Okay, so this post is a little late:-) But I just wanted to say
1 month ago on Friday (the 21st) we arrived at JFK. Sick (me), t
ired EXHAUSTED (me), giddy with excitement (B), overwhelmed with happiness to be together again (Ababa)...home!
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| B enjoying his 5 hour layover in Frankfurt while I laid across three chairs, burning up with a 103 degree fever and trying very hard not to vomit or fall asleep (either of which would have left my 2 year old roaming on his own through the airport). He loved the layover...and the flights...and customs...and the wait for Ababa who was stuck in traffic jam from an accident...and the car ride home...me, not so much:-). I am so glad to be home! |
It feels like an eternity since we got back. In New York City it feels like you are living 3 lives at once, at least that's how it feels for me. I work full-time at a very intense
(unnecessarily so) fast-paced company, am a full-time hands-on mom in the morning and at night--bottle, breakfast, dinner, bath, stories, snuggles, etc., and am gearing up to start my MBA program again in January, and navigating the health insurance/readoption/name change insanity that greets newly adoptive parents when they arrive in the U.S. I surf the web with three windows open at the same time, skimming back and forth from page to page, talk on the phone while typing, while sorting through/reading papers on my desk.
In Ethiopia it was me and B, and for the first two months Ababa. We got up, snuggled, had a bottle, ate oatmeal, played and read stories, snuggled some more, walked to a restaurant for lunch, read more stories, had more snuggles, napped together, walked to a restaurant for dinner, read more stories, had more snuggles, took a bath, went to bed together...rinse and repeat...for three months. Occasionally we would take a cab or minibus somewhere, have an activity like going to the Lion Zoo or Entoto Mountain or a market, or a day trip further afield to Bethel Womens Center, Desta Mender, or Debre Zeit, but almost every day we were just chilling at the Weygoss, usually cocooned in our room. We met some awesome people and I am grateful to have been able to stay in Addis for so long, but it was long, and hard, and boring, and stressful b/c we had no idea when we would get home and couldn't plan any trips as everyday there was something that "might happen" that kept us in Addis; however, life in NYC was kind of a shock after those three months in Addis with our much slower 24/7 together lifestyle.
Honestly, it feels like we have been home way longer than we were in Ethiopia, even though we were in Ethiopia for 3 long months. In fact, Ethiopia is quickly fading from my present thoughts. Although in some ways it is easier this way,
I don't want to forget. In fact, I want to learn more. I want my eyes to be opened to the beauty and suffering and reality of life in Africa, and to pray for healing; restoration; practical, sustainable solutions for economic and social issues, and above all for transformation of people's hearts and souls.
I have no idea what that looks like or how I am supposed to be part of it. For now, we are sponsoring a beautiful little girl in Ethiopia and a gorgeous little baby in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the atrocities that have happened there/are happening there that are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the US mainstream media are horrifying)! We believe that the organizations we are sponsoring these children through are operating ethically; are fiscally responsible; and are working for effective, culturally informed and sensitive solutions to big problems. But sponsoring 2 children is not where we feel this ends for us.
Although my immediate thoughts are no longer in Ethiopia all the time, I will never be the same as I was before I went. I saw suffering, poverty, strength, and hope in orders of magnitude that I never thought possible. I see depths of loss, and confusion, and love, and strength in my son's eyes that I didn't know were possible. And I know that as small as I try to make Him, my God is so much bigger than I could possibly imagine.
He loves the old women who carry unimaginably heavy loads of wood down Entoto Mountain, and the legless beggars crawling on their hands on Bole Road, and the leprous weaver with no hands at ALERT, and the teenage street kid huffing glue in Meskel Square, and the man who pees openly in the water cistern on the side of a busy road, and the widow with three young children who silently sits on the rocky side of the road and holds out her hands....He loves them all, he knows their thoughts, their hopes and dreams, their pain, their hurts..
.just as much as he knows mine...just as much as he knows the "richest" king or the most "powerful" investment banker/corporate chairman/politician.
That is the deepest and most important thing that Ethiopia taught me. We all have the same value in God's eyes. We are all made in His image. No amount of money, or power, or social status, or good health can change that...how amazing, and humbling, and mindboggling is that?!?!? All this stuff that we spent 24/7 chasing (money, power, success, health...), doesn't really matter at all. In the long-run, it does not increase our value in God's eyes one tiny bit, and all these things that we find truly horrifying (poverty, sickness, weakness, powerlessness...), they don't devalue us one iota in God's eyes. How is that possible? I don't know, and I don't understand, and it stretches my mind, but I do believe that is true!
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. I John 3:1-2
I don't know where our lives will go next or what the future holds for our family. But I know that God has an amazing plan for our lives, a plan to use us in some tiny way in his amazing plan of redemption. For now, we are in NYC. This is where we believe we are supposed to be...for now...This is the family we are meant to have...for now...and we are trying to trust that God will lead us where he wants us.
Who knows what another month could bring...or a year...or five years...or fifty years...
Truthfully, despite this long-winded post, right now, I am just happy that I got some pictures from our trip into an album:-) Although we only took photos on our crappy cell phones (and downloaded some from our awesome friend L who is a good mom and actually brought a CAMERA on her extended stay in Ethiopia, imagine that:-), I put together an album last night on mypublisher. I can't wait for it to get here. It captures most of our highlights from the trip. I wish I had taken better pictures, that my giggly, adorable son, didn't plaster a look that would put an undertaker to shame on his face when he hears a camera shutter click (while proudly and earnestly saying "Mommy, I smile"), and that I had included some pictures of souvenirs/crafts/markets, and that I had taken pics of the Mercado and the Weavers Market and the awesome, giant fruit stand on the way to church and at the NGO bazar...etc. But you know what, mostly I am just glad that I put the photos in an album and that we have it for B and for our family:-) 
I am pretty fried right now with work, family, church, holidays, and other important but energy-sucking stuff, but I wanted to highlight World AIDS Day. I think it is really important to remember where we have been and how far we have to go in regards to HIV and AIDS (not just on December 1, but it's a start). I have realized the global significance of HIV and AIDS in a much more personal and powerful way over the past year. Since I can't seem to string together a coherent sentence, I will just link you to Nikki's awesome blog, give a shout-out for an awesome and eye opening book, and highlight positivelyadopted, an information site for families blessed to adopt HIV+ children (read the facts, think about it, pray about it, and figure out where you are led, but really HIV is so manageable with early treatment and the medicines we have available...consider it!):
