Hello everyone!
This blog was really cool because it caused me to sit back and reflect on all the incredible reasons why I am here and everything He is teaching me through this.
Last year as I was deciding my route for The World Race it was so hard to choose because each route looked amazing! I wrote down each route and the places each route had. I prayed to God and asked him where he wanted me and I felt this crazy pull to Ethiopia. I had no idea what he had in store there but this country is the reason why I chose this route. Now I know why…
REASON ONE: About a week after our arrival in this beautiful place I was sitting with the Father behind our house, gazing out into the countryside, peacefully sitting on my blanket. During our time I asked God what he had in store for the next 3 months and why he brought me here.
He brought to my attention that he brought me here, to Harbu Chulule to learn how to SIT with Him. How to stop filling my days with things, stop catching myself in the crazy, busy DO, to learn how to spend time with my Father. He then asked me to surrender my family to him, to not call them for the next three months. To learn what it looks like to sacrifice something in order to fulfill serious obedience to Him. Creating a real space where I go to Him for everything instead of to my parents. To fully depend on his love and strength instead of my parents. I am about a week and half away from being able to call my parents for the first time since December 10th and I would say this is time where I find myself turning to him constantly, which I do every time I get homesick. I’m starting to see the fruit of His request because I know I am stronger now and I am more likely to immediately turn to my Father than to anyone else when I need someone to talk to or to process with.
(I am now in Nicaragua and I leave on the 10th for Costa Rica. What I learned from not being able to talk to my parents for three months was how to fly the nest. I fully understand the verse about hating your mother and father, basically saying, are you willing to leave them behind and serve God and now I feel capable).
REASON TWO:
To learn and live what life looks like without WiFi, without any connection to the outside world. To see the simple life and enjoy it. Living in the countryside where most people in the village spend their days going to the HOPEthiopia well to get their water or walking miles and miles with their livestock carrying their harvest to the market that happens three times a day. It’s very calm here, so quiet, so easy to hear the Father. Sitting here, cutting grass with a small tool is actually one of the greatest and most peaceful things I’ve done. It gets me thinking of how I want to live my life when I get home because I feel like it’s SO easy for us, Americans to get so caught up in getting somewhere we forget to enjoy the process. The process is so great! Doing all my laundry by hand, sitting in front of a bucket and scrubbing and washing over and over again. I also get to do it with the house moms who are SUCH PROS and enjoy the process with them. My favorite part is hanging up all my clothing on the clothes line. I feel like such a woman, in touch with all my ancestors. It’s the simple life and I love it. AND having electricity in our home. We actually just got some lights installed last week but we always joked that we would feel cultural shock by seeing lights in our rooms. It’s just easier. There’s not so much I have to do in a day, if I need a nap I’ll nap, if I need to journal I’ll journal, if I need to extend ministry later into the afternoons I do.
Reflecting on those three months in Ethiopia made me realize that even without WiFi and without comforts there are still choices I made that didn’t allow me to rest. I spent a lot of time with the house moms which was AMAZING but I wasn’t resting in my Father’s presence every day. I would forget to talk to him. What I really learned is, no matter where I am in the world, no matter what is in front of me I have to make the decision that I will put God first that day. That I will lay down my desires of the go go go mentality that I have hung onto for so many years. Growing up I remember always giving the excuse that I don’t read my Bible because I never had time. The truth is I had time, I just CHOSE not to read the Bible because I thought it was boring. I am going to have bad days, it’s inevitable, which is okay, in fact it’s great! Bad days mean I am human and I get to turn to God in my failure and feel his grace and see the growth I have done. What matters is the choice. Am I going to chose to put my emotions and my wants aside? Or am I going to fill my day to the brim so I don’t have to feel the pain of whatever I’m going through.
Ethiopia was SO hard because I had to learn this. God is such a gentleman. He will never force me to do anything. He is all about taking us through these long processes. So, yeah, Ethiopia sucked at times because I was so exhausted but I didn’t want to sit. Sitting sounded so boring compared to coffee ceremonies and holding little children. But in that God taught me that I never want to go a day without resting in his presence again. I don’t want to be stressed and busy all the time because I know what it is like to be at peace and at rest 24/7. Best and hardest lesson. It’s probably the main reason WHY God is sending me home, he wants me to struggle through learning boundaries in WiFi.
REASON THREE:
So, if you know me you know I love children. Especially babies!! I could hold babies all day. I’ve known that God instilled this love and passion in me since I was a very young child. Coming onto the race I imagined I would be working with children the majority of my ministry but I was wrong.
Month 1 in Battambang, Cambodia we were the ONLY team not teaching children. Month 2 in Siem Reap, again, we didn’t work with children besides twice a week we got to go to ICF, but it wasn’t our ministry technically so we didn’t get to partner and get to know these kids.
