Below is what I shared in church 2011 after I first went to Ethiopia. Some of you SMC'ers may remember it - and the video. What you may not know, however, is that the photo at the end of the video would be a certain young man I started praying for before I boarded the plane to come home and before I even told Kyle about him. We all know how that prayer was answered!
When we went to pick up Jacob in 2012 we brought two of our kids along. Looking back, my favorite aspect of that trip was seeing Ethiopia through the eyes of my daughter who was 9 at the time. Hearing her thoughts and watching her "be" with other children was something that I cannot put into words. She showed me first hand what I want to do for others more often - BE there with them as they GO show LOVE to children 1/2 way around the world. I am honored to be able to do just that.
As of today $1500 is in my VO account. THANK YOU to some very special people out there who stepped up to help almost immediately after I posted my trip on FB. First payment of $2400 is due Saturday, February 28th. I forgot to mention that items purchased from the VO site not only support VO's ministry but a portion of what you purchase goes directly to my trip cost, too.
Click HERE if you would like to make a donation. I plan to take my list of donors with me and write their names in Ugandan dirt and then send them a photo for their living room :o) Doesn't that sound like something we all need in our living rooms?
It’s so hard to do this. It’s hard to get up here and sum up two weeks of my life into 8 short minutes including the video. In fact, it’s not only hard…it’s impossible.
My trip to
‘visit orphans’, as some of you have so lovingly put it, was wonderful. It was
terrible. It was full of hope and
joy. It was full of despair and sadness. I felt good, bad, happy, sad, glad, grieved,
lonely, dirty, disgusted and loved all at the same time.
I’ve had a
handful of honest friends tell me that my blog was too hard for them to read. Too hard, in fact, that they couldn’t and
just scrolled through the pictures making sure I was okay. Making sure I was okay? Initially, I
thought “My gosh. I better apologize!” I
didn’t mean to scare or traumatize my friends, after all. But then I spent some time thinking about
what they said. I realized they were
right. It was hard to read. I promise you, most of it was hard to
type! In the end, I have decided not to
apologize. I feel like if I did, I would
be apologizing for the very thing I asked God for from the beginning – His eyes
to see what He sees and His heart to feel and love what he feels and loves.
At first glance,
one place I spent a lot of time at was depressing to see. As our 3 - 12 passenger vans drove into a
place known as Korah, we saw children wandering the streets - children whose
clothes didn’t quite fit - children whose ribs were showing. We saw men and women without fingers and toes
wearing contraptions so they would still be able to walk and carry things. We saw house after house after house made up
of nothing other than materials found from the trash dump – literally.
But once we
exited our vans I quickly found out that these people who have absolutely
nothing, have something most of the people I know, including myself, don’t have. They have a living, active and joyful
understanding of what God says in the Bible.
They know what “My grace is sufficient” truly means. As we talked to the people who lived in
Korah, they were overjoyed that another group of people came to bless
them. Funny thing, though, every one of
us left feeling like we were the ones blessed.
I can’t tell you how many times I heard “I love Jesus because he always
takes care of me.” How do children who have
nothing by the world’s standards, have much more than those of us who live in
abundance do? That is what I’ve been
asking myself lately.
I read a
quote recently that said “Only through the soil of brokenness will the greatest
fruit for Jesus Christ be produced.” I
saw the truth of this in Korah. There are men – young men – who have lived at
the trash dump their entire lives.
They’ve seen terrible things and have experienced great heartache. But every one of these young men are serving
a church that has been planted there. A
church held together by nothing more than duct-tape. They say that even though they were
fortunate enough to have sponsors and get some sort of formal education, they
won’t be leaving The Dump for a job in the city. Instead, they are being called by God to
raise their people out of the ashes – literally. And they are.
They are doing this while living in the houses you will see in a few
minutes in my video. They are doing this
with very little compensation – and even that they give away. I saw them.
They are leading child after child and widow after widow to Christ. They live in brokenness by choice, and they
are producing more fruit than anyone I’ve ever met.
Some of you
may be asking “What about the social welfare system? That’s what I asked. There isn’t one. I also learned there is a lot of corruption
in the government and with government agencies.
On two occasions, the van I was traveling in was pulled over for no
reason other than to be pulled over.
