HOPEthiopia
thank you sweet Jesus for HOPEthiopia. the three months spent on that compound in the middle of literally no where were easily some of the best months of my entire life.
we lived with 29 orphaned children and their housemoms + the four staff members (more like family than staff) it was a dream. i rave about HOPEthiopia. my Race was made in the time spent on that compound. it was located in a tiny, rural village called Harbu Chulule. so tiny that it didn’t even make it on the map. many ethiopians didn’t even know it existed. there was no light pollution because there was nothing westernized about it so the stars were, wow. i didn’t know stars could be so cool, so bright. we we’re surrounded by mountains. donkeys, sheep, goats, horses, chickens, and cows ran the streets.
i am not the world’s biggest fan of kids, especially kids in large groups. so i spent the first 2 weeks of ethiopia avoiding all 29 of them lol. but one day i went to play volleyball with my friends and mesekerem was sitting there and i just said hello and sat down next to her and we just talked and talked. i didn’t know what it was at the time but there was just something about that kid i liked. she taught me my first oromo word that day. actually she showed me my first oromo word that day. that word is “oofoo.” oofoo is fart. she farted on me the first day i met her. i knew we’d be friends after that. it was a real bonding moment.
mesekerem is the reason i rave about HOPE. mesekerem is an 8 year old girl that lives on the compound. her father left & her mother can’t support her or her siblings so they live at HOPE. mesko was my absolute best friend for the 3 months we were there, and still is. i don’t know how to describe her in a way that will fully, actually begin to encompass how amazing she is.
she’s absolutely beautiful. she’s so smart. she’s hilarious. like not how little kids are funny, where you laugh because they do something silly, no she is like deep belly laugh kind of funny. you don’t have to fake a laugh around her, you can’t. she has this way of being an extreme class clown but if she has something to say, everyone stops and listens.
she’s the only girl living in her house, the other 5 kids are boys. she cooks, she cleans, she preps, she washes, she runs the house. with the occasional help of Abdi, one the amazing boys. she is all play and all seriousness at the same time.
there are 3 Mesekerem’s that lived at HOPE: big Mesekerem, little Mesekerem, and jaynnas Mesekerem. if someone was looking for me and couldn’t find me, i was in her house. if mesko was looking for me and couldn’t find me, she dragged everyone into a manhunt to find me.
we did life together. we hung out. we talked. we played. we learned english & khmer & spanish & oromo together. we read the Bible together. we prayed together. we slept together(hence the 5x i got lice). haha i would willingly get lice everyday if it meant i just got to be with her. i love that kid. we did laundry together. i was her personal hair styler and washer, she washed my hair once. we spent all of our available time together.
i don’t know how to explain how great she is. she has such a huge piece of my heart. she brings tears of joy to my eyes all the time. i can’t stop thinking about her. i refuse to change the time on my watch because i just wanna know what she’s doing. i’m so amazed at who she is. who she’s going to be. she warms my heart so much.
she also breaks it very easily. she knows how to hurt my feelings. we’d get mad at each other. annoyed with each other. but it was okay because we both knew nothing would stop us from coming back together. that was one of the best things about ethiopia. we didn’t have contact with anyone but each other. it’s hard living with 40+ people your age that are still figuring things out just like you are. it was so sweet to have mesko. she was my escape.
toward the end, mesekerem and i walked to the corner store outside the compound and on the way back she pointed down this side road and said “my mom lives that way.” & i was like what! let’s go visit. & she said okay and we went & said hello. her mom’s name is Muloo. she lives in a mud hut with her newest baby and sells alcohol out of her house. she was so incredibly sweet. mesko was so so excited to be there. so excited to show her mom off to me. Muloo pulled out baby pictures of mesko & senna & balcha, her siblings that also live at HOPE. it was so so sweet. after that, we visited nearly every time we passed. mesko and i made Muloo a loaf of banana bread and brought it to her. she just adored her mom. she loved going to say hello. i can’t imagine the hurt she’s been through. it breaks my heart to think about her ever being treated wrongly or not cared for. i can’t imagine how God feels toward His baby. toward all of them. toward His Son.
one day, i asked God if i was obedient to what He needed me to do in my time spent at HOPE and what it even was that i was supposed to be doing at HOPE. He revealed to me that He had used me as His vessel of love to mesekerem. from constantly seeking her out and choosing her day after day, the Lord’s love was being revealed to her in a way she didn’t have much experience in. she was 1 of 29. her parents abandoned her. she struggled to feel as if she was truly chosen. i saw this play out a couple times when i would get busy with something and not have time for her, it really hurt her feelings. she’d share things and it’d just be obvious that there was a lot of pain in her heart toward people she loved. it was a big deal to get close to her, because she’s so scared of being left and forgotten about. it was never a struggle to spend time with her. i was so glad to do it. it was our ministry but really it was just life.
i am so thankful and grateful and humbled and amazed that God would let me be a part of something so big and someone so sweet. that He would allow me be to be His vessel of love to one of His adored children. i’m just beside myself. i can’t put into words the impact that mesko has had on me. ethiopia was so big.
another HUGE part of ethiopia for me was my grown up best friend, Milto. wow i love Milto. Milto worked for HOPE. she was our escort to the market, she did ministry with us, she cared for us, she loved on us. i adore Milto. she is an incredible woman of God. she was such a light to me. if i wasn’t with Mesekerem, i was with Milto. when Mesekerem was at school or church or busy, i was with Milto.
i love Milto because she is real. she’s authentic. she’s funny. she’s creative. she’s easy going. she’s carefree. she’s adventurous. she’s kind. she’s sarcastic. she was my 3 month long coffee date. lunch date. movie date. sleeping bud. church date. shortcut date. horseriding date. adventure bud. long lost sister.
Milto is amazing. i heart Milto. i can’t wait to see her and Mesko again.
i don’t know how to grasp Mesekerem or HOPE or Milto or any of ethiopia in words that will show the significance of that place and it’s people.
leaving HOPE was hard. the last 2 weeks leading up to it were so joyfully painful. there were so many tears. i’m not a crier. i cried so much. mesekerem cried so much. Milto cried. our goodbye to each other was so sad. i can’t explain it. i don’t want to explain it. i’ve still not fully grasped and processed my time in ethiopia. i learned so much those 3 months.
i talk to Milto all the time still and i got to talk to Meskerem the other day for the first time in almost a month. it was so sweet. i’m so utterly thankful that the Lord so graciously let me meet some of His beautifully adored children.
