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Oct. 29th, 2008 | 03:42 pm
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| {a widow with her two grandchildren} "At the present time your plenty will supply what they (the hardpressed) need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality..." 2 Cor 8.14 With a large amount of money to give and great need every way that I turned, I knew I would need Wisdom in its distribution. I was eventually introduced to the right people at the right time. The first is Henok, an Ethiopian man with a large presence and a genuine heart for his people. He runs an organization called CCCE, which provides care and support for orphans and children across Ethiopia. There is a fund to supply impoverished families with food and other needs so that their children can attend school rather than beg on the streets. The day I gave the money to them was the day that this fund ran empty. God is truly faithful. I also met with two pastors who were able to distribute some of the money to the poorest within their congregations. My friendships with Meskele and Mebrat provided me the opportunity to give much of the money directly to the people in greatest need. They both work for an organization called Mossy Foot Treatment and Prevention Association (MFTPA). This condition (Mossy Foot) afflicts the poorest of the poor in rural Ethiopia, and the work this organization performs is bringing hope and health to thousands of people there. When I approached them with money, requesting that they help distribute it, they suggested that I join them and do it myself. They were able to help me distinguish the poor from the destitute (mostly widows, handicapped, and orphans). They also assisted me in distributing food and money to these and in translating my message to them. I had seen the effects of western aid in Ethiopia- a sense of dependency and expectancy. I also saw the Ethiopians' own generosity to those in need around them. So often I would meet people standing at a hospital bed and I would ask their relation to the patient. Their response was commonly, "Oh, I am only their neighbor. But I heard they ran out of money, so now I am here to help." So as I went into the simple huts with money and food, I also explained, "This comes from your brothers and sisters overseas. They have heard of your need, and give to you now because they love you and feel accountable to you as family. And we also need your prayers out of the wealth of your faith." I did feel as though I was meeting new family members throughout those days of distribution - what a great reunion we have ahead of us! "...As it is written, "He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little." 2 Cor 8.15 |
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| {This father is handicapped and unable to provide for his family. The roof of their house had gaping holes two feet wide. MFTPA is fundraising with the local church to build a new home for this family} |
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Signed, Sealed, Delivered...
Sep. 28th, 2008 | 03:24 pm
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Ethiopia's future:
Sep. 19th, 2008 | 06:32 pm
 {this little one sits with her mother on the street every day to beg. Hopefully when she is old enough, she can be sponsored to go to school} | |
 {Children drop out of school when their parents need them to work to provide for the family. There is a program here that supports these families to keep their children in school} | |
 {Fischer Price is unheard of here,but that doesn't keep the children from creating their own toys. The hoop and stick, for example.} | |
 {for some reason, seeing a ferangi never gets old...} | |
 {A rare but welcome sight: a chubby Ethiopian baby!} I have met staff working for Compassion international and World Vision here in Ethiopia and have seen the benefits of child sponsorship programs. For about $30 a month, a child receives education, food, clothing, and medical care. Thirty dollars a month can give a child hope and a future! |
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On the medical side...
Sep. 17th, 2008 | 11:12 am
| For those interested in seeing some intense pictures and hearing some interesting stories of the medical conditions found here, log onto Paul and Becca's site at: http://paulandbecca.wordpress.com/ They have come to Sodo hospital for the long term, Paul as a surgeon and Becca as a dietician. I've been grateful to have them around and will miss them when I go! You will also get to see some really cute pictures of their little son, Nathan:)  |
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Thank you! (Ameuseugenallo!)
