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)

Imagine...

I was born into a government that two years ago was rated least corrupt in the whole world.  The benefits of that system were that all of the money that taxpayers paid, were by in large used to benefit its people. Not just the ones who paid their taxes but also those who couldn't afford to. Sometimes by no fault of their own. Other times because of bad decisions they had made. Even the criminals who live in multi million dollar facilities. Even those who chose bad lifestyles that forced them into hospital. Even teenage mothers who found themselves with a baby to feed and no income to feed it. A majority of their services were free thanks to taxpayers money and a majority of it was unearned. Yet, this was a socially acceptable way to distribute money and it hasn't yet hindered the economic growth of our country.

I was born again into a new government system when I accepted Jesus as my personal Saviour in 1997. I became a Citizen of Heaven. Jesus became my new ruling agency. The Lord of my life. I voted him in. He won in the election rally that was going on in my heart. I became a part of His party, His Kingdom, His Church which the Bible says is His bride. I represent Him.

In Isaiah 9:6 there is a prophecy about the coming Messiah - Jesus. Within that verse it says that the "government shall be upon His shoulder". I found this commentary about that statement in Gills exposition of the Bible. It says

And the government shall be upon his shoulder: not only of the world in general, but of the church in particular; this child is born to royal dignity; he is King of saints; his government consists in ruling in the hearts of his people, in enacting laws for them, and causing them to submit unto them, in subduing their enemies, in protecting them, their persons and properties, rights and liberties, and in supplying them with everything necessary; (emphasis added) and this government is delegated to him from his Father, is devolved upon him by him, is not of this world, but is spiritual; it is righteously administered, is peaceable, and will continue for ever: and its being said to be "upon his shoulder" is an allusion to magistrates having a key or rod laid on their shoulders, as ensigns of their office, or carried by their officers for them, see Isaiah 9:4 and it shows that it was laid upon him, or enjoined him by his father, though not against his will; and it denotes a weight of honour and care bore by him, whose shoulders are fit for the same, and equal to it; and that he is the prop and support of his church and people, who are safe under his government and protection:

Two and a half years ago, we chose to come to Ethiopia and live under the government system that exists here. We are subject to its every mandate. We cannot live here unless we follow its rule. But the support it offers to its people; tax payers and non tax payers alike is so highly contrasted to that of our country of citizenship. Both in the natural and the spiritual.

We see the effects of it every day. I felt the effects of it yesterday as I woke up to an email from a poverty alleviation group I am on the email list for. Its asking me to sign a petition to help move governments to action so that more people in developing countries (like Ethiopia) can be educated.

I reply irritated. I know FAR too many people who are still not educated. I work with five.. I am asked constantly to work with more. To help more receive the "free" education the government here has promised. Yet they still charge for. More even than what we pay in New Zealand.

And then I start to talk with my King and I start to imagine. And I post this status on Facebook:

Imagine if we viewed the Kingdom as a GOVERNMENT that sat upon the Shoulders of its King. The heirs to the throne were set a part for the work of the Kingdom. They were established to identify and help meet the needs of its people. That like a democratic System it gathered the voice of its people and then used its resources to fight the works of its opposition to gain a higher party delegate. But not to benefit the party, but to ACTUALLY benefit the people. With all its resources gathered, none of its members NOR even the members of the opposition party should live in poverty because they understood the meaning of relationship and giving because these are the foundational principles of the Kingdom it serves.

See, more than the New Zealand government I was born into or the Ethiopian government I am subject to, I am a child of the King and HE has MANY children the world wide. The King of that government, as above, desires to supply the needs for all of them.  Imagine if He was able to disperse those funds so that this desire could be accomplished.  But He is not a forceful communist King.  He is a Loving Father who has supplied a book that is meant to bring “instruction, correction and edification.” 

He has instructed US, His children, Heirs to His throne, Princes and Princesses, Kindgom citizens to GIVE to the poor. Not just to the church bucket that passes around the pews of the church where everyone can see and tax breaks are given, but also to those who will not give ANYTHING  in return.

While I did some time in Bible College- two Bible Colleges. Both experiences opened me up to two astounding facts I HAD never heard before and have never heard since.

Early historical writings, around the time of the early church by a non-Christian writer, noted of the "church" at the time that they were a people who LOVED eachother and looked out for each other so much that they SOLD even their own things so they could distribute their wealth equally.

Hello?! This is not some radical martyr pseudo facade these people were pursuing. They were actually being obedient to their God and displaying Him in all their generosity! They brought Him Glory with their sacrificial acts.

