Dia por Dia

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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...

So the internet ROCKS this morning...

it let me video chat, check my emails, post on the JCGSFF blog, AND upload pictures.  So I'm taking full advantage of it... enjoy! 

Kids in the compassion program eating their Saturday meal - a biscuit with rice

Yonas's house: one of the kids who is sponsored in the Burayu program.

Ethiopian Traditional Restaurant! We all just ate off the big plate in the middle.  As for  what we were eating... I didn't ask.

Worknish's house (the one in the orange).  Her husband died 5 years ago and  now she works to support her 5 kids by herself (the other 2 are in school). She's part of the Ambo program.

The classrooms in Burayu! 

Burayu Church! Under construction... probably will be for a while. It doesn't stop people from having their offices in the midst of construction though! 

Inside the church.  It's way bigger than I expected it to be.

We got to watch the Ethiopia FOOTBALL (soccer) game with the youth of the church on Sunday! It was my first game watching football with foreigners - WAY more fun than Americans. This guy wasn't with us, but apparently it was his first time watching a football game with a white girl... he wanted to document it.

The drive home from the game was INSANE. It's a 45 minute drive, but it took us an hour and a half because of all the mobs in the streets.  People would jump on top of cars, vans, and buses while they were moving and just ride around the streets.

We got stuck in a round about with a mob of people.  The only casualty was the left side mirror on the van.

Lesson learned: don't sit in the middle of the girls.

This is what happens when you add Crystal Light to Ambo Water (water with gas). EPIC fail.

Overwhelmed

Today was the first time I cried about how much abundance I live in.  It was funny – it wasn't seeing kids come to school with no shoes and tattered clothes or visiting a home made of mud with 1 bed for 6 people that set me off.  It was sorting through the suitcase full of donations of jeans that my mom had pulled from the thrift store because no one was buying them and clothes that I had grown out of or deemed “tacky”.  It was making a pile of these clothes and giving them to Ahsna, the kids’ nanny, and seeing the delight on her face when I told her that I had brought clothes that didn't fit me and that I thought might fit her.  And then it was her coming upstairs to give me a huge hug and a kiss on the check and to tell me in broken English “I love!” and “Tomorrow I wear!”  And that’s when I leaned against the wall and cried.  Because Ahsna’s day was made through thrift shop jeans (I think they’ll be the only pair of jeans she’s ever owned) and hand-me, hand-me, hand-me downs.

I was overwhelmed at how easy it is to make someone feel so loved through something that was a convenience to give away.

And then I started thinking about how the other day, I complimented Amarech (the Burayu school director) on her hair barrette.  A lot of Ethiopian women wear them, and in my quest to become Ethiopianized, I asked her where I could buy one.  She ensured me that she would get one for me, but I insisted that I really wanted to buy it for myself.  2 days later she pulled me aside into her office and pulled a BEAUTIFUL barrette out of her pocket.  I don’t think I've ever been so excited about a git in my life (I’m sure I have been, but I reached that level of excitement).  I gave her at least 7 HUGE hugs and said “thank you” in every way I could (yes, I accidentally slipped “Muchimas gracias” in and we both laughed).  I’m sure she left thinking “I had no idea it was so easy to make someone feel so loved”.

