Christmas 2010

A few wonderful Christmas moments to share:

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Walked Mountains, Crossed Bridges....part two: Derartu - our gift to Jesus PLUS: a Christmas of Goat Giving!

Derartu

This Christmas there were so many hilights that it's hard to know where to start, but one thing that surfaced the day after boxing day as I reflected over the holiday festivities while sipping my morning coffee was memory of the way we introduced Derartu to our family.

It was part of my hope that this Christmas we could begin a new family tradition to help keep us focused on the real reason for the season. I was delighted that everyone went along with it! At my request, the formal tree in the living room did not have any gifts underneath it. It had only a wooden cradle and to be placed inside it, I invited the family to write out their gift for Jesus. Then we gathered around and shared from our hearts, what we gave and why. Not all the family was present, and for some, this will be their glimpse at how my Christmas wish turned out. Even my sister Lark, who came with her son Ryan to join us for Christmas dinner, submitted her gift which was a written pledge of service that she intends to do this year. Thanks, Lark - it was a blessing to read what you want to do to help others!                                                                                          The family had decided to scrap the 'Gift Exchange Game' this year that we traditionally have done for the past 10 years or so. Instead, they each contributed the $10 gift amount towards purchasing a goat for a needy family in Burundi. The goat project is one of the 2010 Rice Raiser Campaign projects through FH Canada partners. It has a $3 - $1 CIDA matching grant. So, that goat gift will multiply to become 4 goats for four families. This is truely a gift that will provide a step up out of the severest poverty level for families and it is a pepetuating gift because when the goat has kids (usually they have two sets a year) one of the babies from the first set goes to another family.

I was thrilled! Papa Mike had also purchased a goat for each of his 10 children/stepchildren so that means that all together, our family have purchased 12 + goats which multiplied by the CIDA grant will equal 49 goats! Forty nine families will now recieve this wonderful gift of a goat which will include vet care, training in goat care, composting, gardening, nutrition and so much more! Thank you family!! This remote area in Burundi will be impacted tremendously through these animals!

So, I invited the kids to share about their gifts to Jesus.

April shared that her gift began at her Dec. 9th birthday. When she was asked what she wanted for her birthday, she thought, considering all the blessings that she has, she really doesn't NEED anything. She expressed that instead of 'things' April would like to know that children are being fed and mothers who presently struggled to provide for them are able to care for their children. So she took her birthday money and gave it to purchase a goat for a family in Burundie. "I've always wanted to buy a goat!" April said. That is what spurred the rest of the kids to donate their $10 towards purchasing another goat. Then Grandma said she wanted to match that goat with yet another!!

Pam shared that she felt so blessed that God had given her and Sean baby Jack that her gift to Jesus would be to be the very best mother she could be to Jack because she realized that Jack was entrusted to her care, but he belongs to God first.

Randy and I then shared about our gift to Jesus. We are sponsoring an 11 yr. old Ethiopian girl named Derartu. We had the privelege of meeting her when we were there in November.

I had asked the FH Ethiopia staff if they could help me write a children's story about the life of a typical little village girl. The next morning at 7:00 am they took us to Derartu's home. We watched as Derartu made their morning coffee. Since her mother works long hours all day, Derartu is responsible to help cook the meals and clean the house. She is very adept with lighting the fire and cooking!  Her mother goes to farmers, purchases vegetables from them and then sells them in the market place twice a week. Other than that, she helps in the fields or wherever she can find work.

We arrived at their place just after the sun rose. Derartu's brother had already gone to the village well to fetch water in their 5 gallon yellow plastic container that was a commonly seen throughout the whole region.  Derartu's father was killed two years around in an uprising. I can't imagine what this young girl witnessed, but whatever it was, the desire to become a doctor was seeded in her. I was astounded to hear that, because there isn't even a high school in their village. Her older brother is 14 years old and since the family can't afford to buy the books and send him away to live in a village where there is a high school, he stays at home and repeats the grade he just passed.

