the end? [and pics]

find the one who doesn't have a passport...

Easter

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have giving you living water…Everyone who drinks this water will become thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them, will never thirst.  Indeed whoever drinks the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” - Jesus

Because we don’t live here, we will leave feeling Ethiopia is an enchanting place (which it is was to us), and that the people seemed somewhat more beautiful and more loving than the likes of us, and that life here was somehow more “real,” if only because it was so different and jarring and it woke us up.  We are sad to go, but also, longing for home.

As it is known we are leaving, the requests are now flooding in – for eyeglasses, for medicines, for everything that is missing in their lives. 

“Please I am poor, I have nothing, please give me some money.”

“Please give me your shoes.”

Please, may I have your cell phone?”

“May I have your clothes?”

“Give me your laptop.”

“My wife has died, and I have four young children, can you pay for their education?”

“My business failed, I am a night guard here.  I get paid 600 Birr a month ($36) – I do not have enough to send money back home to feed my children.  Will you give me money?”

Many bring small gifts (costly to them) perhaps with the hope it will anchor their requests in our hearts.  We’ve received baskets, small toys, leather crafts, bouquets of plaster flowers, paintings, beaded jewelry, wood carvings, coffee, tea, bread, and long hand written letters proclaiming friendship, fidelity and great personal needs.  You can’t help but admire their courage in overcoming their pride to put their hand out; you can tell it pains them as much as it would you. 

Yesterday was Good Friday, the city streets were flooded with sheep coming in from the country side for the religious feasts marking Easter and the end of the Lenten fast. We have seen so many chickens slaughtered on the sidewalks that it doesn’t get our attention any more.  Good Friday - the day marking the final price of our pride, self centeredness and relentless drive for self determination.   Everyone is reflecting on this story about the best man who ever lived - the sweetest, kindest man who could restore the soul, unfurl twisted limbs, and wake the dead – this man walked willingly into our hornets’ nest of greed, jealously, hatred and ambition, kicked it and then lost his life.  To those who witnessed it, it was the most senseless and tragic event they had ever seen.  What possibly could be the point?   

In a few days we will throw our remaining belongings into our remaining bags and head to the airport for our journey home.  Those of you who are older know this feeling well - when you are packing up after a family vacation at the beach or in the mountains – checking around for the odd sock, personal item, puzzle piece, charger, book; walking through the hallways and rooms of what seems just a few short moments ago were all part of an unfamiliar and strange place.  Now it is a place of memories.  You have to gut and clean what has become a home – a sanctioned place where you were together as a family - playing games, getting sun burns, having meals together, crying, laughing -  all without the usual crush of life’s responsibilities.  Being here was not exactly a vacation, but it was a reprieve from our “normal” life and we got to hold everything and everyone a little bit differently, and a little closer.

It is sad, but you busy yourself with travel preparations and try to keep at bay that dull ache of loss – another great time over, another season passed, another teaspoon of sand through the hour glass.  You push away the notion that someday, you will really be gone; someone will be traipsing through what was your home; disassembling it for what is worth taking somewhere else. 

While you are walking back and forth collecting and packing, the children also busy themselves – not with anything helpful, mind you, but they also distract themselves from the “elephant in the room.”  Maybe they have displaced this blueness with the excitement of seeing their friends again and being home with their more familiar and loved things.  Maybe they are scheming how they will position this trip in the minds of their friends for some social lift, or maybe they are beginning to wonder what they will do with their own lives.  Certainly, Lily and Sophie are excited for college – but even without that big milestone, the minds of the young are lighter; it’s easier for them to displace current sorrow with some future hope.  They haven’t yet learned the tide always goes out; no matter where you sit you can’t always keep the sea comfortably between your toes.  Lily and Sophie don’t have that much mileage to look back on; Benjamin and Eliza even less so.  Wasn’t it just a few weeks (years?) ago they were toddlers? Where does the time go?

Try as you might to stem the sense of loss – buying souvenirs, making plans to cross paths with those you have met, and insisting that coming home for Thanksgiving and Christmas is mandatory – it means nothing to the mortal facing the abysmal maw of eternity.  You are an appetite and a thirst that won’t end until you do.  You cannot pass any place more than once, and that everything truly dear, even profoundly meaningful, slips away.  You’d think God would at least let you preserve something like “gratitude,” but even that will get whittled away when we return – even if we stayed here longer, our expectations would be reset and we would become unsatisfied.  We are constantly separated from the things we love; constantly exiled; constantly reminded we are “passing;” hopefully, just passing through.

Every bit of this entry was already addressed by Jesus – how well he knows us - how well he loves us - how well his teachings guide us.  It is uncanny, really – he knew all about this.  With matters of the human heart, this century is no different than any other.  We are pilgrims with no lasting stake anywhere to quench us.   Sure, it is tempting to trust Jesus’ soulful resonance, but the man was so outlandish sometimes, even otherlandish.  There are any number of reasons to reject his authority, but mostly it comes down to preserving personal sovereignty. Though we know, despite our favorite pretenses and distractions, we are not sovereign in any substitutive matter.  So we ponder his other claims and guard our hearts.  Did he really die and come back?  Or this bit about restoring things and bringing back these good lives lost the one lie he told?

Will things really be resurrected? A new heaven? A new Earth? Will all the sad things here become untrue?  Will Girma meet his mother?  Will all these broken, torn and wounded bodies be healed?  Will Sesai see again? Will Tefari’s torture have a redemptive meaning? Will dry bones find new flesh? Will the orphans get back what was taken?  Will we see each other again?  And if we do, will we finally do no harm; will we finally rest; will we at last be  beautiful?  These are out deepest hopes and God’s greatest promises.

***

Special thanks to our Olivet family and friends who held us together in prayer and sent us letters and goodies. Also thanks to Kemp Hill who encouraged us to “blog,” and to our pastor, Albert Connette, who led us here.

getting ready to slaughter a cow for Ester celbration at school - cant see this being done at MLS

misc - pics