Journal from Ethiopia 4/2/18

This morning I was thumbing through a journal that I wrote the last time I went to Ethiopia. Since so many of my friends and family will never get to experience what I experience when I go there, I thought maybe it would be appropriate to share this writing from April 2, 2018.

Monday, April 2, 2018

It is the wee hours of the morning again, and I am sitting on the bathroom floor so I can have enough light to write but not so much to wake up the kids. The jet lag is still really messing with me.

This morning we will drop Alem off in Wuchale and say goodbye. I can't imagine how hard this is going to be. She has asked if we are coming back and if we can bring our older children back next time.

My mind is swimming with ideas: Facebook posts I need to make, money I need to raise, places I need to speak. Yet what do I say? How do I convince people how much help is needed and how much is within their financial ability, yet not convey that life is hopeless in Wuchale? Because it isn't. The Holy Spirit is in Wuchale. He is working! It is our job to be His vessels for the blessings He wants to pour out on His people.

I have discovered that one does not visit rural Ethiopia to go on a vacation. It is far more likely that you will go home exhausted and emotionally wrecked. It is likely your heart will be broken into a million little pieces and that the Holy Spirit and the people you meet will bind it back together, sealing up the broken spots with love and memories. And you will return home, secretly looking forward to a long, hot shower and American food, but also with a feeling of purpose and vision and passion.

You will go to Ethiopia with some degree of the white savior complex, no matter how hard you have tried to shed it. You will return with the understanding that our simple help will not save one person, let alone a community or region or country. You will realize that your job as a Christian is not to save anyone from their circumstances, but instead your job is to simply love on people. You may have a way to help, which is good, but it is Jesus' power to save and His alone.

You will come back humbled because in all those times when you have felt sorry for impoverished people, you neglected to realize that sympathy is not what they need. You'll realize that in feeling sorry for them, you somehow thought of their lives as lesser, but in visiting them, you are blown over by the love, the feeling of community, and the power/endurance they show in daily living.

Yes, in some ways you will recognize that the Western way of life is wealthy monetarily, but rural Ethiopian life is rich in other ways. You will start to recognize the poverty in your own life--whether emotional, spiritual, or physical. And you will learn to give thanks to the people and for the people who profoundly influence you.

Yesterday morning I went to church with a Mekane Yesus congregation here in Dessie. The service was over two hours long, and I recognized only a few words: hallelujah, amen, Yesus, amesat genalem. BUT the enthusiasm during worship? The church filled from front to back, not back to front. Hands were in the air, praise leaders' eyes were closed, focusing on God. The church service was loud and alive.

Remind me again who we think of as poor.

Finding Peace in Parenthood

This morning I was rolling a skein of yarn into a ball as I was listening to contemporary Christian music stream through my Echo device. The Holy Spirit chose that odd few minutes to remind me of a time when I was struggling.

Back in 1998 I was working as a high school teacher in a small northwest Iowa town 18 miles south of my home. I had two small children, Caleb and Kaylee, whom I of course loved with a kind of love that I really had never known before. As my husband and I raised these two, we were both working full-time and I was pursuing my master's degree in education. At the time I was also completely overcome with anxiety.

I could hold it together during the day. I really could. Teaching would encompass eight to ten hours a day, then I would go home and spend my remaining hours on homework for my own classes and on my tasks as a young mother. I was proud of my productivity, proud of my job, proud of my family life.

Still, a recurring dream would haunt me many nights. My house was on fire. There was little time to get out, and I had two children to save, on two opposite sides of my house. I had to pick one. Before my decision was ever made, I would wake up in complete panic. Hours later, I would remember the dream and fret the whole 20 minutes to work. Whom would I save? Whom would I save? Whom would I save?

As I've grown older, my anxieties have eased. Now when I wake up at night, it is more often because I naively had a caffeinated beverage the previous afternoon. I still worry, but now I worry about my teenagers' decisions but also understanding that their mistakes are to large degree, out of my control. Of course,  I also have my teenagers who roll their eyes at me, laugh at my angst, and  overdramatize my worries to the point of absurdity. For example, if  I'm worried one is late from school, my youngest may agree, saying, "Yep, he's probably lying dead in a ditch somewhere."

But today—this beautiful spring day—the Holy Spirit decided to remind me what happened before my long-ago nightmares finally ended.

I gave my kids over. I remembered my six-year-old son and two-year-old daughter were never to be mine but for a season, so I relinquished them to Jesus. On those anxiety-fraught drives to school, instead of begging God to bend to my will, I asked for the strength to bend to His will. Whatever is in Your plan, God, I praise You. If You choose to gather my children into your loving arms, I know there is no place safer. Not my will, but Yours be done.

The nightmares stopped, and I regained my life and my joy.

Why did the Holy Spirit remind me today of what happened so long ago? I've been worried about my children, about things that are out of my control. I am reminded because again, I need to hand them over, to recognize that I am not the God of the universe. I can't predict the future, how all my concerns will turn out. But I know God hears my prayers, and I know He hears yours too. It is time  let God be God, and be reminded that I can find peace just by being in His presence.