I leave tomorrow to go back to Ethiopia! As I’m sitting here on my bed tonight,
looking at my packed bags and wondering if I’ve left anything out, I can’t help
but think back to last summer and my journey to Ethiopia. It’s a completely different thing this time
around. I am once again traveling alone
to Ethiopia to work for Water is Life, even carrying the same luggage sure, but
so much has changed. It’s an entirely
different thing to return to a country that I’ve grown to love, where I know
the taste of the food, and where I have warm friends and colleagues I am eager
to see again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Though we travel the world
over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not”. I know from being in Ethiopia last summer
that in the next six weeks I am going to see many beautiful things. I’m going to learn names, hear stories, share
meals with families, and tread paths I’ve never before laid eyes on. I’m excited to no end for this journey and so
thankful to be a part of this work! I
know that much of my responsibility in this is to share with you the things I
see and experience while in Ethiopia: the things that are beautiful and that are
heart wrenching, that are awe-inspiring and disturbing, and that are hopeful and
miraculous.
In Matthew 13 Jesus tells his disciples that they are
blessed for having seen and heard the things that they had. Jesus tells them that so many before them
longed to see and hear what the disciples got to experience by walking with Him. As someone who has traveled to Ethiopia and
is now returning, I feel this same privilege and know that I am blessed by what
I will see and hear in the coming weeks.
I hope that through the work I am doing I will also be a blessing to
those we at WiLi are serving, and I am eager to work hard in the coming weeks
for this purpose.
Please pray that my journey would be fruitful, and that
God would continue to bring hope and life-giving water and health through the
work we are doing! Folks, next blog will
be coming from Ethiopia :)
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| Just one teensy tiny thing I'm excited about...Ethiopian coffee! |
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