The next Bible College I attended made me aware that 70% of all instructions to give in the Bible were referring to giving to the Jerusalem offering which was for the POOR.

Not to build nice buildings to attract some more people to be comfortable. Or to put out the newest sound system. The offering was for those in need. To share the gospel of Love thru actions of Love to represent the Father of Love. The governor General.

I am currently reading a book called Radical- Taking back your faith from the American Dream  by David Platt.  I feel like we are kindred spirits.  He writes in there:

The price of our non-discipleship is high for those without Christ.  It is high also for the poor of this world.  Consider the cost when Christians ignore Jesus’ commands to sell their possessions and give to the poor and instead choose to spend their resources on better comforts, larger homes, nicer cars and more stuff.  Consider the cost when these Christians gather in churches and choose to spend millions of dollars on nice buildings to drive up to, cushioned chairs to sit in, and endless programs to enjoy for themselves.  Consider the cost for the starving multitudes who sit outside the gate of contemporary Christian affluence. 

Oh imagine if we applied that selflessness, that Kingdom perspective to the global village that we live in. I believe the King wants that. I really, really do.  Imagine how much glory His Kingdom would receive when the representatives of Him actually followed through on living out His commands to GIVE to the poor. 

It sounds all very RADICAL and over the top.  I totally recommend this book and selling some of your belongings to help out your poor brothers and sisters who may not be sitting outside your church gates, but are sitting somewhere crying out to God for Him to help them.  Maybe, just MAYBE HE wants to use YOU to be a conduit of His blessing.  Maybe in giving you might find that YOU indeed end up being more blessed than those who receive.  There is a chemical reaction, a release of hormonal goodness that makes us feel Happy when we give, when we do GOOD.  My second grade teacher in Australia called them Warm Fuzzies.  My fifth form teacher in New Zealand may have called it endorphins.  But it comes as a result of selfless giving that is often hard for our minds to comprehend or partner up with the act of giving away material possessions that we hold so dear.

Oh Imagine how much more we could do.  Imagine.

The girls

I think about how humble these girls are and how hard it must have been for them to leave the street.  In doing so they acknowledge their inability to change by themselves.  They acknowledge their need for help.  They walk out in the face of the their peers who also had the same opportunity to leave but chose against it.  Admitting in the midst of all of their community that they are helpless against the evil that so easily besets them.  Humility.  That’s what they displayed.  Yet some would call it weakness.

As they entered the house they again faced their weakness.  Their inability to write or read.  Their lack of any education which sets them up for dependency at it’s fullest. 

But God “gives grace to the humble and resists the proud.”

When you call on me, you will find me when  you seek me with your whole heart.

For the last week I have seen them change.  Just in ten days.  From shying away and struggling against the desire to go BACK to now being content with where they are and excited about staying; about making this their home and about the future that awaits them back outside the walls around them.

And I remember how I am no different than them.  I too have sold myself short.  Not for money but for acceptance, for love, for companionship.

“Working with these girls will reflect things back to you about yourself so you have to be prepared for that”.  Wise words from Women at Risk counsellor, Wondesson.  That, without a doubt, is true.  Even from the first encounter I had with them in Nazaret, this truth reigned in my heart.  I really am no better than them.  I felt their shame, I know their regret.

We were given questions to talk through this first couple of weeks, questions to really get to know each 

other.  I learn how to say that- Iney kowukachuwegn… If you really knew me, you would know that my favourite colour is…etc.  But as the week progressed, the questions got deeper. 

My biggest dream is, my closest person is, my relationship with my family is, my most funniest moment was…

My greatest regret is..

Eek. 

I don’t even want to share mine yet they are being challenged to share theirs. 

I ask.  This one is hard isn’t it?

Right now I am planning a trip to the States with the Women at Risk staff for the ICAP (International Christian alliance on Prostitution)  Conference.  Preceding this, Dan Allaman, author of The Wounded Heart and member of ICAP is holding a workshop called “Your story becomes my story”.  It will help us who work with these women who have experienced great trauma to first deal with our own.

This past week we were sent our story writing assignment to do before we enter the preconference.  I cringe at the thought of bringing up the past.  A past that as I grew older I became to realize that it wasn’t all that bad.  But as my mum reminded me, in the eyes of a child, it was bad. 

I am sure, as are the facilitators, that this exercise will allow some past shames to resurface, some deeply hidden wounds will sting again and my fear of sharing them openly will be challenged. 

