Close your eyes for a minute and try to remember your history books that taught you what life looked liked hundreds of years ago. Back when paved roads didn’t exist, and everyone had to go and collect water from a well and load their jugs onto their donkeys. Envision poor farmers herding their cattle, and tiny three year old boys running around the wheat fields chasing away pesky birds. The market place is packed with people sitting on the ground selling their merchandise, and donkeys and sheep and chickens make up half the population. People travel for hours and hours on foot or by buggy to get to school and church. Back then, time was completely different. There was no running in and out of the front door for countless different activities. There was no WiFi or television. There was simply life spent alongside each other. And that, my friends, is my reality.
I live at a children’s village in the bush of Ethiopia. I generally feel like I’m in the Bible or Little House on the Prairie…or the Lion King (which very accurately depicts African sunsets, by the way). As far as the eye can see, there are fields upon fiends of crops and waist-tall grass dotted with herds of roaming cows. Just down the hill from our guesthouse are the children’s homes. HOPEthiopia is home to 24 orphans (ages 3-18) and 7 house moms who live with the kids and raise them as their own. The children came from this society’s lowest of the lows–some of their stories have left me in tears. However, you would never know they come from such horrible situations. They overflow with joy and laughter, and getting to spend time with as we give English and Bible lessons has been one of the biggest blessings of living here. In addition to working with the kiddos, we’ve been helping make bricks for a trade center they’re building on our compound. The plan is to take women from extreme poverty and teach them different trades so they are able to provide for themselves and their families. We’ve worked on other projects around the compound as well, such as gardening, cooking, painting, and other odd jobs. Life is simple and sweet.
Some of the most stretching ministry has been outreach. A couple times a week, we go to HOPEthiopia’s well, where dozens of locals are always gathered, and spend time with them. We help them load their water onto their donkeys, let the women braid our hair, and play with the kids. Often, people invite us back to their homes. Sitting in their dark, one-room mud huts has been one of the most humbling experiences of my life–but it definitely was not easy at first. Talking has always been the easiest way for me to from relationships. Coming from Central America where I could communicate fairly well to a country where I didn’t even know how to say hello was brutal. However, as I’ve immersed myself in the surrounded community, I’ve slowly but surely learned to love without words…something that locals here have taught me.
In the middle-of-no-where Ethiopia, I’ve been exposed to what true community looks like. Life here revolves around people, not a social calendar. When I’m doing house visits, or loving on our cooks and construction workers, or sitting and chatting with the house moms, I feel fully known and loved. Even when the conversations shouldn’t be flowing, they somehow always do. Sometimes all it is is giggling with each other and holding hands. But words, as I’m discovering, are not always needed. Sure, I love when we have a translator and I’m able to learn more about their lives, but the most joy I have experienced have been during broken conversations. In the New Testament, the Bible gives so many accounts about how Jesus made every person feel seen and known. He didn’t give them material things– a need I am overwhelmed by daily–but instead embraced them, sin and filth and all, and humbled himself so low that he did life with them every day. And he didn’t do it out of obligation. He didn’t do it because God told him to. He did it because He loved his people and rejoiced over them. It was not his duty. It was his delight.
As I walk through the streets and get mauled by herds of children, and cook ingera with the house moms, and sit having long conversations with our ministry hosts, I can’t help but see them them through the eyes of the Lord. I truly adore them, and I’ve learned that simply stopping, giving them a kiss, and looking them in eyes and making sure they know I appreciate them SO much will show them the love of God better than any sentence I could form, or any handouts I could buy. I know that God has big plans for my life. I know he is and will continue using me in many different ways. I don’t know where he will take me, but I do know this: no matter where I am or what I’m doing, all I have to do is love. Not with a rushed love, or a love that plays it safe, or a love that expects in return, but real, raw, adoration of the people around me. A love that doesn’t make sense to the unbelieving world. A love that doesn’t need words. It’s a choice…a choice to receive the Father’s love and share it with world. The more I fall in love with my Father, the more that same love manifests into my actions, the more I walk in complete freedom.
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Galatians 5:13-14
It’s hard to believe that I only have two months of the Race left. While the thought of arriving home on June 3rd makes me so incredibly excited, I’m treasuring the last 8 weeks I have left here in Ethiopia. Thank you all so much for sticking with me the past 7 months…it seriously means so much. God bless!
