It is October 21st at 11:32am when I am typing this.  I have been here for about a week and a half and I am so overwhelmed by the need here.  Last night was really rough for me because I realized that I can not help everyone that I have met. We went to the BCI Academy yesterday and while I was playing with the children I just kept looking at their sweet, precious faces and thinking. . .there is no way for me to fulfill all of this child's needs.  I have also realized while I have been here that in Ethiopia it is very hard to break the cycle of poverty.  Ethiopians have to apply for a diversity visa to go to countries like America and in all of Ethiopia, only 50,000 visas are granted per year.  This means that there is a strong desire for people to move out of Ethiopia but they can not.  Also, Ethiopians are very much about family and community so it is very hard for someone to move away from their "compound".

 

I went to sleep last night crying about all of the people that I have met and all of the needs that I have calculated and realized that I couldn't meet.  Although, as God promises, joy came in the morning.  God showed me this morning that while I can not meet all of everyone's needs.  I can meet all of one or two people's needs and He will send other missionaries to meet other needs.  I truly understand what Matthew  9 talks about when it says that the harvest is plenty but the workers are few.  I wonder what the world would look like if every person that claims to be a Christian would take the Great Commission seriously?  Oh what a wonderful world that would be!!

 

I was kinda worried about the language barrier before I came here but I have realized that Love is an international language.   It doesn't matter if they don't speak English and that I don't speak Amharic. . .we speak to each other through love.  When I give a child clothes, vitamins, coloring books, or just kisses they know that I love them; and when a child wraps their arms around me or when 7 or 8 of them literally fight each other to hold my hand, I know that they love me.  And when a mother gives me the last of her food because I have shown her baby love-I know that she loves me.  I have learned how to say I love you in Amharic and when I say it to them their little faces light up and they get really, really shy.  It is so sweet. 

 

I have also realized that we really are all the same inside.  Parents here want the same things and opportunities that parents in America want for their children-they just don't have the resources to make it happen.  The children here just want love and affection just like the children in America do.  But I have seen one difference in the children here than in the vast majority of American children-children here share what little they do have with anyone-no matter their "status" and children here are not greedy-they are gracious and thankful.

 

Adana (and his sister Mekides) is currently staying at the Lum-Lum Guest House where I am staying.  Adana is an orphan and he is 9 years old.  One day I bought a slice of cake (I was soooo craving sugar-they aren't really sugar eaters here) from the cafe and I didn't like it because it wasn't sweet.  I asked Adana if he wanted it and his face lit up and he grabbed it and ran.  Well, like 5 minutes later I looked outside and he was sitting on the steps with two of his friends and they all were diving into the cake.  What was so touching about this to me is that Adana's friends (Nahum and Nadi) are what you would consider wealthy here.  They live with both of their parents, who both have good jobs, in a big house (an actual house, not a hut) that has running water, electricity, a roof, and a floor.  Adana has, literally, next to nothing and he was sharing what little he did have with his wealthy neighbors.  That is love.