What Am I Really Missing Out On?

After reading one of Jentezen Franklin’s book a few years ago, I decided to do a 21 day Daniel Fast. It was the first time for me and as I feared not eating (in fact I started off with three days of full fasting), I ate up large the night before I started. Up until that point in my life, eating had become a coping mechanism for me. I love food and I used it many times in my life to calm emotions, feed my starving soul, take out my anger and just indulge in some goodness for my pallet. So the thought of fasting scared me, to say the least.

But once I started fasting, and really, it’s still eating but just cutting out some of the favourites and remaining in a spirit of prayer.. I realized that what I was believing God for was more valuable than the food that I was sacrificing. So I wrote this in my journal..

“I’m not missing out on anything, unless I’m missing out on You.” You Meaning God

I was making chocolate cupcakes at a camp for kids when I realized that even for this seemingly big sacrifice of not eating this food I had spent hours cooking, NOTHING compares to what I would miss if I missed out on God and the answer He would give as a result of my fasting.

This can also translate to the life that we live right now. My kids were asked recently where they would rather live – Ethiopia or New Zealand? Not an unusual question for them and they were being asked by a New Zealander in Ethiopia so they felt free to answer as this person was well aware of both country’s contexts. Freely my daughters answered that they would rather live in Ethiopia because of the lifestyle but it took my youngest son a couple of days to answer and he answered when we were alone. He said, “If my cousins were all here in Ethiopia with us, I would rather live in Ethiopia…If all our family were here. “  I completely understand and too often yearn to have cuddles with my nephews and nieces and late night catch ups with my sisters and Mum. I feel like I’m missing out when birthdays are celebrated and special holidays call for family gatherings and we are not there. But at the end of the day, I know that I’m not missing out on anything unless I am missing out on God and His purpose and plan for my life.

Yesterday we went to a church service where the preacher was speaking from where Paul says “To live is Christ…” He made a point about the things that we as humans can replace the word “Christ” for. The first example he used was “money”. To live is money. This is the mantra of the lives of so many people (Christian and non-Christian) around the world. We believe that money makes the world go round and perhaps makes our life complete but if that’s what it’s all about then life is seemingly meaningless as money is only temporary. It’s just a tool to fulfill life’s real purpose.

The second example he used was one that he said was huge for American’s especially. He said “To live is Family… and went on to explain how many people put family and children before the worship of God. This he said can be interpreted as family becoming a god. To us of the familial-centered cultures, this is a challenge. What if taking our children out of our comfort zone was God’s will and we chose comfort for them over obedience to Him. Does that make them our god? What if a father insisted a child stay and chase his career options in one country that would fulfil his every material desire but he chose to go instead to a far away country where his skills were needed more and God has called him. Does his disobedience to his father mean he is sinning or does his obedience to where he is called by God supersede his father’s command?

I’ve met so many young people who have come to Ethiopia or who have heard us speak about our calling here and God’s provision in making it happen and have said that they feel called also. But there are people and circumstances in their lives that have stopped them from doing it. I am not saying that I am any better because we have done this thing…I speak because I know people still don’t understand our calling and the sacrifices we made to make this move, but God does. God knows the call, He knows the fear that follows and the hesitation to obey. But on the other side of that He also knows the blessing that awaits. He knows the joy that you will experience by being in His will and purpose. He feels the pain of the departure but He also knows the pleasure of the arrival.

Moses knew the truth of this sacrifice. He had the Promised Land in front of Him, but he was not willing to claim it unless God was with him. In essence he was saying “I am not missing out on anything (even the Promised Land) unless I’m missing out on you.

 Then he said to Him “If your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.”

Exodus 33:15

Over the five years that we have been on this journey coming to and living in Ethiopia, our sacrifices have been acknowledged on various occasions. My response is always that, the greater sacrifice would be to NOT come to Ethiopia. I would rather miss out on all the things in New Zealand (family, the lifestyle, the beaches, the conveniences) than to miss out on what God has for us here. There is no better place to be than in the centre of His will.

So I’m writing this blog as a challenge and as an encouragement. What do you fear missing out on when you or if you were to step into God’s will? Then also to encourage those who feel like we are making a sacrifice. When we get to heaven (and we’re not getting there by our good works or by our sacrifices we made here, but by the ultimate sacrifice Christ made on the cross and our belief in Him) we will have everything we missed out here on earth. Our time here on earth is short compared to how we will spend eternity. We only live once and we will never know the fullness of joy that comes with being in Christ’s will apart from our time on earth. So let’s make it count.

One of the beautiful lakes in Debre Zeit

The truth of the matter is that stepping out in obedience to God's calling here has opened up the door for so many blessings, in experiences, in ministry, in relationships, in travel, in meeting some amazing people. God is never in debt to us. Our sacrifices can never outweigh His. 

Our Hearts are Monuments of God's Grace..

"A Heart for Ethiopia" was the name I decided to give this blog five years ago as it described me and it applied to what I would write about in this space. Little did I think about the implications of what happens when God gives you a heart for a country as big as Ethiopia. A country as RICH as Ethiopia.  A country as special as Ethiopia.  For a girl from the little islands of New Zealand, there has to be some capacity building done in the heart region to fit what Ethiopia has to offer. 