After listening to the rather loud Amharic conversations between our
drivers and the police officers, we were told “Don’t worry about that. They do that all the time. The police here aren’t even honest. They look for passenger vans that might be
carrying too many people and then ask for money to "look the other way.” When we were at the one orphanage the
missionaries there said “We are supposedly receiving everything the government
can give us financially, but it is so little that I wonder where the money is
really going. They said there isn’t any
way for them to look into it either.
And, if you start asking questions, you might find your work visa
suddenly expired.
Speaking of
orphanages, our team visited several of them.
A couple of were well run and looked clean enough. One was dirty and dingy and didn’t have
running water, but did have caring nannies. One was absolutely horrible and I
think I’m still processing that one.
None of these orphanages, though, had enough food to feed the kids. In talking with the missionaries who are
working with these places now (most of whom have only been there a few months) we
learned how they rationed everything, shared everything and prayed for teams to
come and supply their formula, diapers and medicine needs. One missionary looked at me as we talked
about the 4 bowls 20 older kids shared for meals and said “When these kids pray
for food and it comes, they praise God for answering their prayers, no matter
how little they eat.”
The one
orphanage that astounded all of us was the Mother Theresa HIV orphanage. We didn’t get do anything there but go on a
tour, and I’m telling you, I had my biggest realization while on this so-called
tour. My realization was, “If any of my
children were orphaned and had to end up in an orphanage, I’d be praying that
they would contract HIV so they could live here.” Never in my wildest dreams would I wish
anyone – especially my children – to have a disease of any kind. But how this orphanage was set up, how it’s
run, how it’s lovingly cared for and prayed over day after day made our entire
team stand up and say: “This is what happens when the Church cares for orphans
in their distress instead of waiting for someone else to do something about
the orphan crisis.”
And there is
a crisis, you know. The number is 157 million. Or 163 million Nobody really knows, but it’s huge, it’s everywhere
and there is nothing I can do to change it…not by myself anyway. But there is also hope and joy in the ashes I
saw and in the lives that touched me.
There are people who sold all they had and moved their families there –
literally! I met them. I talked to them. I couldn’t do what they did, but I know I can
do something. I strongly feel that God
does not call the equipped. He equips
the called. Let me say that again. God does not call the equipped. He equips the called.
I posted on
my blog, towards the end of my trip, that I felt like I was leaving a piece of
my heart in Africa. I’m still not
entirely sure why I feel that way, but it’s a feeling I can’t shake. Because despite the pollution, the dirt, the
lack of amenities, the hunger pains, the sadness and despair all around, it
still felt a little like home to me. I
felt a connection with the people I met.
Maybe it’s because God uses broken people to reach broken people and I
am one of them.
Isaiah 61
talks about a God who brings beauty from ashes.
I saw the beauty. I saw Jesus in
the faces of so many of the people I met in Africa. I read a quote on our team leader’s blog that
said “The key to happiness is not being loved; it is having someone to
love." Maybe that’s why so many
children over there – children with nobody to love them - are so joyful. They know the key to happiness and love their
Jesus – truly love Him.
So, what did
me and 23 people I’ve never met before do in Africa? We loved on kids. We brought formula and diapers and medicine
to orphanages and then taught nannies how to stop the spread of sicknesses. We did an Extreme Makeover Orphanage Edition
for one orphanage and spent hours cleaning, painting, bathing babies, taking
them to the doctor, filling drawers with clean clothes, buying dishes for them
to eat out of, buying mattresses and beds and assembling them and more. We acted out Bible stories, sang songs,
played games and goofed off with children known as “orphans.” And you know what? We got more out of our trip than those kids
did, I’m sure. One young man I prayed
with said “You pray good. That was
perfect. I love you for coming from far
away to pray for what I need.” Talk
about humbling….
Jesus wants
us to show tangible love for God in how we care for the poor and those who are
suffering. That’s what he meant in
Matthew 25 when he said: “I tell you the
truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these …you did for me”.
I asked
myself a question a while back after reading about children ½ a world
away: Who will answer for these children
when they stand before the Lord?
Honestly, my first response wasn’t an excited “I will, pick me!” But now I feel differently - much
differently. I know I don’t have to be
perfect or have it all together or be more spiritual or get a degree in
theology or anything like that. I just
have to show up and let God do the rest.
The video you
are about to see doesn’t do justice to what I got to experience while in
Africa, but it’s a start. I don’t know
how you will feel or what you will think about as you see it, but I do know one
thing. I will go back. I don’t know when yet, but I will be going
back.