At this point I was disappointed and asking so many why’s to God. I kept asking and wondering what He was trying to teach me through this. I missed holding babies the most. It makes sense once you’re here in this environment but back home I just figured I would be always holding babies. To this day (in Nicaragua right now) every baby I have tried to hold has started bawling except for three. Now I see of course why they do! I’m a white stranger. I wouldn’t want to be held by me either but it had caused major baby holding withdrawals. Yet God knows me so well and would send at least one baby in each country that would let me hold them and in these moments I smile so big and I am so filled with J O Y. One was just the other day here in Ethiopia, I went to the clinic with one of our little boys at HOPEthiopia. There was a woman there with her baby and she asked me to hold him while she had to fill out paperwork. I was like “YES OF COURSE”. By the time she had returned he had fallen asleep and it was such a precious moment! Thank you God for that moment!!
Anyways, coming to Ethiopia I really felt like God was saying I would be working in an Orphanage and I had told people that back home. I didn’t realize how tightly I was holding onto the feeling of maybe getting to work with kids, FINALLY! Then, getting here and finding out that we are LIVING ON AN ORPHANAGE COMPOUND!!! Wow, God is so so so so good. Pulling up in that van the first day and seeing so many kids. I couldn’t believe it. All my teammates were looking at me as we pulled up and were smiling because they knew, they knew what this meant! Coming here was such a confirmation of this beautiful gift God has given me and getting to use it everyday as I loved on these children was incredible.
PART TWO of reason three:
In Cambodia one night we were doing journey Markers and the topic was on our calling. One of the questions was talking about how usually our skills/gifts are mixed with our calling. My first thought was, yeah, of course children. So, I put that down but then I felt woman’s ministry come up and I wrote it down. It was such a weird God moment because I have never done woman’s ministry in my life and it had never once been on my radar of possibilities. I remember sharing with my team, “I’m not sure why I wrote this down but I felt God tell me to write it”.
I pretty much forgot about that moment until I was talking with a woman at ICF to talk about interning there, she asked for my skills and it slipped out, I said woman’s ministry. Immediately in my head I was like, “where did that come from, I do NOT have a skill in woman’s ministry, I’ve never even done it before”.
Again, forgot about it until we arrived in Ethiopia and were there for about three weeks.
I was sitting at a coffee ceremony with all the house moms and suddenly it hit me, woman’s ministry!! From the first time I ever went to a coffee ceremony I fell in love with these women, I loved them so much. It was evident three weeks in why God kept telling me woman’s ministry; they were it!
For the rest of Ethiopia I spent every waking moment with the House moms, especially Ruut. We were attached at the hip. It was a whole other feeling of J O Y, precious moments from God where I got to use my gift of hospitality to make them feel loved. My heart broke for them so fast as I started to hear their stories and what life looked for a woman in Ethiopia. These women got these jobs because they were in some of the worst positions one could be in. (I’m writing a blog about the house moms and their stories so hold on for that one!!)
Seeing their faces every morning, sitting down and sipping coffee together, sitting there silently as they all chatted away in their beautiful language. I felt so honored to be there, to take part of what friendship looks like!:)
REASON FOUR:
Ethiopia was such a special season for our squad. We were coming together for the first time since month one and there was so much redemption of who we are as a squad. Month one was SO hard, pretty much for everyone. Coming onto the field and feeling so lost in our huge squad.
Me in particular, I was so so so afraid of what others thought of me. It absolutely dictated who I was as a person. I was so quiet and never ever wanted the attention to be on me.
Coming into month four where we would have all squad for the rest of the race had our whole team nervous and plenty of others. But what I forgot was HOW MUCH WE’VE CHANGED!!! How much I had changed at that point. 2 months with just our team was so monumental to who we all had become and all the growth that had happened. Cambodia was definitely a time of identity and creating confidence in the Lord.
I also realized that I didn’t really know these people. We had spent a little over 3 weeks together in Battambang and that was it. It was almost a fresh start coming back to the squad because everyone was SO different, I was SO different.
Ethiopia was so bonding for us. One, because we were all squad but two, we had no wifi and we lived together on the same compound for three whole months. Coming together for nights of worship, meals, games (we hosted our own Olympics!!), we spent Christmas & New Years together, and powerful healing nights.
