I have been here in Ethiopia for 2 weeks now and so many things to tell you all. This month we are working with an organization called Hopethiopia. We are living on a compound that houses about 20 orphans. There are about 4 houses currently and they are working on finishing building more. The past two weeks with the kids here have been pretty amazing, they all are so stinking adorable. Each morning from about 9am-noon we have a whole slew of organized activities for them. We tell bible stories, sing songs, dance, give english lessons, do crafts and play tons of games. In the afternoons we change from painting the houses, gardening, going to the reforestation site, or to take photos of nature and catalog to record the growth of biology in the area. Every morning while most of us are doing stuff with the kids two people go to the front of the compound to the water well (more like a water distribution with 4 spickets) that they have installed for the local community and help fill up water cans as needed.
One morning I had signed up to go to the water well and help. When I had gotten there the spickets were not working and we had to attach a hose to the main line and toss it over the fence and use that for the day. The hose had 2 spouts and worked pretty well most of the time, sometimes the pressure would only go to one side and not come out from both ends and would take longer to fill up. I was pretty excited to be at the well, to help the women and children and be a helping hand and provide water for them. I was excited until I was actually doing it. While I was at the well the kids and women were all making fun of me. They would make fun of my skin color, my size, my doulbe chin, basically if they could find something they would make fun of it. I would love to think I am one of the most confident persons that I know about my own self image and that I don’t care what others say or think and I usually don’t but for some reason this was really upsetting me and hurting me.
Later that afternoon we were about to go out into the village and go do some house visits. I had contimplated going because I had yet to process my feeling of the morning and I didnt want to have a round 2. My team was about to leave and I decided ‘you know what? I’m not going to let my morning dictate my afternoon’ so I left. I should not have left. We got into the village and within 5 minutes new kids and locals are now looking at me and laughing and pointing at me and laughing and what I can only assume and a part 2 that I was dreading. I tried my best at this moment to be strong and to not let it get to me and cry but it did and I did a little. The entire afternoon I let kids make fun of me and laugh at me in their language and I let them hurt me and my feelings. I can honestly say that for some reason this has been the hardest day for me on the race.
I took a few days and told me team about how I was feeling and even did some soul care (if you dont know what that is see my post about it from month 3/Honduras). I have realized some things about myself,and I have learned that I am not actually as confident as I seem. Majority of the time I am but there are times where I say confident things in an attempt to believe the truth but in my heart I believe the lie; Shocking I know! God also has been revealing to me that I cant truely see beauty in the small things and because of this I cannot fully know that magnitude of beauty in the bigger things. WOW! My mind was blown. I also heard God tell me that he wishes so badly for my to see myself FULLY as beautiful as he sees me, and I really believe that I will. I also looked back at the day and how it broke me down and made me feel and laughed at the fact that the enemy couldn’t find any new material. He tried so hard to hurt me that he had to bring up old wounds and tried to find a new way to use them against me, and I just laughed because he is so unoriginal.
Yesterday we went out again (my first time since the dreadful day) and walked around the village and prayed over it. We had walked around for a bit and even had kids following us around everywhere. I had a few kids looking at me laughing and teasing me, but this day was different. It was less teasing than before but there was one girl who kept staring at me and ended up behind me and kept laughing until I had these thoughts. 1. I know how the lord see’s me and I know his truth 2. Only I can make myself feel bad about myself 3. I don’t have to allow others to put me down if I don’t want to be put down. So what did I do? I stopped, turned around, looked at this girl and said…. “Do you want to hold my hand?” and stretched my hand out to her. She was hesitant and grabbed my hand with a very confused look on her face. She barely touched my hand and I fixed that and actually held her hand and she walked with me the rest of the day. She was no longer mean or rude and instead of laughing at me she laughed with me and grew to like me. We found more teammates at a coffee shop and had to leave all the kids and this girl didnt want to let go of my hand.
I had the worst day ever on the race being broken and hurt and God redeemed. 1 Corinthians 10:12 MSG “Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-Confidence.” In this hard week he showed me that I am not as confident as I think I am and that I can be tore down and broght down at any moment by anything. Last night God showed me another verse but this one a promise. 2 Timothy 3:14-17 NIV “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching,rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. “