Yet these girls have stepped up to this challenge that soon I will face.  They will find healing in the midst of their trauma as they do so because they have found humility.  And they have hit rock bottom so they can only look up.

We on the other hand want to look like we have it all together, that we are completely restored yet our inner child needs tending to, our emotional outbursts reflect our wounded soul and our pride has orchestrated this facade that covers all our pain to all those who see only on the outside.

“But God looks on the heart.”

And He cares about the heart because out of IT flow the issues of life. 

Matthew 11:29

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. -Jesus

I love how when we humble ourselves, WE are the winners!! WE get grace.  WE get rest for our souls.  WE are finally able to overcome the stumbling blocks that pride puts up to stunt our growth, stunt our freedom.  Humility results in Rest for your souls.  

I am thankful for all the girls are teaching me and the humbling journey we are on together.

The House that Hope Built...

For six years it lay there empty, just waiting in HOPE for the right tenants to come along.  Meanwhile the Hibiscus blossomed heavenward and the flax trees grew; arching over the entrance like a bridal party were about to walk through or a Messiah was about to proceed through on a donkey.  The garden lay empty and the rooms lay bare all creating an atmosphere to be filled an enjoyed, loved and ploughed. 

“It’s PERFECT for your project” says the echoing chorus.  It is.  It is now working out the potential it held for so long.  With seeds that have been planted in the garden, children running around the space that surrounds the house that is now filled with furniture and laughter and love. It's been almost four weeks now. 

My brother in law once shared with me an example of two different styles of leadership.  It’s an example I have shared a few times here in Ethiopia because it’s one that’s relative (aka culturally contextual) to the agricultural society that exists here.  It compares leadership to shepherding a flock of sheep.  It can take on two strategies…

The first strategy is to keep the sheep locked in.  Build a large fence around, identifying boundaries and establishing “No-Go zones.”  Here the shepherd has safe guardianship over the flock and knows they will not be able to break away!  It’s likened to a leadership style based on lording, rules and control which lacks relationship and love.

The second strategy is to place all the sheep on a piece of land with no fence.  Instead, in the middle of the field, place a large trough of water, maybe even some food- where the sheep are drawn to quench their thirst and satisfy their hunger.  This in no way guarantees the shepherd dominion of their sheep but rather entices the sheep back to the fold through the needs that are being met there.  This is likened to leadership styles that are based on relationship and grace, trust and mutual understanding.  It’s hope and love that draws them there. 

I thought of this example yesterday as two of the girls went on their first visit back to their bar.  It was in the middle of a Sunday afternoon and we happened to be walking past to go to church.  On our way we were stopped by the two young ladies.  Now looking so much different to their once-were-peers.  They, smiling from ear to ear, grab me to come and meet their old boss.  She is also joining in their happiness and says to me that she is happy.  Happy for the three girls she let go out of her bar even at the expense of her income.  I wish her God’s blessings as she released girls into our care who are now such a special part of our lives.

Even though there are self-established boundaries for the girls, there is also freedom.  Though there are no chains on the gates or security bars on their doors, they still choose to stay.  They choose to come back.  THIS is the house that Hope built.

In faith we started and in line with what He has promised, God has met us at our faith.  He has provided furniture and food and resources and house rent, a big bag of meat that unexpectedly turned up at the house, seeds for the garden and instructors to teach us how to sow it…  Even in the last month, God has provided for my daughters and I to go to the States in May.  And I am overwhelmed by this GoD we serve and His Love for US And I return again to His feet.

My daughters sang this song recently at our English service:

I want to sit at your feet, drink from the cup in your hands, lay back against you and breathe, feel your heartbeat.  This love is so deep, its more than I can stand, I melt in your peace, it’s overwhelming…*Kari Jobe

Today one of the girls, now twenty five, went to visit with her ten year old daughter in Addis Ababa.  Her daughter called her because she was wanting help.  This particular lady lived in a rural area and after her father died was married off by her mother when she was eleven years old.  Never went to school.  Fell pregnant at fourteen at which point her husband left her to remarry.  Unable to support her baby, at four years old, she eventually gave her daughter back to her ex-husband and she went to work as a maid.  She started to work in a factory, but while she was working there her friend came to work in Addis and told her its better salary in Debre Zeit at 600 birr a month.  She came to work here in DZ and then found out that the work she was told about was in a bar. (Familiar story).  After two weeks of working, she found no hope so she started working in the back with the men.  .