Recently I got to share at a Women's retreat in Debre Zeit and it was about what God was saying to me about our hearts. As He was expanding mine, He was teaching me something I just had to share. I hope this encourages you today...

Our hearts are fragile monuments of Gods grace. Monuments are reminders of events that have taken place.  Here in Ethiopia there are many monuments around that remind us of past battles that have been fought, victories that have been won, people who have impacted this nation.  In the same way our hearts stand as a reminder of what battles we have faced and fought, been redeemed from and restored out of, and the grace God has bestowed upon us in order for that to happen.  We are recipients of His grace.  We therefore carry His grace with us in the depths of our hearts. It is there waiting to be exposed and glorified. Freely we have received, freely we are to give it away. 

Monuments are either left uncared for and become callous and rough or they are tenderly maintained and shine through the history of a life that stood for something. Their fragility allows them to go either way pretty fast. f there is anything that reflects the events that have happened in our lives, it is our heart. It stands as a monument for SOMETHING  and that something should be God's grace. But the choice is ours...

Above all else, guard your heart,
    for everything you do flows from it. Prov 4:23

When we become callous we block our view of the blessings God has given us . The people of Israel are the monuments we are directed to as a display of grace left uncared for. Gods grace is a gift that like every other gift, we have to steward. The people of Israel had taken their grace for granted and had built up walls around their hearts. 

As our hearts become callous they also become heavy. Heavy hearts are not ours to carry. 

Cherry Friedmeyer, director of Ellilta Women at Risk once made this statement during a discussion we were having in Kenya. She said, "Our heart is made up of many pockets and God in his grace exposes what's in those pockets one at a time so it's not too overwhelming for us to bear."  

As we come into different situations or conflicts of the heart God shows us areas of our heart that need cleansing, purging or just plain filling - sometimes he just shows us that we have empty pockets that we are trying to fill with the wrong things. But He wants to fill it with His love. 

David prayed this prayer as a result of his sin being exposed by his friend Nathan. God had showed him the state of his heart at that time and in response he laid out his heart. 

Psalm 51: parts of 2-17

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

And cleanse me from my sin...

Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,

And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Make me hear joy and gladness,

That the bones You have broken may rejoice.

Hide Your face from my sins,

And blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me...

For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;

You do not delight in burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,

A broken and a contrite heart—

These, O God, You will not despise.

Sometimes we need to be bold like David and say "Take my heart God...Do as you may-break it, clean it, change it, restore it, purge it, empty it then fill it up again."

Recently I started exercising again with our intern from SBU, Beth. As we began to reawaken muscles that had lay dormant for so long, I started to complain of pain I was feeling in my thighs. Her reply was that my muscles were being broken down so that they could be built up again and made stronger. This is what happens with our hearts. He breaks it down, He builds capacity in us for us the expand the Kingdom in our hearts so that we can bring it to this earth.

Graham Cooke in his book "Uncommon Love" describes this process as a part of God working on our broken hearts as a result of non-reciprocated love.  

"How do you love when love is not returned? You discover what love really is and you give it anyway even if nothing comes back. It's not easy and it's painful and it will break your heart, but the interesting thing is that when God puts it back together, it's always bigger. You end up with a bigger heart. I don't know how God does that, I just know it's true! "

God does this so we can pray like David "Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice!" And as we experience that joy our hearts are resurrected again in new life and the pain that we entered into when we surrendered our hearts to Him, fades. 

Having a broken heart and a broken spirit does not seem like the ideal way to please God or to live the Christian life.  But more than sacrifices or burnt offerings, THIS is what pleases God. That we bring our hearts before Him and say "Here is my heart Lord, it is broken.."

In exercise, the way your muscles are going to be built up is if you keep working and exercising, pushing through the pain so your strength can be built up and in turn experiencing new levels of pain and fatigue. But we must not be afraid or give up.

When we surrender our hearts to God we must remember that we are placing our hearts into the Hands of the Creator, a loving Father, who desires nothing but the best for us. We can confidently trust that Him in this whole process. He LOVES us. He is FOR YOU! Give Him your heart today.

 I'm surrendering mine too. 

When Empathizing turns into Empowering

"It wont stop, it wont stop" His German accent proclaimed as the beggars kept coming as a response to the birr they saw us handing out. So we closed the door and he drove off. He was right though and I know it too well. Once you start to give away free money (and by free I mean unearned, undeserved) the cycle never stops. Our general rule is actually NOT to give to street beggars unless there is a specific Supernatural leading to do so. We don't want to create dependancy or create an expectation or entitlement every time they see us or people who look like us. He doesn't want to either.

He, as referred to above,is Tobi and while he helps Ethiopians set up small businesses to create sustainable income for themselves in rural and urban areas around the country, his wife and he also realize the importance of creating employment opportunities for vulnerable women.

Women such as the growing single mother population, young women trying to put themselves through College/University, women coming off the street and women just like the ones who were on the street with their children begging that night.

These women caught the heart of this couple and especially 28 year old, Samira- the more eloquent and passionate of the two.  She recently graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Gender and Development studies which was a result of her desire to advocate for Women's Rights in Ethiopia. She has been a spokesperson on Female Genital Mutilation and focused her research on this subject. She tells me of regions where they have an incidence rate of 90-100% of girls being circumcised. She's a photographer, model and fashion expert but her main passion is to help young women reach their greatest potential.

