We have returned from Ethiopia. The whole time we were there, we had terrible connection issues. In addition, my computer crashed the third day we were in country. I had written this post, and thought I actually got it posted, but apparently did not. Here it is. One entry from a two week trip, posted after the fact, but I hope it blesses.
This is hard
Sunday,
February 16, 2014
I wish I had
some profound and beautiful words today, but I’m tired. And this is hard. I confess that with every trip we take to
this amazing country, I go through a period of not wanting to – not wanting to coordinate
everything, not wanting to pack, not wanting to make that long, long trip. Sometimes that feeling doesn’t even pass
until we are on our way to the airport. True
to form, I went through the “I don’t want to” phase this trip. That phase ended at about 3:00 a.m. on Friday
morning, when it came time to wake the kids and get them ready to go to the
airport. I was finally excited about
going on our next Ethiopian adventure.
The
background on that 3:00 a.m. moment of transition is that I hadn’t been to bed
at all on Thursday evening. I spent
Thursday running like a crazy woman, trying to buy the last things we needed,
making sure I had some gift for each of the Ethiopians we now consider good
friends, making sure I had packed everything a family of four might need on an
African trip, etc. I “finished” at about
2:15, just in time to pretend that I was just waking up and get myself dressed
and ready to go.
Our flight
left at 5:45, so after waking the kids at 3:00, we left the house at about 3:30
and arrived at the airport just after 4:00.
We flew from D.C. direct to Addis Ababa – a wonderfully short 13 hours
direct to our destination. Usually we
fly through Amsterdam. Layovers can be 3
hours or more. Sometimes we have a fuel
stop in Rome or the Sudan. Those stops
can add an hour or two to the trip.
Generally, the trip takes far in excess of 20 hours. Everyone was excited that we would board in
D.C. and get off at our destination just 13 hours later. However, we weren’t really thinking that on those
trips with those stops and layovers, we are never really on a plane much more
than 10 hours at a time. How is it that
13 hours can seem like an absolute eternity in comparison?
On the flight to D.C., I just could
not keep my eyes open. I was running
over 24 hours without sleep, and I dozed for the hour of flight time. We boarded the plane for Addis at 10:15 a.m.,
and finally, hours later, we were able to sleep. Now, I can’t even remotely tell you how many
hours or about what time local or Ethiopian we began to sleep. When you get mid-air between continents, you
are in some netherworld where neither continent’s time really applies to
you. Every time you look at your watch
you are calculating the time in the other time zone, to the extent that you are
never sure what time it really is in either place. This time warp also affects your ability to
judge the passing of time, so it could have been three hours or 15 minutes
after we got airborne that they shut off the lights, but it was probably a couple
or three hours. I think we slept for
about three hours, and then the plane lights came up so we could be served a
snack. After the snack, the lights went
off again, and we made the foolish, foolish decision to watch a movie rather
than sleep again. As a result, those
precious three hours of sleep were the only hours of sleep we got on the
flight. Also as a result, the remaining
6 hours of the flight stretched out F-O-R-E-V-E-R. By the time we landed at 7:30 a.m. Ethiopian
time, I was running on three hours sleep in just under 48 hours, and my kids
ended up with 3 hours sleep in 24. By
the time we completed the arrival rodeo (wait with all the other passengers in
the Visa line, go through the entry checkpoint, gather up all the baggage, go
through customs with all the baggage, push all the baggage loaded onto tiny
luggage carts out into the parking lot, and then, finally, blissfully watch
someone else load it all onto the roofs of the vans we will ride in), we
arrived at the guest house at some time mid-morning Ethiopia time. (I still couldn’t get a read on the time.)
We unpacked,
had lunch, and then unloaded and sorted all our donations. At that point, I mostly became comatose and
went to bed. I think in total I had 3
hours sleep in about 50 or 52 hours. The
kids didn’t even make it to lunch. With 3
hours sleep in about 24 hours, they crashed by 12:30 and slept a good part of
the afternoon. We were all awake for
dinner, and you’d think by 8:00 p.m. we would have been sound asleep in our
beds. We did get to sleep at a pretty
good time, but Carlos was up from 1:00 to 3:00 a.m., and I’m not sure Kiki
slept at all after 1:00. It was not an
enjoyable night.
I should
also add that none of us ate much of anything on the plane, and I could not get
the kids to drink enough at all.
This morning
was a fresh start I hoped. Once I got
going, I felt better. Kiki was like the
Energizer bunny, of course. Carlos was
dragging. His stomach was also funny,
and he was seriously worried about getting sick again, like he did last time he
was here. We had a great breakfast, and Carlos
started to feel better. Then we were off
to Beza International Church, which is a tremendous blessing every time we come
here. It was really, really good. Then, we had a great lunch. (Yeshi is the best cook in Ethiopia!) I think we are recovering, but wow, what a
rough entry!
I want to
clarify one thing: I am not
complaining. Rough time adjustments are
part of international travel. The last 3
days were really hard, but it’s all part of it.
