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.
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