Samira has just given birth four months ago to their first baby girl.  She carried this baby while planning the business, decorating the cafe and buying the necessary equipment with the small capital funding they invested.  After returning from birthing the baby in Germany she's hit the ground running opening, as a solution to empowering women, Temsalet Kitchen.

Temsalet means "Exemplary" and its name encompasses the vision she has for this extraordinary restaurant.
Rather than establishing an NGO in Addis to support women, they're partnering with local NGOs and helping them fill a gap that so often exposes itself; the unemployment gap.

First of all they are hiring experienced women who can be role models and teachers to younger or less experienced women who just need someone to believe in them. Here these at risk women are nurtured in a safe environment and are gaining work experience and life skills as well as having the flexibility they need to balance work and family. Its not an easy task arranging all of this but Samira is carried along by her vision and by the many family and friends she has supporting her.

Recently I was able to join in this amazing project by assisting in the development and execution of the European menu. Alongside their amazing Ethiopian cultural menu, Temsalet is filling another gap in Addis Ababa- delicious and healthy food. The atmosphere Samira and her designer friends have created within the restaurant incites any passer by to come in. Situated in a happening part of Addis (Ethiopia's capital and the political capital of Africa) right near the African Union headquarters and many Embassy bases, Temsalet is destined for great things! Already it is showing signs of success as more and more hungry people gather to share in the vision and in turn make a way for women to be empowered and mentored to fulfill their fullest potential. Like Tobi says, the customers not only come to feed their stomachs but to feed their conscience.

Temsalet Kitchen:  

Where Quality, Relationship and Empowerment fuse for one purpose: 

To be Exemplary

If you're in Addis, come and visit! Like us on Facebook

Transformation

From the rural villages of the vast expanse of land that is Ethiopia, girls travel for miles, for days, from family and familiar to the door steps of urban settings to find work and a better life.

They are often forced into this situation due to poverty, large families and lack of educational opportunities. 

They are desperate. 

They are destitute. 

They are deceived.

Deceived into thinking that this life will be better than the life they lived before.

Often they find work as child slaves, forced into domestic services without pay, forced out of education with time spent on preparing food, looking after children and keeping house while their "employers" work.  Often times it's their own families who send them away to help with the work of another family living in the rural setting.  

As these young girls grow, they try to find work. No longer able to sustain a living in the home and often ousted because they are too demanding on the household income.

So they go out onto the street looking for jobs. Work for an uneducated, inexperienced GIRL is not easy to find. She can get manual labour but even then she may be rejected.

One of our girls was. "You're too young" she was told. Maybe by international child labour laws, to work for a internationally seen institution, she was too young. "Go look for work in a bar" this young, naive teenage girl was advised.

Huh. You are too young to chip at cobblestones but you are not too young to work at a bar.

In this particular case, a case not too uncommon, the girl was raped. Introduced to drinking and sex by a "friend" who she had found on the street. This preceded her finding work in a bar where selling alcohol earned far less than selling her body. 

This is actually the typical case study - one that was portrayed last year at one of the Addis Ababa sites of EWAR.  One drama that was giggled at by women who knew the story, oh, too. well.

It was a story of a girl who came from the rural village to find work, discovered she was incompetent at city life then was befriended by someone who took pity on her. She was raped, she was deceived and she went on to find hope at EWAR. It was a story of survival.

When survival outweighs knowledge, one has to succumb to survival.

Though they know better. Though they are worth more, if hope is lost, survival strategies take first priority.

I remember attending my first training with Ellilta Women at Risk. Unbeknownst to me, it was an ICAP Africa training and it was based around trauma. There were some amazing speakers there from the Seattle School and they were preparing the participants on how to deal with trauma in their ministries. I heard stories that would make most horror films I had seen, sound lame.

But they were TRUE stories! How could such evil exist? I thought. And my question was answered over the couple of days I was there.

Evil was sent to destroy what Good had intended for all. It came to destroy beauty. It came to destroy sexual pleasure that displays the glory of the One who created it to be enjoyed.

But I had never anticipated that I would engage with such stories. That the women who stood outside the houses that lined the streets of Zion Church would be carriers and victims of such gross evil. In my total naivety, I never would have imagined that such horrific events would have led such innocent girls down the path of sexual commercialization. Not JUST the selling of their bodies, but the giving away of their souls. For free. At a price that they themselves have paid. Some for years and some since they were just babies.

So, in His intricate design, this Bringer of Hope, placed together the right people and the right community to rescue these girls from their despair.

In Debre Zeit, it happened like this. That this broken mother of five from New Zealand would be flying across the Indian Ocean to join a team she had met thru a post on Facebook, to join an entourage of ten from America to be introduced to an organization called Ellilta Women at Risk. Two years later her and her family were planted in a city where a church who was desperately trying to reach out to the women working in their location were needing some extra support. As she had been introduced to EWAR, she then in turn introduced them. So an alliance was formed against the enemy and the battle begun in Debre Zeit.

