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.