Proverbs 24:12 Once our eyes are opened, we can't pretend we don't know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls, knows what we know, and holds us responsible to act.
You see, I had expected to go to Ethiopia the first time for an adventure in which I fed a few people in need, loved a few children without parents, and helped a friend bring home her long awaited child. I had expected to be on an adventure that would teach me, grow me, and be written off as another cool trip. But that is not what happened. Not even close.
God opened my eyes to a world of need like nothing I had ever seen before. People using the streets as bathrooms because of no other option. Sick children, hundreds of children "working" to try and feed themselves. Children without smiles, homes, education, food... Adults without jobs, with little hope, maimed from war or disease, crippled and wrapped in rubber from an old tire to keep from tearing their skin as they drug their bodies in the streets. Smells of despair. Smells of extreme need... I had seen a world that I had been unable to imagine. But I saw even more...
I saw people with kind hearts, generous spirits, and a hope for something more. I saw children able to smile because they, if only for a day, felt like someone cared enough to take the time to be with them, to love them. I saw children worshipping and praising our Lord Jesus because of just a few days with me to spend time with them, to give them a few pieces of fresh fruit and a frosted cake of which most had never experienced. I saw hope in the faces of the people. I came home forever changed.
"We can not pretend we don't know..." the Bible is right. There are times that my heart has been so broken over the people I have fallen in love with in Ethiopia that I had wished I did not ever know. The burden is heavy to bear. To know that American sponsorship dollars have fallen off and kids I personally know and love have been cut back to bread and tea for 2 meals... it honestly is too much to handle. To know that the cost of living their is steadily increasing as unemployment and drought plague the people, brings me to tears. (These are the people willing to die rather than to eat a steal and eat a lose chicken that doesn't belong to them.) Though the burden is so heavy, I am so thankful for the truth I know. They say "knowledge equals power". And though I do not feel at all powerful, but actually quite small, I know that power to strike change because of this knowledge, is within me. The difference between those people and my family is simply the country we were born in. It is not our heart, our efforts, our hopes, or desires. It is plainly a matter of where we were born. How fortunate for me that I was born in America. But it also has become a big responsibility for me.
I am privileged. I know how unprivileged others are and I ache for their relief. God has placed a burden so big, that I am now held responsible to act on this burden. I feel completely and totally called to the cause. God knows all the answers on how and when. I am faithfully stepping out to allow Him to work. Things are not going as quickly as I had hoped. Things are not falling together as easily now as they were in the first. But I feel no less called to the cause. The people need some basics to get going and given those, they are intelligent and capable people that desire to achieve more for themselves, their families, and their nation. The street children need help to get a proper education, food, and a place to call home. The people don't desire hand outs, they desire solutions.
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