Robbed of the potential she so obviously holds, she now hungers to read for this very simple reason…so she can read the Word of God.  His Love letter to her. And she gets to do it all in the house that HOPE built. 

So we continue to journey together.  We continue to write our story... 

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.

Ready or not, here we come!!

“Am I ready to go back to cold water and melamine plates?”  I think as I soak my hands in hot soapy water.  Something that, five weeks ago seemed strange yet now is becoming all too familiar again.  Familiar and comfortable.  Like hot showers and driving cars on organized streets.  Family time and swims in beaches.  Shopping malls and soy chai lattes.  All the things I have missed and have capitalized on during our five week time away. 

But that time has come to an end.  And I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go back.  Reports come in from my wonderful husband who has kept the fort for us in Ethiopia with our two daughters.  Reports of water shortages leaving them chasing water from neighbouring communities.  Four day power cuts that leave meat unfrozen and cause fires to ignite to cook it. 

Five weeks ago we entered into a Christmas season that didn’t exist in our small city in Ethiopia.  No Christmas carols as you walk through the malls.   No commercials advertising Christmas sales on TV.  Not a whisper of Santa Claus or his reindeer.  Just the beginning of the Advent fast which is observed by the majority Orthodox population in Ethiopia.

Just as we entered into that season, we re-entered into many cultural norms that are “Kiwi”, many we had forgotten about.  Questions flooded the lips of my sons as they tried to make sense of it and reconnect with their homeland.  Some which took me by surprise as it all was so familiar to me after living here for 33 years before we left.  They only six and eight years, had many experiences they needed to recollect conscientiously. 

I guess the most frustrating thing about carrying a vision into a country where aloofness causes apathy, is the misunderstanding that inevitably results.  I still fly the flag that “You don’t know, until you go.”  Yet I sat with people who had been to Russia, to Thailand and to Ghana and heard stories that sounded all too familiar.  But to live long term, breathe and become accustomed to breathing the stench that surrounds the poverty that invades areas of Ethiopia, demands another experience.  And it for us, demands a lot of energy and expectations.

So in thinking about the demands I had to go back to.  The cold water showers and the inability to jump in a car and drive to my desired destinations (as I had been over the last five weeks) I had to ask myself “Am I ready?”

Though I love Ethiopia and the people who abide therein.

Though I love the food, the culture, the experiences that we have shared as a family.

I lacked faith in MY ability to have the strength and capacity to do it again and sustain the call long term like we had always planned we would.

I watched my boys having fun with their cousins numerous times in the pool, in the beach and even in the lake which I used to swim while they were in utero. 

I walked beautiful forests and sat in beautiful homes where all the luxuries of life were available to me.

I got to be a part of three milestones in our families, the announcements of two pregnancies in our family and the long awaited wedding of my baby sister who I love so dearly. 

I worshipped freely to the God whom I adore in the language I knew most and shared my heart with the people I had worshipped with for so many years before.

There is an ease about the life we lived, the life that we forsook to go beyond the shores of the Pacific Ocean to embark on the landlocked country that stole our hearts. 

As we spent New Years Day at the local swimming pools, watching the kids swim and eat in the company of their cousins and Nana, this doubt filled my mind.  Scrolling through my Facebook feed to dull out the sounds of doubt and I come across this video.  It’s our friends we have met through the Homeschool program who we joining forces with to bring solutions to the women in our program.  Their hearts beat in time with ours it seems.

I watch and tears start welling up in my eyes and my heart melts again. 

THIS is what keeps us there and draws us back. 

It’s a CALL that touches part of our soul like nothing else can.  It’s a heart cry of a people that God has called us to respond to ON HIS BEHALF because He uses PEOPLE. 

Even Broken People like me

Even Doubters and the hesitant.

He uses our messes for His ministry.

He uses our willingness and obedience.

He calls us back to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. 

So I sit on this big Emirates A380 double decker, carrying the memories we have created of late, the reconnections with supporters and the promises of more, I open up my Bible and read this from John 6:27-29

Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.  For on Him God has placed his seal of approval. 

Then he asked him, “What must we do to do the work God requires?”

Jesus answered “The work of God is this: to believe in the One whom He has sent.”

It’s a timely reminder of the life we have committed to in this season.  It’s not one of building wealth but it’s a life of faith.  If that’s okay with the God we serve, that’s okay with us.

And so we re-enter back in! 

Thanks again in advance for your prayers and support xo

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....