Every morning I wake up, thank God I’m alive, get excited to
eat my gummy vitamins and cereal, and think “I can’t do it again today”. Almost every morning I’m overwhelmed with
feelings of inadequacy, exhaustion, or a strong desire for homey comfort. I think about having to get everything I say
translated, or trying to form relationships with the guardians I can’t
communicate with, or playing the same games with the kids, or having the
same basic conversations because that’s the extent of people’s English, or
trying to teach 100 Kindergartners who just want to play with my hair and I’m
like “Nope. I can’t do it today”.
Being helpless has never been felt so cool.
Because EVERY morning I have to say “God, you say that your
power is made perfect in my weakness.
You say that you will give me strength when I am weary and that when I
turn to you, you lift the veil from my face and I am transformed into
you (2 Corinthians 3:16-18), so Lord I pray that you would do that today. That you would love through me and serve
through me and that I would truly be your hands and feet, because I
can’t do it”.
And EVERY night I lay down and I’m like “God, I can’t
believe you actually came through again”.
One day maybe I’ll figure out that that’s who He is and I’m just
getting to experience what it’ like to walk dependent on the Lord. Maybe one day I won’t wake up doubting that
He’ll come through and won’t go to sleep surprised, once again, that He
fulfills His promises. But it’s been
over a month now, and I’m still in awe. This
is what it means to not worry about tomorrow (Matt. 6) and this is what
it means to take up my cross daily and follow Christ. Part of me wants to fear going home and back
to comfort because I fear that I’m going to lose what this feels like, but then
I remember that that’s worrying about a day that’s WAY past tomorrow, so I pray
for strength for the day and step forward.
Now for the non-thoughtful updates:
- Brittany and I got to walk around our house on Monday! It was pretty funny – as soon as we left our compound we passed the Gleason’s coming home – they just honked at us and we waved and laughed, and then texted them to let them know we weren’t running away. It was a pretty uneventful walk: we walked to a mentally challenged center across the street and made an appointment to come back and get a tour (we looked like SUPER forengies just walking around and asking for someone who spoke English), so hopefully we’ll get to take a tour this week! The best part was when Brittany got slapped on the butt by a random passer-by… we thought it was because we were white, but then he did it to the Ethiopian lady walking in front of us and she slapped him back, so it was REALLY funny.
- On Thursday we (Katie, Brittany, and I) hung out at the church/school all day. It was SO fun. The kids left around noon (they get half days because they’re taking exams this week), so we got to hang out with a small remainder of the kids who stayed. It was a lot more personal and I learned like 5 NAMES in a day (that’s a lot harder than you would expect!). The best part, though, was when we got to share lunch with the church staff. This time we all ate off one plate and we ONLY used our hands… it rocked. And I felt like we were taking some advantage of the Ethiopian culture, so I liked it.
- On Friday I lead my first VBS in Ambo! We had a guardian group at the same time, so I ended up leading it by myself. It was actually really fun – there were 100 kids but they were REALLY well behaved. We went through a skit of the story of Abraham and then made “belts of truth” out of yarn and cut up paper – it’s funny how little supplies you need to make a kid happy. At least in Ethiopia. While I was planning it I figured out I am NOT made for children’s ministry. I just can’t keep things simple (hence the length of my blog posts). Like, we’re trying to tell the story of Abraham “kid” style, but there’s SO much that happens between God telling Abraham he’s gonna be the father of many nations and Abraham having a kid (i.e. he sleeps with his servant. But nobody wants to tell a 3 year old that so…). So it ended up being WAY harder to plan that lesson than one that I’d lead to people my age, but it was still fun.
- Funny story of the day – we were riding home from Ambo on Friday, and about halfway through the trip we were stopped by a government official. This isn’t super out of the ordinary, but the weirdest part was when the police officer hopped in our car and we drove off. He started asking Rudy all sorts of questions that got more personal as we went on (if we were living in Ethiopia, if we had a house, if I was Rudy’s wife (that was awkward), how much we were paying for the house, if we had a guard, how much we were paying for the guard, where we were from (when we said “America” he said “Oh! Today is my lucky day!), what Rudy’s salary was…. Lots of $$ questions). I’m sitting in the back seat thinking “We just got hijacked. And now that he knows all these details about our lives, we’re about to get held for ransom”. I pulled my wallet and my passport bag out of my backpack and put them in my pockets (I was ready to run… Dad, you would have been proud of me), but then about 30 minutes later we stopped on another side of the street, and the guy got out without even saying bye. It was weird. Rudy saw me putting my wallet back in my backpack and laughed at me, but he would have been TOTALLY jealous if we had gotten kidnapped and I had my passport and he didn’t. (Dad, I promise, it’s just a funny story. We’re not actually gonna get kidnapped. People are very nice here).
That’s all for now! More to come about more adventures in Addis
with my first Ethiopian friend! And pictures to come eventually...
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