The model was applied into the context of this community where women enter into their brothels with nothing and they leave with nothing. So a 24/7 rehabilitation centre was planned and eventually implemented. The team comprised of workers from Addis Ababa EWAR and staff from Zion Church (aka Tsion Mekane Yesus Church).

The "team" also expanded across the globe as people gave to support the cause. Ladies took up responsibility for their Ethiopian sisters and set up fundraising campaigns, from head shaving ideals, to yard sales, formal galas and glass blown necklaces with the word "HOPE" stamped on the front. Their community of support multiplied.

One of our first drop ins with the ladies who are now graduating from our house

On the ground, the EWAR leadership assigned Abrehet (who was originally a part of the staff in Nazaret who I had met in 2009) to oversea our site. She put together plans and proposals and instigated our licence application (and saw it thru up until our latest report.)

We had counselors with years of experience come on a weekly basis to have one on one time in trauma counselling sessions. Other staff came to deliver the 12 step rehabilitation program, health, skills and work training components as well as parenting and basic maths skills.

From the get go we pushed relationship and showed a love that demanded nothing in return. Nigist (Pastors wife from Zion Church and social worker in our Hope House) not only executed this policy but also taught our illiterate girls how to read and write in a short amount of time.

We also added a fitness component at the girls request. My darling husband would leave home at six in the morning to reach the house by 7am to train the girls in resistance exercises and boxing. They. Loved. It.

We ate together, laughed together, cried together and examined ourselves TOGETHER. We were vulnerable together.

If there's one thing I love about what Cherry (aka Serawit Friedmeyer) has taught me and that we have tried to implement in our work, its that we are all equal. We serve each other equally. We admonish each other equally. There is no one who is above anyone in our project site.

 If God has created us all equal, then surely we should act like it.

Here is a clip of the work we have seen Him do over the last seven months. Thank you to all those who have contributed so far! God is so good!

Home is where the HEART is..

I remember the first time I got sick here…

I mean, REALLY head-down-the-toilet-for-two-hours kind of sick.  I was in Nazaret and had just finished my first reunion with the staff there at Women at Risk- a site I had visited two years prior to our return as a family.  I was with Nigist who is now on our staff and who had carried a vision to work with the women on the street of Zion church since her and her husband had planted the church right there smack BANG in the middle of the red light district ten years earlier.

The sickness came on just as we were getting onto the bus in Nazaret for the 45km ride back to Debre Zeit.  It was as if the enemy of the vision was saying…”Let the games begin!”  The enemy of our souls and the souls of the women who were about to be rescued out of HIS clutches put his fists up as if to pick a fight. 

Here the war intensified as we started to make progress towards the vision we both carried.

Just this past week, we met with another NGO who had been given funding to reach the street children and prostituted women of Debre Zeit.  He said to us that what they were asked to do, they couldn’t.  He said “THIS ministry is a CALLING  and it is serious spiritual warfare that takes time to battle.  We don’t have time or resources for that” the director of this mission based NGO concluded.  I couldn’t agree more.  From the GET GO, there has been a war raging that continually we have to guard against and then when we don’t, we have to recover from.  Better be on the “guarding against” side then on the “recovering from” side of the battle- even if it IS “easier to ask for forgiveness then to ask for permission.”

So we are sitting on the bus, buzzing about the meeting we had just had and something in my body told me that it wanted to come out.  We disembark and I find the closest toilet which was in the public bus station and it made it’s presence known by the horrific stench that caused whatever was wanting to come out of my body, to retreat back in.  It held through the next toilet which again begged for a clean and I wasn’t about to clean it.  We have been in the country less than two months and the cultural differences are still being adjusted to.  Clean toilets are still my pet peeve. 

We find a hotel across the road, I’m still holding it in yet the time where this is possible, is running OUT.  So I find a toilet that’s able to capture my stomach’s contents a few times over.  I’m getting put off Mirinda orange with every hurl.  I think about the woman of God who awaits me in the waiting room of the hotel and how great her faith is for healing.  I ask her to pray.  I think about my children and husband at home who await my return and it suddenly dawns on me where HOME is. 

Throughout life, never does “HOME” beckon more than when I am sick or tired.  The call of my pillow and my bed is never LOUDER than when my body calls for it to rest, to recuperate, to heal. 

So here I am, sicker than ever in this new land we have moved to and all the questions of where home is fade away.  Home was calling me and it was calling from Debre Zeit- not Auckland or New Zealand but it called within the confines of Ethiopia. 

This was home.  Home was where my heart was and where my family and I had settled.  This had become our new default when we opened up our search engine and typed in “Home”.  The default was Ethiopia.  Yet our old one still existed in our “History” folder.  Auckland, New Zealand.  This is our other home- the one that holds our heritage, our family- the one that calls when we are sick of our new Home and the things here that frustrate and stir. 

I tell my kids “the bible says not to murmur or complain” this week and they pull me up on my own breaking of this value.  I do it.  These days, far too often.  I repent and move on trying not to do it again.

But on days where we feel ripped off, begged off one too many times, and the electricity doesn’t work for five days, your other home calls all THE MORE LOUDER.  Especially when your eldest son plays his first big rugby game in a huge stadium and his team wins the championship...

