Sunday, October 12, 2014

Riding in the van with Solomon

So when I think about Ethiopia, my thoughts linger among the 7 orphanages we visited and the guest house we stayed in but a lot of times in those thoughts, I'm back in the van with Solomon. We had two drivers every day all day, Sami and Solomon, and we all loved both of them. Most of the time our pack of 6 ended up in Solomon's van. Our travel guide, interpreter, children's advocate, and AWAA employee, Israel, was also with us for many trips. She spoke English very well and when she was in the car it was much easier to communicate with Solomon. He was a professed Christian and always had Ethiopian christian music playing in the car. Israel and Solomon would always be singing along with the beautiful songs and it made my heart happy. Now when I listen to those same songs, I can go right back to those moments and feelings. 

The van was our refuge and our place of learning. We had to keep our emotions in tack while we were visiting the orphanages which was often very hard. We never wanted to exhibit emotions that might could be misconstrued as pity or fear or anything it wasn't. This meant once we hit the van, there were sometimes tears and questions and anger. I know I must have asked Israel a thousand questions as I tried to wrap my brain around the orphan crisis and how the system actually worked. It's so convoluted and complicated and often corrupt and I'm not sure anyone really understands. 

I instantly gravitated towards Solomon because we were both desperately trying to learn each other's languages. We spent many hours driving as he emphatically pronounced words in amharic and I would intently focus on his pronunciation and mouth movements. This was much to the amusement and probably annoyance of my fellow team members!   At one point late after one of our dinners out, Solomon was reciting the amharic alphabet as loud as he could and we were reciting back as best we could and it was truly great stress relief either from the effort or more likely the  laughter at our effort. 


Solomon took great pride in showing us pictures of his beautiful wife and his adorable son, Dawit or David, who was 6. He proudly told us how his wife had chosen Jesus as her savior awhile back and you could see in his eyes his true happiness with this decision. Once when the van would not start and Sami's van had already moved on, we all got a little nervous. Solomon said "pray!" We all prayed and vroom, there we went! Driving in Addis Ababa is no small feat. It means navigating dirt roads, sidewalks and streets among hoards of people, cars and livestock. I have never experienced anything like it! Anytime we started getting a little antsy about the current gridlock, Solomon would always assure us "No worries!" By the end of the week, our theme song for the van became "Don't worry, be happy!" 

After one of our trips the locals had been calling us "ferange" or foreigners. Solomon loved pulling up next to Sami's van with the rest of our team and having us yell "ferange" out the window at them. This became great sport for us and definitely took our minds off of the darkness that often surrounded us. 

Before the week ended, I had given Solomon my amharic phrasebook ordered from amazon that was definitely more American than Ethiopian and he made sure I bought an amharic phrasebook from one of the street vendors at the market. Sweet Shannon, our youngest team member outside of Libbie, asked Solomon if he had an American bible and he didn't. She directly handed hers over. Our encounter with our christian brother was amazing for those 9 days and we are forever blessed by our time in the van with Solomon. 


I am haunted by many of the images we saw in the van. The young girl with the baby on her back, begging at our window. The boys grabbing granola bars from our van window at the museum before being run off by the guards. The countless people huddled and living on the streets. These images are burned in my memories forever. I will take the good and the bad. God has carefully woven my encounters and as my heart was breaking it was also being uplifted by the friendship of a fellow Christian who drove our van. Blessed by all of it. 

Friday, March 21, 2014

Satan, lice, and granola bars, just to name a few of my fears…



“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Eph 6:12

This verse is what I woke up thinking about this morning. Yesterday was tough and I was definitely down. I found myself in a situation where I felt hurt, misunderstood, and attacked. This morning I realized I couldn’t be angry with the “who” behind the hurt … I knew this was Satan. He loves it when we dump on each other so he doesn’t have to work as hard. When Satan is at work, it’s often times sly and sneaky and we don’t always know it’s him. Then there are other times when you are so rocketed by the assault you become acutely aware of the spiritual warfare among us. This was one of those times. I had one of these moments right after we made the decision to adopt and now here comes another one soon after our decision to go on this mission trip. It’s not a coincidence. 

So, after feeling pretty deflated yesterday, I woke up this morning more determined than ever. Because here is what I know…if I’m getting Satan’s attention then I am doing something that glorifies God. As scary as that is, I find tremendous peace and security knowing I am walking the path He has planned for me. I won’t bury my head in the sand and try not to be the dark prince’s target. I will stand up and walk boldly and obediently forward. 

So, I know you are wondering what this has to do with lice! Well, a couple of things. For one; when all these thoughts were blurring through my head, I was driving my son to school. This is usually when I have my best conversations with God. I don’t usually write them down or share them but I told God (because I do that too), that if He wanted this shared, would He please give me this same mindset and clarity to actually write it later! Well, here I am trying! As I was reading Ephesians, I also read “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.” Eph 6:19.

My revelation this morning is that I am fearful of telling you my thoughts and I am fearful that I will not have the words to share the gospel with the precious people and children we will meet in Ethiopia. I realized in my moment of strength this morning that I won’t be afraid of this anymore. I won’t back down.  I will write down and share my thoughts when I think God wants me to. The theme of our mission trip is “Be a storyteller” which means we will see these children, feel these children, embrace their story, and then come back and be their storyteller. I will not shirk from this responsibility. 

So, again, what about the lice, right! Well, I want you to see and feel my vulnerability so I feel like I should tell you some of the other things that I am fearful about right now as I contemplate our life-changing journey in August. Here it is…lice! Not only do I fear lice, I fear telling you about it because you might judge me! I have a very unhealthy and unnatural fear of tiny things that crawl. When I have nightmares that involve screaming, it’s a dream about spiders or my counters being covered with ants, that kind of thing. I know we will encounter beautiful children of God who will possibly have lice and I know without a doubt that I will love on them as much as possible. I will not let them ever see this concern in my eyes. But I legitimately have spent some time pondering how I will treat Libbie’s scalp as we try to get her de-liced before she goes to her first day of middle school the DAY AFTER we get back from Ethiopia!! Yes, this concerns me but it in no way deters me! 

My other concern involves granola bars. At our last mission trip meeting, we went over being approached by kids on the street and how we were not to give anyone cash. Not out of lack of generosity but not to set a precedent and not just to throw money at a problem. It was mentioned that we might be able to give out granola bars. My fear is there won’t be enough granola bars. I keep seeing the scene in my head of the child who is still standing there when we run out. I know this image among many is going to be the one that stays with me and haunts me and changes me. 

Bear with me as I progress…you may just hear more of what’s on my heart!