Sep. 15th, 2008 | 10:42 pm
I was joined in Addis by my good friend Pedrina (also a pediatric nurse) about a week ago, and she brought with her the donations that many of you gave for the famine here. In total: $700 (7,000 birr)! Thank you to all who gave, and I will be sure to report back on where it is distributed. I have been thinking a bit about generosity and its relationship to gratitude. I’ve come to the conclusion that a life of gratitude results in generosity…when you are aware of how much you have been given, (whether materially or in the currency of grace), you will naturally give as you have received. So I hope that as you have shared from your overflow, you will also continue to be blessed with fullness in every part of your lives! It has been so great to have Pedrina here, and she came at the perfect time…we were recruited to spend the week in Addis and train a local orphanage staff on basic infant care, infection control, and child development (thank God I could put those powerpoints to use!). It was an intense week, but we were grateful to be in the right place at the right time. We met some wonderful people in the process, and were also able to watch the uniting of an adoptive family with their new daughter.  | |
 A few words from Pedrina: It is hard for me to put into words what I’m feeling. It truly has been a “culture shock” as to what I have seen. This culture, although very colorful and rich in people, is very poor in what I have seen on the streets. Everyone I have met, both at the orphanage and on the streets, are so..so.. kind and happy to meet us. Seeing the orphanage for the first time and knowing I once was in this very spot, only made me more grateful for my family. (Some of you may not know but I lived in an orphanage in Brazil until the age of three). I feel that being able to give back what seemed to be a lot to the staff and only a little bit of myself and what I have learned in the states has shown me that I want to do much more of this down the road. It is hard to only have a week to fix big problems in the orphanage related to good health care and prevention, which is something we in the states take for granted!! I would end by saying this, I am now in Soddo and am again in “shock” as to what the hospital conditions are like here. These patients are so sick with limited resources. Jess and I saw an infant who is so very sick and we helped today give this infant a bath. It took every part of me to keep from crying. (You know those kids you see on TV-well think of that). With the lack of nurses, supplies and medical teaching on children it’s hard to know if these kids are going to make it. Than last night we tried for very long time to get an IV into an infant patient post-op, and after an hour we had to stop and give him a brake. (He is looking better today and they did get an IV in!!) When I feel nothing is working Jess and I have to turn to God and pray that he will take care of these children and all the patients in the hospital. Ending on a good note, I am happy to be here and see this for myself. I know that only two weeks is not long, but I hope that I will take with me that it is in God’s great timing, knowing that he has a plan for me and for this country. I will also be very grateful for what I have been given in my life. I may think twice before I complain about what I don’t have!! | |
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Lives vs. Statistics
Sep. 5th, 2008 | 10:04 pm
*note- I wrote down these thoughts while working through some of these issues, and decided to post it in case it might encourage. I don't know for certain whether I will spend more of my life in Africa, but I know that suffering exists in every country, city, and family. Love is significant no matter where you apply it. {Orphans here survive by the donations of generous passersby. This little girl and her brother will hopefully soon be taken in by the CCCE foster home.} I read from the book of Job yesterday: “Like wild donkeys in the desert the poor go about their labor of foraging food; the wasteland provides food for their children. They gather fodder in the fields and glean in the vineyards of the wicked. Lacking clothes, they go about naked, they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry. The crush olives among the terraces; they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst. The groans of the dying rise from the city and the souls of the wounded cry out for help.” (24: 5-12) If this passage were translated to the modern day it would spell out the statistics of Ethiopia. The UN human poverty index evaluated 103 nations and ranked Ethiopia 99th. Two-thirds of school-aged children are not in school. Over eighty percent of Ethiopians live on less than two dollars a day. Eleven percent of Ethiopian children are orphans. “The victims of polio and malaria and HIV/AIDS and cancer and the blind and the lepers and the mentally ill and the malnourished and the orphans and the dying roam the streets of the capital city, or lie on its sidewalks, defeated.” (There is no me without you - Melissa Fay Greene) A month ago these statistics would have been for me an abstract representation of human suffering, but today they are alive with the reality of what I witness here. It is impossible to turn away from it…it is important to look it straight in the eyes. | |