3 Things I realized:

1. How much God must rejoice when we accept His gift.  I was overwhelmed by a couple pairs of jeans that weren't even mine.  How much more must He rejoice when His children whom (who? Grammar Nazi’s Trav and Carey… halp) He  fearfully and wonderfully made in His image (Psalm 139/Genesis 1) receive His grace and when we put our faith in Christ, accepting His free gift of eternal life  Romans 3:21-26 & Romans 6:23.
2. That Ahsna and I have the same desire to be loved.  And what a couple pairs of jeans can do for her, a hair barrette can do for me.  We make loving people so complicated sometimes.  All it takes is turning our eyes outward and appreciating others, and then finding little ways to let them know.
3. Giving out of abundance is okay.  I get caught up in thinking that if a gift is not a sacrifice, it is not a true gift.  If I’m giving clothes away that I didn’t really like or donating $$ that I found on the side of the road, it doesn’t really count as a donation.  But clothes are still clothes and $$ donated is still $$ donated.  While I definitely think that there are times when we are called to sacrificially give, I think we get so caught up in making sure we’re sacrificing that we forget we’re allowed to give out of our abundance.  Sometimes if I don’t feel like I’m making a sacrifice I don’t give at all, and I don’t think that’s the way it’s supposed to work.  In 2 Corinthians 8-9 Paul is encouraging the Corinthian church to give generously.  He’s not asking them to sell their houses and live on the streets in order to buy someone else a house.  He’s not asking that they give up their college educations or 4 meals a week so that they can pay for someone else’s education.  He’s asking that “as a matter of fairness your abundance at the present time should supply their [the Christians in Jerusalem] need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness” (2 Cor 8:13-14). At that time, whle the Corinthian believers could contribute their abundance of finances, the Jewish believers could supply an abundance of prayer, ministry, and spiritual strength.  That’s EXACTLY what I’ve seen here.  Because of Kennedy can supply finances and Stand for the Vulnerable Organization (SVO) can provide an incredible amount of prayer and ministry support.  Dana’s family (Dana is a guy who came on the American team) can pay $42 a month for Kadist’s education, basic health fees, and her mom’s empowerment training. Kadist, her mom, and the rest of her family can provide an abundance of prayers when 14-year old Rob (Dana’s son) comes back from Ethiopia with cediph (sp?) and goes to the hospital to fight for his life (and then, still on medication, comes back to Ethiopia 8 months later to see Kadist and her family).  This is a partnership for the gospel.  That’s what it means to be a body of Christ.  Yes, I still think there are times when we are called to sacrificially give in order to love like Jesus.  But there are also times when we are given an abundance (of finances, love, faith, hope, happiness… whatever) and it’s out of that abundance that we’re able to bring glory to God.  2 Corinthians 9:11-15.

Today was supposed to be my Sabbath where I don’t get on my computer and don’t think about emailing people or Because of Kennedy.  Once again, Marnie’s planned failed for something WAY better.

52 Reasons I'm Thankful for my DAD

Because today is his 52ND BIRTHDAY and FATHER'S DAY, and I didn't think it served him justice if he was the only one that got to see how amazing he was today.

    

1.  He inspires me to stay in shape

2.   He loves our family selflessly

3.   He’s always willing to give advice, even when I act like I don’t need it

4.   He cries

5.   He plays pool and foosball with me

6.    He knows when I’m upset

7.    He gets to know my friends

8.     He gives me freedom to make my own decisions

9.     He’s ALWAYS willing to listen

10.   His family is his first priority

11.   He takes care of the lake house

12.   He teaches me to water ski

13.   He deeply cares about his girls

14.   He loves his parents

15.   He constantly tells me that I’m beautiful, so it’s not a question I have to take to other people

16.   He always has time for me

17.   He taught me to smile

18.   He showed me that it’s acceptable to eat a spoonful of peanut butter

19.   He showed me how to make the BEST peanut butter and banana sandwiches

20.   I can talk to him about anything

21.   We eat dinner on the back porch together

22.   He does the dishes

23.   He walks Sparky when no one else wants to

24.   He lets me nap while we watch afternoon sports

25.   He’s one of the hardest workers I know

26.   He taught me how to play golf

27.   He cries every time I come home

28.   He wakes up at 3:30 to drive me to the airport

29.   He is always inventing something

30.   He pushes me to THINK

31.   He’s supportive, no matter what

32.   He values serving others

33.   He’s realistic

34.   He hugs me when I cry

35.   He shows me what’s important in life

36.   He lets me drive his truck

37.   He sold his BMW convertible and bought an old truck, and then gave it two different colored fenders

38.   He shares life stories with me

39.   He asks questions about my life

40.   He tells me to be my own boss

41.   He endured an hour (plus) commute every day for a long time just to provide a stable life for our family

42.   He’s faithful to my mom

43.   He’s willing to admit he’s wrong

44.   He says sorry

45.   He’s made our home a WELCOMING environment

46.   He lets me drive the boat

47.   He lets my friends use the lake house

48.   He forgives

49.   He’s genuine

50.   He’s himself, no matter the audience

51.   He pushes me

52.   I KNOW without a doubt that he loves me no matter what

God is not a slot machine

But He sure has done an AMAZING job at answering prayers.  Whether it’s for His strength, love, peace, patience, deeper relationships, a feeling of purpose, better relations with my teammates, contentment, the desire to feel present, connecting with the guardians, getting to lead, getting to follow, understanding the gospel, believing in Him, and even asking Him to draw people in… He continues to remind me that He HEARS me and when I am walking with Him and ask in His name, He will provide.