And your older sister has just had twin babies and is sending you pics all the time and you realize that this time will pass and they will grow without you’re presence and not only them but the four cousins that have come into the world previously without being introduced to my children over the last three years...it can't pretend that that is easy.

Dallin and Pierce, cousin five and six who have been born while their cousins have been away in Ethiopia!

Sometimes there are days where pain and joy mix as sweetly as peanut butter and jam.  Because the battle here is being won.

In the lives of the women who we work with, battles are being won and the clutch of the enemy is being loosed  Yet on the other hand, the realities of living life as a foreigner in a third world country still exist.  And we asked for this life- I hear the little voice say- and we knew what we were getting ourselves in for…BUT as much as we know the call and obeyed the call, a break from it all and a return to the home that holds our history, continues to INCREASE its volume. 

The battle is being won on the home front too.  This week, we had a cool family time in the midst of the power strike and I tell my kids how when I met their father we were going on a camp and I was “helping” my Aunty and Uncle put together the lists of the teams who would be at the camp.  I sneakily put the new boy’s name (ie Asaua) on the same list as mine.  We end up having to do an item together as a team and we sing this song- a song that at the time of telling the story, totally eluded me- but it’s a song that rings in my heart today. 

The thing is, No matter where home is, if your heart is with Jesus, He is everywhere and we just need to find HIM in the struggle and the pain.  For where He is, there you can be and if you find Him, you find peace and comfort for your soul… And that’s what keeps me going

Here are the words to the song -

I am weak but Thou art strong

Jesus keep me from all wrong

I’ll be satisfied as long

As I walk, let me walk close to Thee

Just a closer walk with Thee

Jesus grant my humble plea

Daily draw me close to Thee

Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

I've been wanting to write this story for SO long...

It’s a story of heart break and betrayal.  A story that bears the scars of an inner wound that stings as if it were freshly made, yet it had sunken so deep; buried under piles of rubble and debris of years gone past.  Rubble now named contempt, shame, dishonesty and denial. 

Who knew that a work to heal a broken heart would take so much longer than a year?  And that the revelation of the damage that was done would be discovered amidst the motion of writing…and then sharing with strangers as if dividing it apart to distribute and expose the secretly written to an open audience.  The exposure resurfaced the wound yet it allowed it to heal a new.  Like it had never been healed before.  Actually, in the resurfacing I discovered it had NEVER been healed before.

“Will you grow in tenderness towards the child that has been contaminated by harm?” Dan asks us. 

A room full of people working with people who have experienced harm.  As children and as adults yet they have never found the healing or the hope.   Yet WE offer them that hope and that healing but we were now being challenged to experience it for ourselves.

We broke up into groups of five and shared our stories out loud.  In an uncomfortable silence we awaited feedback from those around us.  Soft tender hearts were there to bear the pain.

“Redemption happens when you allow people to dwell in your heart and grieve and fight for you.”

And then in their grieving they see a perspective of MY story I never saw before.  Like discovering the key to the treasure box that held my healing.  But the healing still demanded something from me.

Again he challenges…”You have to give up a lot to write your story.  We have to give up our loyalties.  It is true that we have a great loyalty to Jesus UNTIL we are asked to give up other gods.  So where do your loyalties lie?” 

Loyalties and honor.  Both touchy subjects that were covered to bring light to the battle that raged in not only our minds but in our world views.  In my world view.  So slowly my loyalties shifted and the loyalty lay in the healing that needed to be done for me, for my family, for my ladies.  My loyalty lay in the Healer. 

So I clung to the process and endured the pain again of the sacrifice.

In the sacrifice and in the honesty that surpassed the desire to dwell with the wound any longer there was a loneliness that begged for me to search deeper to find where God was in that place of pain.

“In beauty there is brokenness.  All beauty bears brokenness… God intends to use the scars to bring Him glory.”

Last year I wrote a blog about God wanting to heal my broken heart.  It coincided with a tumultuous time for me and my family.  I felt a need to drop down, a picture of a falling flat on my face.  So I did it- literally.  Nothing changed.

As we drew near to the end of the story writing workshop I was reminded of this falling down.   At the beginning Dan challenged us with this question- “Can you enter into the stories of death in your own life?  When our lives are meant to tell the story of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.”

Entering into death is not easy.  It was exemplified in others in my group who had the courage to do so in the company of tender hearts.  Yet I did it in the quietness of my room- I finally found the falling down, the dying.. and as it caused the tears to flow again, I opened my little pink Bible and found solace in the words from the pages that have held my heart afloat for so many years. 

“For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the Spirit of Adoption, whereby we cry ABBA Father.  The Spirit itself bears witness with our Spirit that WE are the children of God.  And if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer WITH Him that we may also be glorified TOGETHER.” Rom 8:15-17 (emphasis added)

So I am comforted by the fact that I am an ADOPTED child who has been chosen by LOVE (which perfectly casts out all the fear that had taken up reign in my heart) and that in turn allowed me to not suffer alone but suffer WITH Christ, so that we may be resurrected in glory together. 

A story that waited to be written for so long to bring healing to my heart was finally inked onto paper as an expression of the pain.  A pain that I had tried to physically express as a teenager by taking a craft knife to my hands; a pain I had tried to spiritually express as I found Forgiveness that caused me to “forgive” and forget, pressing on but not entering in; a pain that I had let control my emotions more than I had realized as my trying to keep my distance from it turned my face to re-enact it over and over again. 

