I have to answer the question of WHY I would want to go {back} to Ethiopia. How do you put into words what is an unexplainable tug on your heart - or - "from" your heart?
Is it those eyes? All those sweet, sweet children who exude joy in the midst of so little. Or so much?
I have always been an adventurous soul...wanting to know what was over the next hill or around the next corner. I want to see so much of what I have yet to see. When we landed in Addis over 3 years ago, I was brimming with excitement in a land of suffering and desolation...wanting to breathe in what was so, so foreign to me...all the while KNOWING I would never experience it authentically....not from my position of privilege and undeserved blessings.
One of my absolute favorite experiences was our trip to the HIV+ orphanage. I went with people who were not sure if they should touch the children - but - God gave me this sense of ignorance and peace and genuine desire to reach out to them right away....to sit down on the cool tile floor, let them climb all over me, kiss their foreheads and help them unwrap their daily vitamin supplements. Their sparkling eyes and brilliant smiles...without a single word crossing their lips...beckoned me irresistibly to engage them, to playfully tease them and elicit precious giggles. I did not want to leave and from that moment on, I have desired to return. I would have scooped them all up and held them forever if it were humanly possible.
How can a person from such a comfortable existence so strongly desire to return to a land of so little, a land of suffering and unanswered questions that plague the heart? Maybe I will ask God when I get to heaven....but I think I will know full well, once I get there.
1 comments:
my daughter has shared feeling the same as you. She HAD to go back and would move there if it didn't take her away from her siblings. She will definitely be back there again and hopefully I will be with her. She has questioned many times how can a person from a comfortable existence NOT strongly desire to experience the life of the less fortunate.
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