However,
that’s not all that’s been hard. This
place slays me. The first time I came to
Ethiopia I fell in love. She was exotic,
beautiful, dignified, and tragic. I was smitten. The second time I came to Ethiopia, she broke
my heart. I couldn’t stop weeping. The third time I came to Ethiopia, she
slapped me in the face – a “snap out of it” kind of blow. “Everyone can weep, girl, but what are you
gonna do about it?!” was her cry.
After that we became friends. I still love her, and she seems to have
made a place for me, but our relationship is sometimes rocky.
Every time I
come here, I am rocked by the questions.
And on this trip, our team has already been in deep discussion over
them. For example, we don’t come here
with any desire to make Ethiopia or her people like us. In fact, I really hate some of the effects of
modernization on countries and people groups.
God help us all if everyone becomes Americanized. Living on McDonalds and addicted to texting
is not the future I dream for this world.
However, isn’t modernization what everyone desires? I feel offended by Ethiopia’s program to
systematically raze the city of Addis sector by sector to eliminate all the tin,
tarp, and cardboard shacks and replace them with high rise apartments. However, isn’t it better for the people in
those shacks to live in apartments rather than lean-to’s with dirt floors? Isn’t it more comfortable, more sanitary,
safer? But are the shack dwellers really
going to be allowed a spot in the apartment complex? If allowed, could they ever afford it? What about the countryside villages? My Ethiopian friends are horrified at the
southern tribes that still run around naked just so tourists will pay to have
their pictures taken with them. Don’t we
want them to maintain their heritage?
Dare we judge their motives? But
isn’t clothing part of the price, so to speak, for entering the modern
world? What about China’s role in
Africa? China is building factory after
factory in this country. They are
importing their workers to take the jobs.
They are puking pollutants into the air, the water, and the ground. In return, they built the new African Union
building as a gift. Can anyone do something
about that? Does anyone want to?
On top of
all that, the poverty is overwhelming.
How are problems this big, decades in the making, involving multiple
government regimes, solved? Now? Sometimes people ask returning team members
why the Ethiopians in our pictures look so happy if it’s really so hard
here. How does real, deep joy exist
hand-in-hand with terrible suffering? Or
is it the case that the deepest and truest joy is only felt when you have
actually experienced terrible suffering?
Are we, as first world people, devoid of true joy because our lives are
too full, too cluttered, too excessive?
What about
adoption? International adoption
especially has had its ups and downs.
Multiple countries’ programs have been opened, and then closed, opened
and then delayed or slowed, opened in name but not supported by the
government. I think everyone agrees that
adoption will never solve the orphan problem.
However, doesn’t it make a difference?
Especially for those little lives that are directly touched? How do you eliminate the corruption, the risk
of trafficking, the prohibitive cost, and make it efficient and effective?
Most of all,
where is God in all of this? Intimately
present and yet high and holy? Apparently
absent, but ever present? Seemingly
uncaring and yet deeply grieved?
I DON’T
KNOW! I don’t know any of it. Does anyone know?!! And these aren’t even all the hard
questions. It’s impossible to be here
and not dwell on the hard questions as hard reality confronts you at every
turn. It’s hard not to be grieved and
frustrated and angry and feel helpless.
And then
there was church this morning. Anyone
who knows me has heard me say that our American worship is pitiful compared to
Ethiopian worship. I couldn’t wait to
get to Beza this morning. We walked in
after the music had started. We found
some seats. Immediately, you could feel
the Spirit in that place. The first song
we heard was “Oh, how You love me”. With
the morning’s philosophical discussion still running about in my head, with the
sights of the drive to church still piercing my heart, with my mind searching for
God in the midst of it all, with my soul longing for answers, for solutions, I
heard so clearly, “You love me. Oh, how
You love me”. I heard voices all around
me praying as people continued to sing those lines. “Abba
. . .” I heard over and over. “Abba . .
.” and then petitions in Amharic I could not understand. “Abba . . . “ and then praises being
raised. “Abba . . .”
And I landed
there. “You love me.” I landed in that soft place, the only soft
place among all the hard places this world offers. Our Abba loves us – every single one of
us. From the cell-phone addicted
American to the starving Ethiopian child, He loves every one of us. He’s knows the number of hairs on each and
every head, the dreams and desires of every heart, the potential he’s planted
in each life, the value of every single soul.
He loves us even when we don’t love Him.
There may
not be quick solutions to all these problems, and there definitely aren’t
answers to all our questions, but God has a plan for each one. God loves every one. God is not the thief, the destroyer. As the pastor pointed out this morning, God’s
plan for us is not death or defeat. We
are His children, and just as we love our kids and want the best for them, He
loves us and wants our very best. In
fact, He loves far beyond anything we can imagine, to the point of giving His
very own life. And we, as His people,
can touch the lives of His other children one at a time. He gave us instructions on doing that and
beautiful examples of how to do it. We
are to bring His kingdom right here on this earth, and we can.
That’s our
theme for this trip: With every act of
love, we bring the kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. ( Jason Gray’s
“The Kingdom Come” and Matthew 6:10) In
all the hard places, with all the hard questions, there is a soft place to
land. We can help others find the soft
place as well.