Yet it was a pain that desired to be entered into like a tomb with a stone that had rolled away, calling out to reveal the light of the resurrection that could only happen upon the entering in- the falling down into the grave that needed to happen for real resurrection and ascension to occur.   And in that ascended place, I am able to reach down again and help to pull those who are still fighting the death. 

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,- Jesus Christ (Luke 4:18)

I used to hate Valentines Day, but now I love it and this is why...

Habakkuk 1:15

Look at the nations and watch-- and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.

I am sitting there, in my early twenties with a baby at home who challenged me every day to be a better person and a husband at work who worked hard to make ends meet for our family and yet I had a dream in my heart that had been silenced by the circumstances around me and the doubt that took residence right on top of my dream.  Yet this widowed lady from America who had come to visit our church passed me a piece of paper with this verse on it FOR me. As if it were a love letter from God.  A message sent from El Roi…the God who sees me.

That dream was to do something significant in Ethiopia- to feed hundreds of starving people, to care for orphaned children, to help in some way to end the extreme poverty that existed in that land.  This piece of paper in my hand made me wonder if that dream would, COULD possibly…ONE DAY come true.

Fast forward 15 or so years.  Here I am, sitting in this house we have just secured a two year rental agreement for.  We (our two friends from Women at Risk and our two potential staff from Zion Church) are strategizing how we can shift six specific women who had made it through the months of trials we had put them through and STILL decided they truly wanted to start a new life.  How we could allow them to move off the street and out of their work as prostitutes and into this home within a five day span.  This beautiful peaceful home is sitting there empty yet full of so much potential- like the women we will work with.  It’s surrounded by rooms that will house the six women who are desperately desiring to get OUT! 

We draw up a list of things we need.  We have applied for funding from three groups for set up costs and running costs yet none are certain and we don’t know if or when any money will come.  So Cherry (co-founder and Director of Women at Risk) halts the meeting and starts to pray.  We ask God to give us a strategy so these women don’t have to wait any longer.  We start to tally up what we ourselves can contribute; looked at our current available resources and we decide that it’s going to happen whether the funding comes in or not.

Excitement fills the once empty house and my friend Abrehet does her happy dance in joyous elation on the empty lounge room floor.  I had met her in 2009 in Nazaret at the Women at Risk site where she was the Co-ordinator of this one of three Women at Risk sites.  She was young and passionate about the work she was doing and she totally won me over.  We had kept in contact over the years and never would have thought that we would be working together to bring about this new project site. The arrival of the women and the beginning of this new adventure felt so close we could almost touch it.

We hear from one potential funder and we sit in the Canadian Ambassador’s Residence in front of a myriad of represented nations.  Cherry tells the story of Women at Risk and everyone in the room is captivated.   The plight of these women echo through the stories and the strategies that this organization now has in place all lined up with the issues that surface because of their histories. 

Serawit (Cherry) Friedmeyer and I in the Canadian Ambassadors Residence

So we await for funding and in faith we plan for the women to come and join us in the house the day we call Valentines.  The day of Love.  How appropriate I think.  I remember the week before we left New Zealand, I stood on the edge of Lake Rotorua.  I was talking to the One who sent us here.  He reminded me of the love story that took one man (Tutanekai) many years before across the lake and cultural boundaries to meet his beloved (Hinemoa) on the island that sat within.  He did this for love.  A voice whispered in the depths of my soul that THIS is what our journey across this great ocean was about.  That He was calling us out over THIS ocean as messengers of His Love. 

His GREAT love that changed my life. 

That rescued me. 

That continues to do so.

And I hear the whispers of the haters.  The enemies.  THE enemy...The one they call the accuser of the brethren.

“Why is that Michelle and Asaua trying to go all the way over there for? I know what THEY’RE like.  They can’t be useful.  They need to help themselves first.  Their own family first. Their own community first.  Their OWN.”

Well somehow we go and we believe and then it comes to Valentines Day 2014 and five ladies drive through the gate of their new home into the shade of the Hibiscus trees.  They are all dressed up with their hair done.  One runs late because she is in the hair salon.  They look like they are going on a date.  “A Valentine’s Date with Jesus.” I say to another.  They look beautiful.  Like they just found Freedom. 

And it’s honeymoon stages and there’s definitely some scepticism and doubts going on.  But within a couple of hours of eating together and coming to an agreement of boundaries about this new space, facilitated by the amazing team from Women at Risk, the hope starts to form.  Repeatedly we hear, “I had no hope.” 

Ellilita Women at Risk is their full name.  Ellilita is the name given to the noise that the women make when they cry out in praise.  Their Vision statement is simply, “Renewing Hope”.  I paint it on the wall so they know. 

We have a vision at the church too.  It includes meeting the needs of the community.  So we collide as, what we call, a Love Triangle.  I am one edge of that triangle to join the two together.  So we begin this new journey, a partnership between E-WAR and Zion (Tsion) Church that will run for the next 18 months.  One man says “a drop in the ocean” BUT drops make ripples and who knows where those ripples will end.  Hopefully this splash will ripple for years to come.