This week has been AMAZING.  Whereas I had gotten into a bad habit of counting down the days until I got home (not that I was super homesick or unhappy, I would just think about landing in the Atlanta airport and getting to see people and I would re-check the date for the 3^rd time that day), now every morning I wake up and I’m like “Shoot, I only have 5 Sunday’s left”, or “I get to see these guardians 5 more times.  How the HECK are we supposed to best equip them in that short period of time?”

As always, I have no idea how to structure my thoughts, so we’ll go with bullet points of the 

HIGHLIGHTS of the week.

• I found out there’s an autism center a 5 minute walk from our house.  Britt and I are going to go check it out on Monday: I have no idea what it’s gonna be like or if the people even speak English, but we’re gonna try.
• On Monday we went to ICS and I got to run. My body has finally adjusted to the climate/lack of pressure here, so I didn’t feel like I was going to die. It was kind of nice.
• Monday part 2: we decided we were going to divide and conquer Ethiopia.  When we were planning out our schedules for the summer, we realized that we were trying to do a lot, and the 4 of us trying to invest everywhere wasn’t going to be effective.  So Rudy and I are going to Ambo on Weds. and Fridays, and then we’ll help out with Burayu on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but kind of be the background people. (MOMMA I hope you caught that – I was the one that suggested that we divide and conquer because we were spreading ourselves too thin.  20 years later and I finally learned a lesson :] )
• Tuesday was tough – I realized how much I find value/purpose in being able to lead: I spent the day watching Katie teach the guardians and Katie/Rudy teach English, and I wanted SO badly to just step in and take over.  They were doing a GREAT job, I just felt useless.
• Kind of contradicting that, the one thing I DID do on Tuesday was get to teach the kids a song about professions.  We made it to the tune of the GT Fight Song and everything :]  Miller Templeton would be so proud. 

“When I grow up I want to be

A driver or a soldier or a painter I could be

A pilot or a teacher, or an engineer!

When I grow up I want to be”

(you have to REALLY adjust it to the tune, but it works, I promise.  Make sure you add hand motions too) The kids kind of have a hard time with it, but we have 4 weeks to get to video-worthy material.

•  WEDNESDAY ROCKED. Slash was the most humbling day I’ve had yet.  It was our first “solo” day in  Ambo, and other than our driver being 2.5 hours late, it was a GREAT day.  The staff had scheduled home visits for the morning, so even though we had to shorten them because we were late, it was still amazing.  I loved getting to go with a smaller group – we got to interact with the guardians on a more personal level and ask them more specific questions about their lives/the program.  It’s amazing what a difference visiting their home makes in establishing a deeper connection with the guardians– by welcoming us into their homes, they’re letting us into the most personal part of their lives.  It made me want to spend all day hanging out at their homes, getting to know them, loving on their kids, and watching them as they work.  Most of them work straight out of their homes (it was pretty funny… the first house we walked into was a bar (aka a sitting area outside the woman’s house where she served alcohol).  One of the first things we do is pray over the house, so I think the men at the “bar” felt awkward (it was 10:30 in the morning and they were already drinking.  I didn’t think it was Spring Break, but maybe it’s different on the Ethiopian calendar)). I left feeling really overwhelmed with emotions that I couldn’t really describe – I was so humbled, but I also felt so loved/welcomed/appreciated – it was a weird mix, but pretty neat.