Derartu has watched her brother's frustration and to ensure that the same fate doesn't happen to her, she has looked for ways to earn money for herself. While helping her mother glean in other farmer's fields, she gathered some barely and ground it. Then, as she accompanied her mom to Saturday market, she sold the ground barley and purchased a chicken with the money.  She intends to repeat this and purchase more chickens. Eventually she'll purchase goats and so on until she has the money to go to high school and somehow even university so that she can become a doctor.  What an amazing young gal! The FH Ethiopia staff told Randy and I that this family has just been registered with their child sponsorship program. Well you know that we could not resist the wonderful opportunity to enter her life and sponsor her. What a great privelege to know that as a result of our sponsorship, she will be able to go to highschool. Not only that, but she'll be able to recieve medical care if ever needed as a result of the sponsorship and she and her family will not go hungry!!

At the end of the same day that we visited Darartu and her family, we were traveling back to the FH Ethiopia compound and who should we meet along the road, but Derartu and her mother loaded down with wood on their backs. Fuel for their cooking fire. What a hard life they lead!

 As I sipped my morning coffee and thought more about Derartu, it dawned upon me that perhaps Derartu is alread being a doctor though she doesn't even realize it.  She is doctoring me and my confused perspective of 'needs' vs 'wants', through her life. Her 'needs' - just for daily survival, diminish my 'needs' and most certainly, when I stop to put thins into this perspective, disinigrate my 'wants'. I hope that through our relationship that will develop through letter writing, my greed will be medicated and that I will be able to care more about giving to others than wanting for myself. And, when you come to think about it...there is no doctor in our family yet...Derartu, I hope and pray that we can somehow help you attain your most excellent life goal of becoming a doctor...and along the way, you'll be adminstering healthy doses of selfishness prevention to us.

Goodbye To My Dog

Friday, December 17, we came home from a Michale W. Smith concert and found Kassie, our dog curled up on her bed by the dryer looking at us, but she didn't come to us as ususal.

Now we realized that she was certainly slowing down over the past year and more notably since we moved to our new home. But just a few days before, she was running up our driveway and that morning, when we let her outside, other than a little typical morning stiffness, she seemed okay. However, when Randy came home, she was walking very slow and lopsided as she headed to her bed.

So when we came home from the concert, we noticed Kassie had vomited. We tried to get her to move off of her bed so we could clean it and she wouldn't move. So I went and got the leash and asked her if she wanted to go for a walk....she slowly rose up off the bed and immediately fell - spread eagle on the floor.

We knew something drastic was wrong with her so we rushed her to the clinic. She had no feeling, no motor control over most of her body, but she was very much alert and responded to touch as we patted and rubbed her head. The doctor examined her and checked her gums inside her mouth...it was very grave news. He said he could try to stablize her over the night and then do blood work and other tests to try to determine what was happening, but given her age and the severity of her condition, she would most likely not recover. He suggested that perhaps she had a tumor that had errupted. He gently, but strongly suggested we let her go.

Frankie came home and saw that Kassie was gone and we weren't home so he called. He came and we all said our goodbyes. The suddeness of it was a shock and we were so saddened. She was such a good dog. I miss her so much already.

What a reminder...that really, death walks among us. We never knew Kassie had a tumor growing inside her.
I could go on and on about how wonderful a friend she was...a very significant part of the family. I just can't right now because it's hard to type with blurry eyes. My dear sweet doggy will be so terribly missed.

Walked Mountains, Crossed Bridges

Part one – the Runner

It’s something else to walk on soil as ancient a civilization and as full of history as Ethiopia; the millions of people who have lived out their lives – their joys, their struggles, the conflicts, their new starts. Yet so few westerners’ shoes have ever touched the sod…especially in the remote western area of Sasiga District where we went. The people there have been transplanted from the drought prone north to this south western portion of Ethiopia. It lacks infastructure, fresh water, well, just about everything we take for granted. So, there they are as they begin to make their lives out of nearly nothing. So hard to comprehend what such poverty must be like to live with. The people here have suffered chronic hunger for many years.

There are hills and valleys and pasture lands and gardens watered by God himself. The incredible beauty in these forsaken lands  goes mostly unseen by the majority of the world, yet along with that fact are the ever  enduring hardships of the unpredictable, yet so anticipated weather.

