I can sense it the moment we pull away from the city limits. Life here is hard. Among the beauty, the rolling hills, and the gorgeous canyon, people toil and wrestle with the land. I sit back and realize I am seeing all this through my very Western eyes and I want to know more. I want to see and know the lady who labours hard under the weight of a heavy burden. I want to know and understand the children who run alongside the road. I want to know the young boy who herds his cattle, and where does he find his joy. It almost seems I have somehow gone back in time. The scenes idyllic, peaceful, and yet what do I know. As we cross the Ethiopian landscape, there is much I don't understand, much I want to know.
When we arrive at our site, they are there. There are children whose names I can't pronounce. There are elders who want to know who I am. There are boys herding cattle and leading donkeys, and somehow for some brief moment in time, I enter the fray. I am an outsider standing within. The children are curious. Some of them know some little English and they are eager to practice. They ask my name and they practice it. They ask who is my mother and their lips struggle as they practice "Looow-raaaaain." "Your Mother is Loooow-raaain." And they smile. One boy who knows more English than the rest tells his friend what to tell me, and his friend comes up to me and says "you are stinky" as his mischievous friend peels over in laughter, the poor boy who told me somehow unaware of what he just said. Boys will be boys, and somehow in this foreign land so far from the place I call home, that makes me smile. The young girls who want to pose for pictures their smiles full of joy, it fills me in the best of ways.
A young girl with a baby comes up to watch. At first I think the baby is her sibling, but then she tells us through a translator that it is her son. That she was married at 10 years old and bore her first child at 16. And I struggle with what to do with that. With how to understand ways that are foreign and seem wrong to my Western eyes. All I can do is ask that she finds the joy of the Lord. In all that is heavy, and hard to understand I may never fully know or grasp. But I can love the people in front of me in that very moment. I did not come to "fix" but to love and to somehow be part of some kind of design that will hopefully make life in this community a better place. And soon after that I see it. A young boy walks up to me and asks me to take his picture. I can see it clear and shining in his eyes, Hope is there. It is here in the middle of this village full of things I don't understand. It is in the eyes of this boy who stands before me, quiet and tentative hope in his eyes and his smile. It is there in the boy full of mischief who puts his arm around his friend, and later skips on home with joyful strides as he pulls a flattened yellow jug on a string. He skips joy, he speaks mischief, he radiates life.
The director of the ministry I am there with, gives some of the boys who helped us dig holes for soil tests a small bit of money to buy some treats. They divide it equally and go buy one bun each. They follow us to our car, skipping, smiling, so very happy with their one lone bun. And I am reminded to find gratitude. To fight and claw my way back to giving thanks in the midst of all that is hard, in the midst of the challenge of living in this foreign land, I can give thanks.
And then we go and we visit the elders. The forgotten ones, that have loved and laboured hard. And what's a girl to do when a granny that doesn't speak her language wants to hug and kiss her on the cheek? Nothing but smile and hug her back. To hold tight to the joy in the moment and to know these, all of these, are the ones that matter.
And as we drive home, we file past scores of trucks with UN army tankers. I am told they are coming back from Darfur, a region with bloody violence. And I wonder yet again where finds this joy? And suddenly, I am reminded, it is in the eyes of the children, the eyes of the granny, it is all around me if I will take the time to look. To be reminded that in my own small story I have this blessed and amazing opportunity to be part of something so much bigger than myself. Soli Deo gloria.
When we arrive at our site, they are there. There are children whose names I can't pronounce. There are elders who want to know who I am. There are boys herding cattle and leading donkeys, and somehow for some brief moment in time, I enter the fray. I am an outsider standing within. The children are curious. Some of them know some little English and they are eager to practice. They ask my name and they practice it. They ask who is my mother and their lips struggle as they practice "Looow-raaaaain." "Your Mother is Loooow-raaain." And they smile. One boy who knows more English than the rest tells his friend what to tell me, and his friend comes up to me and says "you are stinky" as his mischievous friend peels over in laughter, the poor boy who told me somehow unaware of what he just said. Boys will be boys, and somehow in this foreign land so far from the place I call home, that makes me smile. The young girls who want to pose for pictures their smiles full of joy, it fills me in the best of ways.
A young girl with a baby comes up to watch. At first I think the baby is her sibling, but then she tells us through a translator that it is her son. That she was married at 10 years old and bore her first child at 16. And I struggle with what to do with that. With how to understand ways that are foreign and seem wrong to my Western eyes. All I can do is ask that she finds the joy of the Lord. In all that is heavy, and hard to understand I may never fully know or grasp. But I can love the people in front of me in that very moment. I did not come to "fix" but to love and to somehow be part of some kind of design that will hopefully make life in this community a better place. And soon after that I see it. A young boy walks up to me and asks me to take his picture. I can see it clear and shining in his eyes, Hope is there. It is here in the middle of this village full of things I don't understand. It is in the eyes of this boy who stands before me, quiet and tentative hope in his eyes and his smile. It is there in the boy full of mischief who puts his arm around his friend, and later skips on home with joyful strides as he pulls a flattened yellow jug on a string. He skips joy, he speaks mischief, he radiates life.
The director of the ministry I am there with, gives some of the boys who helped us dig holes for soil tests a small bit of money to buy some treats. They divide it equally and go buy one bun each. They follow us to our car, skipping, smiling, so very happy with their one lone bun. And I am reminded to find gratitude. To fight and claw my way back to giving thanks in the midst of all that is hard, in the midst of the challenge of living in this foreign land, I can give thanks.
And then we go and we visit the elders. The forgotten ones, that have loved and laboured hard. And what's a girl to do when a granny that doesn't speak her language wants to hug and kiss her on the cheek? Nothing but smile and hug her back. To hold tight to the joy in the moment and to know these, all of these, are the ones that matter.
And as we drive home, we file past scores of trucks with UN army tankers. I am told they are coming back from Darfur, a region with bloody violence. And I wonder yet again where finds this joy? And suddenly, I am reminded, it is in the eyes of the children, the eyes of the granny, it is all around me if I will take the time to look. To be reminded that in my own small story I have this blessed and amazing opportunity to be part of something so much bigger than myself. Soli Deo gloria.