o   Guardian training was AMAZING.  We had 3 groups come back-to-back, and I had the opportunity to lead the last group.  It was phase 2 of Marnie being humbled for the day: I’m a much better teacher in my head than I am on the spot.  It’s WAY harder to engage a group than I expected and trying to think for them and challenge them on the spot is difficult.  It’s kind of like when you’re watching someone play a word game: you can always pick out WAY more words when you’re watching someone else play than when you’re the one racing against the clock (maybe that’s just me, but still).  Maybe it’s because I’m “assigned” Ambo for the summer, but I felt a connection with the guardians that I didn’t feel with the Burayu women.  It was powerful getting to teach them/hear their visions for themselves and their group’s future businesses, because all of the sudden I wanted to do EVERYTHING in my power to help them succeed.  They became REAL guardians with REAL families that they have to provide for with REAL struggles but with REAL hopes, instead of just women who are part of a sponsorship program.  I left feeling burdened with the responsibility to ensure that they succeeded.

•  THURSDAY ROCKED TOO but in a much different way.  Thanks to reading “Kisses from Katie” (an autobiography about a high school graduate who moves to Uganda to serve and is now 23 with 13 adopted kids – don’t worry Dad, I’m not correlating this to my life, it’s just a good read) and seeing my purpose/value in being here this summer, I felt SO much free-er (is that even a word?) to serve from the background.  This translated to dedicating myself to simply loving as many people as I could with everything that I had, with the hope that they could better understand the kind of love God has for them.  Katie Davis (author of “Kisses from Katie”) points out that people aren’t able to understand God’s love when they’ve never been loved themselves, so my goal on Thursday was just to hug as many kids as I could, hold as many hands as possible, and pour myself out so that everyone I interacted with knew that they were loved.  I still did a pretty crappy job of it (especially with the people on my team), but it was really cool being able to try to ONLY serve through loving, and not through leading/doing/teaching.  I know it sounds trivial, but I get so caught up in doing and forget that loving people is just as important, so it was a cool challenge to have loving be my only responsibility.
• FRIDAY was another amazing day in Ambo.  Each of the guardian groups had INCREDIBLE visions for themselves (one group wants to make a construction materials shop, another plans to breed cows to sell milk, and the third wants to make a space to grind spices).  It was cool because they were so far more advanced than we had expected, but they still have such a long way to go in meeting their visions.  I know nothing about what it looks like to start a business, but I never realized that skills that I take for granted (reading, writing, forming a budget, figuring out what I need, brainstorming, etc.) are skills that most of the guardians have never developed (in 1 group, 3 out of the 20 knew how to read/write).  This also means that I can challenge them in creating short-term steps and teach them how to think outside the box to raise money– aka I can help them reach their goals.

o   I also got to teach English by myself (Rudy got pulled out right as we were stepping into the first classroom for a meeting with a guardian), so I walked in to Grades 3 & 4 with no translator.  It was AWESOME. The kids were way more well-behaved and seemed to know more English, so after I realized they knew their colors/most of the professions, we worked on conversations about them.  For example, most of them know the colors, but they don’t understand the question “What is your favorite color?” So we practiced talking to each other and answering questions… it was REALLY fun.  Again, it was a TOTAL “Think on the spot” time.  I was humbled (for the bajilionth time this week) because I realized while I was teaching how much I took from watching other people teach – it reminded me how important it was to sit back and let other people lead sometimes, because I have SO much to learn from others. 

That’s the end of my novel for now.  I could write 10,000 other things, but hopefully this makes up for not having posted in a week.  Grand summary: this week rocked. It’s been humbling and exciting and frustrating and terrifying, but it’s been also been a week of realizing how fun it is getting to rely on God and let Him lead instead of trying to lead myself.  He has way bigger plans than I do.

And 2 more... German bakery wifi ROCKS.

Phase 3 of Ethiopianization

Fir Fir!! Phase 4 of Ethiopianization... National Food

Mas Fotos!

Marta, Me, and Tadilu at Lake Wenchie (they're both SVO staff.  Two of the most amazing women EVER - Marta speaks very basic English, and Tadilu and I will be best friends once I graduate from Amheric school)

CORNFLAKES!!

The view from the "bathroom" at Wenchie

Pedros!!! SVO Staff, and the deemed "official photographer" of the trip. I decided he was blog-worthy

Breath of fresh air