 It causes me to ask, “What can I do?” This is a good question, but not the best one. I have discussed with those here about the obsession of ‘doing’, of being productive, and measuring results. With this mindset, when facing such immense suffering, I can become frozen with the realization that any action will be microscopic in comparison to the need. When I instead focus on ‘being’, I realize that the most important thing that I can do is to be present to those around me. No one person can be present to the whole world. I’m finding that to be present is to truly recognize people and to love them without condition. This can be done among the poor or the rich, first or third world. This is what Christ does for us and through us so that we can somehow bring redemption to the worlds around us. And so I accept the grief that I experience here, but with great hope. I see stories of redemption every day. There is Yosefe. This seven month old was admitted with severe pneumonia and lungs so congested that he could barely sip the air to receive the oxygen he needed. The doctors put him on a variety of antibiotics, hoping to hit all of the potential organisms attacking his body. It is a guessing game here. The seizures started on day two. At the time, we lacked the lab technology to check blood levels (it was broken), so all we could do was treat the seizures with anti-convulsants and wonder about the cause. This is an unfamiliar place for me, where knowledge and medicine fail and all you have left to do is pray. In the many moments where we thought we would lose him, family and staff would look up, asking for a miracle. The seizures persisted on and off for another day but then they stopped. He regained consciousness and his breath began to come easier. The swelling receded from his face so that he could open his eyes again. He cried at the sight of me, the ferange- a very good sign! In moments like these I am reminded of the immeasurable gift of each life. I forget about the statistics and find myself saying, “Father, thank you for this one life.” |
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Etegainu's house
Sep. 4th, 2008 | 11:31 am
 {Etegainu has become a good friend. She invited a few of us to her house for lunch where we enjoyed some incredible Kai wot} | |
 {Etegainu's family} |
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Downtime.
Aug. 26th, 2008 | 07:27 pm
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It’s been an adjustment, leaving a life with days packed from morning to night to the life I’m living here. I was looking forward to a slower pace, but didn’t realize that it would take a while for my body and mind to fully appreciate it. If I work a full day at the hospital, I usually get home between 4:30 or 5. The next hour is spent picking vegetables and figuring out what to make for dinner. After that I have about four hours of free time that I usually fill by reading or checking e-mail if Becca has lent me her laptop. I’m glad I brought some good books! It gets dark here around 7pm so it’s not safe to go into the village after that time. Sometimes Paul and Becca will have me over for dinner, or they’ll come to my place.
The weekends are much more active. Every Friday night we have pizza night. Everyone brings their own homemade pizza and we cook them in a stone wood-burning oven in the Bower’s yard. The pizza is delicious- with a sort of grilled flavor. The Bowers also have a projector that they can hook up to their laptop, so we usually watch a movie sometime over the weekend. We normally brave a trip to the market during the weekend as well.
{injera bread prepared for a wedding}
This past Sunday I was invited to an Ethiopian wedding. One of the guys who works at the CCCE foster home invited Allie (one of the CCCE volunteers) and me to visit his village. His uncle was getting married, so he said we could stop by and join the festivities (Ethiopian weddings are three days long). The best mode of transport once you leave the paved roads is by off-road motorcycle…I was definitely up for the adventure!
We rode for about an hour, initially on the main highway, then along winding dirt roads. On either side were thatch huts, fields of crops, and mountains in the distance. Kids would appear out of the huts and from the fields waving and yelling “ferange!” It was so beautiful…I think Solomon was worried that I’d fall off the motorcycle while trying to capture it all with my camera.
We went first to meet Michael’s family at his childhood home. It had a small main room with a bed, a few stools, and two wooden chairs for furniture. The adjoining room was for the animals during the hard rains. Behind it was a room that was almost pitch-black. Upon entering I noticed some hot coals in the corner under a boiling kettle of wot. The only light came from the embers and some small cracks in the thatch roof. An Ethiopian kitchen! His family served us corn and beans and some of the strongest coffee I have ever tasted. Very good, but I had a hard time falling asleep that nightJ I asked to have my coffee without the traditional rancid butter mixed in. I was given this strange brew by a family at the hospital and can’t say that I’d recommend it.
When we arrived at the wedding location, the bride and groom were not there, so we met the guests and left shortly after. On the ride home, Solomon made the comment, “The Ethiopians are a very happy people.” I would agree. There is such a joy among the people here, even in the face of great adversity. I have much to learn from them. It’s interesting coming here to serve when I feel I am receiving so much more than I can possibly give.