Yes, me.  And yet it’s not me.  People SHOULD look at this and say…that CAN’T be Michelle...or that CAN’T be Asaua.  It MUST be God.  And yes IT IS.  And I remember the verse that starts this blog and I think…If someone would have told me, I would not have believed that I could have been a part of this.  But I am so happy that we can get to be a part of what God was already doing here and help bring together the people from both corners to serve these women and their children. 

Me and my beautiful friend Abrehet at Ellilta Products

Selam, one of the girls in the group.  A girl who’s been through the wars and out again..who has a vision to reunite with her family she was snatched away from.  She grabs my hand and takes me to her new room to show me her new bed and how she has made it all pretty.   A bed that demands nothing from her but rest.  A bed that has no history but is waiting for hers to be written.  A story of Love.  This is what Love is all about.  So now Valentines Love has taken on a whole new meaning. I love it.

Trafficked

I remember watching the movie Taken for the first time and feeling absolutely HORRIFIED that these events not only HAPPEN but they are a common occurrence in our world TODAY!  Women all around the world are being tricked and trapped in situations where they at the mercy of EVIL on epidemic scales. 

:There are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in human history, with an estimated 27 million in bondage across the globe. Men, women, and children are being exploited for manual and sexual labor against their will.

In response I googled, searched, listened, SPENT hours into the early morning researching what was happening around the world and what people were doing about it.  From the sex tourism industry that is so rife in my grandparents home country of Greece, to South East Asia, Eastern Europe…monstrosities were occurring to innocent women ALL OVER THE WORLD!!

What were people doing about it?

I found a couple of organizations- one being the A21 Campaign and heard an interview with it’s founder- Australian Greek, Hillsong Church minister, Christine Caine.  She shared her journey of discovering what was happening while on a visit to Greece and how SHE decided to respond to it.  I heard her share of a story where she rescued a woman and told her she had come because she cared about her- this complete stranger!! And the woman replied with “if you cared so much, what took you so long?!”

 This information falls on my ears while my hands were in a sink of warm bubbly water, 

washing my designer dishes 

in my beautiful home

 in New Zealand.  

Tears started running down my face as the urgency of the calling hit me and I remembered the stories I had just recently heard while I was in Ethiopia at Women at Risk.

But the stories I had heard didn’t seem so brutal.  The stories I heard were covered in cultural nuances and traditionally accepted practices.  

"Bride snatching...it's common here in some parts of Ethiopia with twelve year old girls especially."

Yet their lives seemed just as trapped.  Maybe God would use me again to find and help women like this one day I thought- MAYBE there is a woman just WAITING for someone to rescue her.  One who might even say to me “What took YOU so long?”

I sat next to a trafficker once.  He made my skin crawl as he arrogantly admitted he was an “employment agent” here to help women attain jobs in Saudi Arabia- his home country.  These were the women who lined the streets outside the immigration office that we sat in and filled it with their young, rural, innocent lives.  4000 a day, they were in number.  Believing for a better life.  Believing that THEY would be the ones to help their families from afar.  Yet this man who was helping them to get there, was dreaming of coming to New Zealand to study English.  He had a translator with him from Somalia who filled the gaps for me during our short conversation in the immigration line.  Somewhere in that conversation he had the balls to ask me if I wanted a job too! His motives were purely selfish and his heart deathly cold.  I guess that's the way it needs to be when you are sacrificing human lives.

Recently I came across a study of human trafficking in Ethiopia.  While I knew that we wanted to help these women out of prostitution, I had read an article someone had posted once about the difference between prostitution and trafficking.  Prostitution was definitely where the heart of our ministry was.  The author talked about how everyone is trying to jump on the Trafficking "band wagon" to get more sympathy, more attention, perhaps even more FUNDING! 

Trafficking is not a band wagon I ever wanted to jump on.  Why would I want the situations of these women to be any worse than they already were.  But after learning more about Trafficking, what it means and how it is disguised, I realized that this IS indeed the work we are getting ourselves into. 

This, not because these women are being locked up and raped as we have seen in movies such as Taken.  But because the definition of Trafficking is:

Human trafficking is the movement of someone by deception or coercion by another person for the purposes of exploitation such as forced prostitution, forced labour or other forms of slavery. It is an organized criminal activity in which human beings are treated as possessions to be controlled and exploited.

Domestic trafficking in Ethiopia, in my opinion, is endemic.  

"A large number of women and children suffer from different types of inhuman abuses and exploitation as a result of trafficking within Ethiopia. Existing studies indicate that trafficking in women and children from rural areas to urban areas is a prevalent and steadily increasing practice in the country." Reads this study on domestic trafficking."

Trafficking here extends far into the fabric of society.  It rips up the potential of the women and children it targets and throws them into the deep pit of hopelessness.  There is a heart cry from the corners of eternity that call US to do something about it. It's found in Isaiah 58:6-7 and goes like this...

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke,

to SET THE OPPRESSED FREE

and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked, to clothe them,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?"

It's talking about fasting...and maybe that fast is from food...or maybe it's from the comfortable life you live, the safety of your own country...to extend into the dark corners of the world to bring rescue.

Someone has to....

The Gift Which Keeps On Giving

.

They’re the BEST kind.  

