Hello from Ethiopia!
So excited to be writing to you from our sixth country on this 11-month journey. It’s pretty crazy that this month we will be celebrating our halfway mark!
As we get excited about the next five and a half months we have left, I’ve also entered a season of remembering. Remembering the connections we’ve made, the prayers we’ve prayed, the crazy experiences we’ve been able to have, and the countless stories we’ll be able to tell.
As we remember, I have decided to dedicate this month to storytelling, something I love with all my heart.
This month the team that I’ve been working with is doing Unsung Heroes, a month that I got to experience the first month of my race in Cambodia. We get to be the middleman for the World Race and find new contacts to have for future WR teams. In this, we ask the Lord to provide direction and man oh man has He shown up already.
STORYTIME!
Two days ago, we got to spend the day with a potential contact, Ordinary Hero, a ministry here in Ethiopia bringing nothing but the name of Jesus to these people. As we drove to the ministry site our friends gave us some background into what we were about to see.
We entered the region of Khora. The poorest part of the city of Addis Ababa. This area is incredibly poor and the thousands of people that live here depend on the city’s massive landfill for their survival. So of course, with no hesitation, we head over there to see God move and to share the love God has for all His people.
It was hard. As soon as we arrived in the area my first reaction was to cover my nose because of how awful it smelled. All you see is shack after shack, trash everywhere, and kids standing waist deep in piles of trash just searching for their next meal to survive. My heart broke and I didn’t know what to feel.
We arrived at a little home where the pastor, who is linked with Ordinary Hero, distributes and gives his life away so that others may live fully. It was distribution day, the day of the week in which the community counts down for. As part of this man’s ministry to this aching community, Pastor Tesfaye, gathers the basics to distribute so that they may be able to feed their families and survive. People were lined up outside of this home in anticipation for their name to be called so they could receive some food. As I entered, I saw nothing but smiles. Smiles of seeing a white girl, of confusion, of excitement, and of the hope that they were about receive.
Christ is in this place.
This man has turned this community upside down and has given them hope, but not because of the distribution of food, but because of the love he shows them, the love of Christ.
As we continued to distribute food, I was told a story about him. Pastor Tesfaye was recently mugged. Three men came up to him and took everything he had. A couple days later they found the three men and asked him if he wanted to have them arrested… Testfaye’s reaction was “no, let them go”. These three men are now being discipled by Pastor Tesfaye and growing in their love for Christ. WHAT? This man is walking Jesus.
Later that afternoon, we hopped on the back of a pickup truck with bags of food to visit homes around the landfill and distribute some more. This was the first glimpse I got of the mountain of trash. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
I couldn’t believe that people lived in this. That this pile of trash is what thousands of families, orphans, mothers, and street kids depend on for daily hope and survival. I will never forget what I saw that day.
When we arrived home and met up with the rest of the team to chat we began to process. Ohhhhhh perspective, the things it does to us and our faith.
“Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” [Ecclesiates 1:2] – our team is going through this book this month and as we discussed what we had just seen it hit us. “Well shoot, what in the world that we do isn’t ‘chasing the wind”?
God’s eyes look down at us and he sees us working, doing everything we can to make a mark, to have a legacy, we build our pride. I wonder if to Him, all He sees is us sifting through trash like those little kids. Just searching for the next way to survive, to fill up our cup of hope for the day. I’ve had to take a step back this month and realize this. To stop focusing on what I’m doing and realize that He sees his children all the same. When we find our hope in legacy, pride, and survival for the next day we forget that our true hope should be in the Kingdom we have waiting for us. This life is not ours and I couldn’t be more thankful for this incredible perspective.
until our next story time.
ana.
