, I picked up more hours at work and busied my self with my studies. 
There was one time I was at the campus Bible study and someone walking from across the room towards was like “Hey, I seen your post that your friend died…are you okay?” I held my breath and said “I’m FINE.”. Said “Are you sure”, still not breathing “Yes”. And that was that, for me and maybe this is just me, but I am not about to open up to a room full of people whom I dont know, and expose how deep this cut is and burst out in tears. And for what? You know what I am going through, I cry and revisit those emotions, but the next few days I dont hear from you lol I’m not about that life either. Ahh another time, I was at home I was like I cant believe all this is happening (as there was a series of unfortunate events) and one of my roommates (not the one from that night) replied “it is what it is.” It literally took the ENTIRE Holy Spirit not for me jump across the room and punch her. Or when that same person said the day of her funeral “you should go to class and get back into the swing of things,” like anything would ever be the same again. Yea this whole mourning stage wasn’t going as I planned. I wasnt trying to make any new friendship, or attempt maintain the ones that had. But that didnt bother me, the worst thing was I didnt have Samirah here to help me deal with her death, to talk me through it and make me laugh again! So don’t judge my story on the chapter you walked in on, that was definitely the climax lowest point.

Am I still bitter about how some people reacted, lol it sounds like it (I am working on it), and do I appreciate those who were there for me, of course! S/o to Metzlal for holding me down that night, Sesen & Mical for always letting me vent on your couch. Of course my Bashintosh :) . Tiaira for checking up on me without even have access to the posts about Samirah, but just because, and Pastor Brian for letting me talk about what was all happening. Most importantly Durrell! Sam’s fiancé, he has helped me so much! He reminds me Samirah, in the beginning I almost wanted to avoid him because their similarities brought her back. He does the lil things that Samirah and I used to do (like those annoying HAPPY BIRTHDAY text ad midnight with each letter getting it own text). And for everyone else I didn’t mention because these emotions are running course on my mind!

When she past, it literally felt like my soul was ripped and a piece of it died. If Mary felt any more pain than I did that night when her precious baby boy was hung on the cross Im not sure how she made it, but she did.

So I am making it, pain still comes for visit as pleases. I recently had a dream that my mom and her mom was talking and I was walking down the street and she was there and she told me it was a misunderstanding. So we continued down the streets and I fell on my knees worshiping and thanking God. I know we will be reunited, but until then I can only dream. It still feels like she is just on a long vacay and I am waiting for those “hey sis” text. Sometimes I think “Okay, God I get it, I get the point You’re making You can bring her back again like Lazarus” (even though I know thats not right). But I dont have any regrets, she was at her dream school and she met a soulmate. We’ve never done each other wrong, I only wish we took more pictures along the ride. And I only fear the future memories that she isnt apart of. Like graduation, Law school, traveling, and each others my wedding. 

So yall pray for my strength & healing and for me to become comfortable with this vulnerability as September 17th approaches and we plan her Tribute and anniversary.

Rest in Peace Samirah, I would do absolutely anything to bring you back. If there was only Facetime in heaven! I miss you, we all miss you and I cant wait till we are reunited again. But thanks for literally being there, through the good and bad times. Thanks for a friendship that can never be replicated but only hoped for. Thanks for being that ride or die, that was down for what ever and never changing a beat. You’ll always have a place in my heart that no can fill and you could never be forgotten! Have fun worshipping in Heaven with our Father, I love you.

Yea she Cold

Stay Tuned

Dear Ethiopia,
This is _______,
These are all the beautiful letters written on Jan 17th, the night of the benefit for Dear Ethiopia!! I can’t wait to pass them all out! They are so thoughtful and wonderfully written! Thanks again.

​

Thank you all for coming to celebrate my first Dear Ethiopia benefit and 21st Birthday!!
The letters are beautiful, and the donations are amazing!! It is a huge blessing! I will be posting more videos and photos soon! But here is Frehiwot’s (Enat) Video that I showed that night! Be sure to watch it HD on Vimeo :)
Enjoy.

Finally Jesus! After 29321390214191 hours and a billion times trying to upload, here is Chapter One of “A Child Who Had No Name”.
I’ve been working on this for daaaaaays! S/o to Nati, Ruth & Jalane for looking over & translations!
In case you missed the trailer: http://vimeo.com/102977389
Hope you enjoy! Again this is just Chapter One…only the beginning! The next chapter will focus more on the Holy Ghost & how He moved! 

I almost forgot.
Wow, as I was going through my photos and videos from Ethiopia. I forgot upload Rosa’s video! 
Kelkias (one of BCI’s members) recorded a video of Genet & Rosa Daniel (BCI recipients) with a little message to their sponsors. He used his phone (please excuse the quality) and we just added English subtitles (…Sorry for the timing on those as well.)  
Enjoy(:
Also here is the video in HD: http://vimeo.com/109386717
Here is also trailer to Emabet & Bereket’s “A Child Who Had No Name”. I have been working hard and almost finished with part one: http://vimeo.com/102977389

Full Video of princess getting her ears pierced and taking it G status! Go Bereket!
“The day I took Emabet & Bereket to get some extra bling! Lol Bereket wanted her ears pierced soooo bad so we went and got them done…. And look how she took it! just like a straight up G! See that lil smile after it went through? Thats my baby!”

This is actually a photo of her I took the day I left Ethiopia…as you can see she is ALWAYS smiling!!

​Yo. 😄 Just look at that JOY! 💕Lol that day we did each other’s nails💅 (pink of course), 💋 got Bereket a new outfit👗, took her to get her ears pierced✨, bought her mom a ring💍, then we went out for dinner😋 and came back to watch the Lion King 😸👑. 💃 Literally the best girls night I’ve ever had! 😝#genuinejoy 👭 #mygirlies #ethiopia 😍

Hello Konjits! How are you? I have an EXCITING update! Here is trailer to my mini documentary of little Bereket & Emabet’s life story called “A Child Who Had No Name”! Again this is a trailer, I am still working on the documentary so please stay tuned for that! Hope you Enjoy, from A Dear Ethiopia Films! Thanks! ​

​? a lil somethin somethin I’ve been workin on!! ? “A Child Who Had No Name” from a #DearEthiopia films. ? Trailer is finalized, mini documentary comin soon. Stay tuned on the blog! #linkinbio #ethiopia ??❤️✊

​Fikir from Ethiopia <3