The gifts that go beyond the expiry date. 

The kind that cyclically provide. 

The ones that you remember far beyond the initial receipt.  

Those that, in some way, continue to show up just when you need them.

We have spent two Christmas seasons here in Ethiopia now and have come to terms with the fact that here the “season” as we know it, doesn’t exist.  On December 25, life goes on here.  We have to TELL OR REMIND people that it’s our Christmas time and are often mocked for that fact that our Christmas season lasts a couple of months, where here it lasts a couple of days. 

While part of me misses the Christmas season and festivities, I am already readying myself for what I am about to be smashed in the face with when I return to the Western world- Fanatical consumerism!  Like extreme terrorist attacks, insurgences take place on our bank accounts where everything explodes and one day later, the mess has to be cleaned up.  Then for months, the debts have to be paid.

Am I wrong? I don’t know.  Maybe things have changed in the last two years.  I remember consumer spending around Christmas had slowed during the financial crisis.  Maybe it’s remained the same. *sigh

Anyway what this whole experience has taught us is that there are things and days and gifts in life that matter and some that, well, don’t matter so much.  There used to be an advertising campaign by the Warehouse in New Zealand (a big red warehouse that is equivalent to maybe Kmart or Target for all those non-Kiwi’s reading my blog.)  It would always say, “The greatest thing you can give your children is TIME!”  This is SO true. 

Time is one love language that almost encapsulates all others. It takes time to deliver LOVE.

Last Christmas we were given a gift that helped us to give this gift of time to our children.  Actually, the gift was financial and it was at our discretion about how we would spend it.  It was right around the amount we needed to get an annuu membership at a local resort.  One of the nicest in Ethiopia and it resides in our town.  It included a free nights accommodation for our whole family in the Presidential suite, free access to the resort which you normally have to pay a lot for, then free access to the swimming pool, kayaks, WiFi, gym, Pool table and discounts on the Spa Treatments. 

Asaua and Matthias at Kuriftu for Matthias' birthday breakfast

All year round we have had the enjoyment of this resort.  It was our get away when we needed our space.  It was our good internet access portal that we could use.  It is our family retreat where TIME with the kids is inevitable.  It was our place to hang out and have cheap buffet breakfasts. And of late, our destination for Saturday morning walks where we could get our weekly hot shower. This is our gift that keeps on giving.  I am thankful every time I walk into that place for my Aunty and Uncle who gave us money last Christmas for this pleasure.  We have used it beyond the price that was paid.

Again this Christmas, some other people are wanting to give us a gift.  It is a gift they are willing to pay a price for- THEY want to give us $5000 but they are rallying around their friends and family to help them put together this money.  Their names are Aysha and Emilou and the gift they give is one of a kind.  Maybe in the future more appeals like this will happen but this is the first of it’s kind on such a large scale.  And the price that they are willing to pay goes far beyond what we could have ever imagined.  Both of these beautiful girls are willing to sacrifice their HAIR!! 

Long, beautiful, wavy, shiny hair.  The kind that won’t happen over night, but WILL happen. 

And as they give their hair, people are giving their money.

And as people give their money, we can give children scholarships and women rehabilitation from commercial street work.

And as more women are rehabilitated from prostitution, more mothers become available to look after orphaned children.

And as more orphaned children are cared for in Ethiopia and raised as leaders, the stronger society becomes for the next generation.

The stronger society becomes if the 3 million orphans are looked after and raised in healthy environments (not that we aim to target them all…but let’s just SAY!), the less dependency will exist, the crime rates will go down, there will be less slavery that will damage peoples’ potential, less corruption will exist in government, the more the country will thrive!!  Huh, and the gift just keeps on giving!!

But before you jump to conclusions and assume that I am crazy for even BEING so AMBITIOUS!  I have a little piece of information I want to share.

The thing is that if all of this were a result of giving, then actually the greatest recipients are not the communities or societies out there, but the communities of givers themselves.  And if You respond, then this is the proof of the benefits that belong to YOU.

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Jesus Christ

I read this the other day in a NZ NEXT magazine published last year. 

"Giving and receiving is the flow of life.  The brain registers the act of giving as a primary human function and you will thrive when you give!! [Emphasis added]

A medical research centre in the US set up support groups for people suffering from MS (Multiple Sclerosis).  The group leaders were people who had suffered MS for many years.  While there was marked improvement in those attending the group to be supported, the most remarkable improvement was in that of the person helping the group.  As a result of these findings, further studies were conducted to measure brain activity while engaging in giving and philanthropic acts.  The results again were two-fold.  Well-known feel-good chemicals were released in the brains as a result of giving.  Furthermore the brain area activated was that which satisfies our basic needs; food, ses and emotional security.  So it would be fair to say the act of giving is as fundamental as our need for food, water and procreation."

SO

It is fair to say, that you NEED to GIVE.  And Yes, I know that everyone has someone to give to and there are always people in need needing your money- a few million in the Phillipines right now.  But you can never give to much. 

So what I suggest you do is donate now. 

Here are the bank details for the Bald and Beautiful campaign.  They have nine days left.  Nine is my favourite number.  Will you just give even $9, or $99 or even $999 :)

38 9003 0792278 01
Kiwibank