Aug. 16th in Ethiopia

Heavy. The day was heavy. It had been a few days since I journaled in Ethiopia and a lot had happened. With AGCI, families get an opportunity to meet birth family if at all possible and with our particular traveling group a few of these visits happened at the orphanage. I was there for a few of them and this is a very tender moment. A very difficult moment to witness the final goodbye. As much as you try not to "notice" as they leave the only doors in and out of the orphanage and as they walk past the place where all the kids hang out, you see them. The families met in a private area and then the director would have the adoptive family leave with their child/ren while Almaz did some final comforting/counseling with the birth family. This is the part we, who were there saw. We saw the tears they shed. The tears they didn't want to let go when their child was there. And it was a photograph-less moment. You couldn't take pictures really, yet somehow I wanted to capture it for the families. The moment being so sacred though you keep your camera to your side.



And now I hesitate to share my heart with my internet friends,and those I know. To share my heart in print. Dangerous ya know. I want to reflect Jesus, but I'm a long way off. I risk sounding self-centered and without compassion. I am not sure I have the courage to post this at all. Although if you are reading this I must have decided to post it.



Later that day in Ethiopia, we visited Mother Theresa's missionary and charity hospital. Uh. I will try to give words to what we saw and experienced. If possible. We entered what I would call a compound. It was completly closed in and a gate opened to allow our vehicle to enter. What we saw was unlike any hospital you would ever see in the states. People, patients really, were just everywhere. Hanging around, laying around, walking around, standing there. The hospital kind of reminded me of a motel because it was a two story and had an outdoor hallway with large rooms. Someone was washing the cement poured floors and the water was running down from one floor to another. We dodged around it as we made way for the stairs. What were they washing away? I tried not to imagine. The rooms housed patients. People with TB and malaria and HIV and AIDS and mental illness and a host of other diseases. And then there was on the other side of this compound the orphanage. An orphanage like one would see on t.v. with children all around with only their shirts on their backs. And they were barefooted and without diapers. Too small to be potty trained. I struggled as I looked at the faces of these children who lay in there cribs, unable to move because of CP or other muscle-damaging diseases, of children with masses that covered their faces. And I couldn't figure out why we were there cause I couldn't seem to be Jesus in the moment. Ya know, I didn't reach out and love on all the children. Some of the children were easy to reach out to but not all of them. And I felt ashamed and sad and the whole time my mind was on Jesus and I would ask Him what He wanted me to do in this moment. I would ask Him why so many children and people were here? I almost felt panicky inside. I knew the moment was quickly passing to be Jesus with skin on. What did He want me to take away from this experience? In all honesty I just wanted to leave. I didn't want to look in on these people like they were on display. Why did we come here? I struggled with children who wanted to reach out to me, who wanted me to pick them up and I wasn't sure if I wanted too. Do you smile? How can one smile and look upon all that was there? And to see my own reaction to it all. It was a hard moment to see who I really was when put to the test. How hard it truly is to show love to all people. In my mind I wondered if I would bring something back with me to Major Cutie, already sick with a fever at the orphanage. But more honestly I was afraid for myself really. It almost left you numb not knowing what to feel, not wanting to stare but wanting to see the reality of real people. Wanting it to change you so that you would not be the same. And then I saw them. Dressed in white. Like real-live Mother Theresa's. The volunteers. Some no older than 20. Giving themselves away and loving the people. Caring and mending them. With smiles on their faces - true smiles. They were servants, God's servants for sure. They were not afraid to be with the people. And as I watched them I wanted to feel the freedom to love too. But I couldn't, or maybe I just wouldn't. I didn't want to fully engage, emotionally, ya know? And then there was the gate in which the sister would open twice a day to evaluate the sick and determine who could enter, who would get the help they so desperately needed. Woman and children who got there on foot and waited all day to see if they could come inside the gate. I have no pictures. They weren't allowed. Heavy. My heart was very heavy.