God really knew what he was doing in these three months because months 5&6 are known to be the hardest on the race. A lot of people struggle during these times and usually people decide to go home. But since we were so out of society and in our own world it was easier to choose what was in front of us. I honestly forget most days what I was “missing” in America and I believe that was how most of us felt. It doesn’t mean we didn’t have hard moments but in those moments we had SO many people to support us. What was so helpful to me during all squad months is having all of the leadership with us. Not only was I able to have access to my squad leader, Luis, but also to Ashley and Taylor. They all carry such different gifts. I often find myself going to each of them for different issues or questions. The way they lead is honestly amazing and is a huge reason why our squad is the way it is. HUGE thanks to these three humans for partnering with the 47 of us and always pointing us closer to Christ.
We created REAL community in Ethiopia and it made me realize this is what community is supposed to look like and I never experienced it to this extent. It’s amazing! I will never settle for less now. I know how important it is to surround yourself with people who are going to point you higher to Christ.
Reason five for HOUSE FIVE:
So, for all of you who read my “day in the life” I actually moved in with house five. I slept in a room with Ruut & Ganet, two of the house moms. Meskerem, Arassa, Badasa & Dereche were the beautiful children I got the privilege to do life with. Very quickly they became family.
Ruut. ??
It’s hard to write about her without crying because of how much I miss her. It’s hard to describe how incredible of a human she is and how I loved every moment with her those three months. Her laugh was so filled with JOY. She loved to smile and was such a good mama to these kiddos. She became my friend very fast but then she became my sister, the person I did everything with. She is so kind and humble. She taught me everything I know with so much patience. Allowing me to help but always looking out for me. She taught me-to perfection- every step to a coffee ceremony, she taught me how to cook, how to clean, how to do the laundry, how to eat sugarcane, how to praise the Lord in everything I do, how to be generous with everything I have and she never let me hold anything too hot. You guys wouldn’t believe how much heat these Ethiopian house moms could handle. They picked up boiling pots with their bare hands, steaming coffee pots, burning wood from the stove, it was unbelievable! Every time I tried to do anything they did we just ended up on the ground laughing as I rushed over to the sink to cool my hands down.
What I have come to realize was, God brought me to Ethiopia to become apart of this family. Not just for Ruut but for the children as well. Getting to do life with them and getting to take care of them. Every morning teaching and helping them how to do such basic things. Brushing our teeth. Washing our faces, hands and feet (they taught me how Ethiopians do it too!), putting lotion on their incredibly dry skin but hearing them giggle as I rubbed it in on their legs, arms, faces. Putting them to bed each night. Saying I love you a million times and receiving so many hugs and kisses. Once again, I felt this feeling that I had on my L.A. missions trip of, “this is actually what I’m supposed to do”. It felt so right to take care of the children at HOPE.
About a month into being at HOPEthiopia a little boy named Roberra came to live with us as the newest member of the HOPE kids. He and his new house mom moved into the third room in Ruuts home. Which began my relationship with that adorable boy. Every time I walked into a room his eyes locked on mine and if I went anywhere but towards him he would start to bawl. He was always in my arms and always smiling and laughing.
One day I was walking back from a coffee ceremony with Roberra in one arm and holding Dereche’s hand with the other. It was such a special moment because God told me that I am already a mother. A mother to these children, showing them what love looks like and getting a confirmation from God that my gift doesn’t necessarily look like playing with children but taking CARE of children. A real mother at heart.
God you taught me so much here.
Thank you for bringing me here.
It was one for the books.
FUNDRAISER UPDATE: ADOPT A MONTH!
SEPTEMBER (TAKEN!!! YAYAYA!!!!!)
OCTOBER (TAKEN!!!!! WAAHOOOOOO)
NOVEMBER (TAKENNNNNN!!!)
DECEMBER (taken!!! Whoop whoop!!)
JANUARY (taken!! THANK YOU!!!)
FEBRUARY (TAKEN!!!!!!!)
MARCH (NEEDED!!!)
APRIL (NEEDED!!!!!!)
MAY 31st flying into Florida
June 3rd flying H O M E ! !
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Ways YOU can Join me on my Spiritual Journey:
1. Pray. I will need a multitude of prayers ranging from strength, wisdom, clarity, love, joy… The list goes on. Whatever your heart desires and feels right, pray. Here in Ethiopia we have a little boy at the orphanage who’s legs don’t work, pray healing over his body please!
In Nicaragua pray for jobs, most of the country is unemployed and it’s really taking a toll on families, pray for God’s provision to these people.
- SPREAD THE WORD! Tell everyone about my trip and show them my blog.
- SUBSCRIBE! When you subscribe you will get all notifications when I post on my blog about my trip and any updates!
- If you would like to donate to me still, please donate directly to me and not World Race. I AM FULLY FUNDED but I am now raising money for flights!! I need to buy 3 plane tickets for my trip home on June 3rd and for PSL which is a week long “after the race” conference in Georgia at the end of June. Thank you for everyone who has donated already, it’s been an incredible journey!
Venmo me : Marguerite-SanMartino