In times of peace and when there is enough food to fill the belly, children’s spirits thrive! There is laughter and joy in abundance that pours out of them even as they toil to carry burdens of water, wood or their younger sibling. Loads most of us would consider much too heavy for such small frames. Yet their smiles are so full, an outpouring of warmth and joy given as gifts to us strangers! They wonder why we have come…they carefully watch us.

The Runner. She first spied me through the barbed wire fence of the compound and then she followed me from village to village on foot, running barefoot along the dirt road after our jeep.

Sorrowfully, I did not embrace her affection awaiting my attention and now, when it’s too late I see her in so many of my pictures, always wedging her way close to me through the groupies of excited children cloistered around us western visitors. Who are you precious daughter? If I could but go back and speak with you, hug you, tell you how wonderfully special you are to God and now to me. And I thought my eyes were open and that I was paying attention to all I was seeing. How could I not have noticed you more?

We moved from one village to the next in Jeeps vehicles on red dirt roads that very rarely saw automobiles.  People saw us coming and ran to wave, often with two arms at us. We were learning about the excellent work that was being done by Food for the Hungry.

Across the uneven logs that formed a bridge over a wide stream where women fetch water and wash clothes alongside the cattle and donkeys drinking and doing other things, we precariously set one foot in front of the other waving our arms to give balance to cross over.

No, of course there were no hand rails and yes, I do have a picture of a boy running and bounding over that same bridge like a gazelle! On the other side, we were greeted by the Muslim village families who were at first suspicious of us and then warm and friendly.

Soon, the women began showing off their babies and children budged in front of one another to station themselves in front of the camera’s lens. The men eventually joined in the fun, too.

And I found myself close enough to see the way they live out each day in their homes; their kitchens, their fire pits, even the gleam in their curious eyes. We shared momentary smiles, the kind that break down all barriers, race, religion, fear, suspicion, and social status.

My comprehension of God’s love for human kind enveloped me and I believe that God was showing me John 3:16 and his love for mankind in the purest form. For it was to this level…the poverty, the earthy, stable-like environment that he entered our world as a baby and nothing has ever been the same since. In fact, I think I saw a replica of that very stable as Joseph and Mary may have encountered it.

We visited the Model Farmer and she showed off her growing achievements that she’d learned from our partners (Food for the Hungry). She followed their instructions of developing the plot of garden, learning how to compost and enrich the soil and then applied the same principals in on other pieces of land further down the river.
Her hard work was being rewarded and others were now imitating her. She has become a leader in her community and has gained much respect. Other families are learning from her. It's really transforming a whole village!

Under the careful instruction and funding assistance of our partners, Food for the Hungry and the FH Ethiopia staff, the community has just built a new well by hand!

 It was very labour intense but so important and so greatly needed!! Prior to this, there was no clean water source, and all water came from the polluted stream we’d just crossed. In fact, only ten percent of the people in this area have access to fresh clean water and since using this well, the families expressed a noticeable difference in the health of everyone, particularly the children. When walking to the site of the well that had just been dug, we looked to our left in the field and saw faithful Muslim men praying. No women, just six or seven men.  

The well had just recently been constructed there was tremendous pride and excitement.. A fence had been placed around the well to protect it and there were a couple of women inside doing the pumping as women and children waited their turns with their yellow five gallon plastic jugs. I realized we had just witness a dramatic change in this community and by all indications, there would be better health with the clean water and greater nutrition from the healthy gardens being planted.

Walking back to our vehicles, the children swarmed me and to my joy and delight as I reached down to take the hands of a couple of small children they were eager to do so.

There were so many children that at the time, I didn’t notice that the hand of one of the children was her…the runner! I was holding her hand!! There she was…the same girl who’d spied on me through the fence, who had run following our jeep from one village to another and now here she was again!  Oh, I have such love for that little girl! Who is she? What are her family and her home like? Is she in need of sponsorship?

We saw so much, it's interesting that out of all of it, this little girl is what work me up a week after we got home and had me searching through my pictures to find out if indeed she was the same girl.

Here I am saying goodbye to all the chidren....but she tells me that she came from the other village where we had been before this...miles away...she'd run all the way. But alas, we were not going back, but onward to another village. Someone told her to go home.

With such determination, I pray that she finds a way to be all that she desires to be in her life.