Taste of the Wilderness

A taste of the wilderness is what I feel like we have been experiencing, the power has been off more than it is on, the flies are out in full force and swarm around us, (that may be due to the fact that we have not showered in a while), there are sugar shortages, and we went 6 days without water. No water to wash the dishes, clothes, dirty diapers, and stinky kids. Yet we are some of the lucky ones who are able to walk to the guesthouse and get clean filtered water for drinking and cooking. We also have a large rain barrel that we are conserving for needed washing, but all around us people could be seen wandering around town with their yellow jerry cans in hopeful search of water for their families. Many of these people will drink water that is contaminated with things that will make them sick. But sometimes a sore stomach or diahrea is just seen as a way of life here. The solutions are simple but the access to purification tablets is minimal and the cost of simple filters is beyond most families means.

Each year back home our family participates in the Run For Water to raise money for wells in Ethiopia, this year we missed our 5^th year of participating, but we got up and ran the cobble stone and dirt roads as a family, past the donkeys on their way to water wells and now we realize how precious water is and how much we take it for granted back home. When the water finally begin to drip, we jumped for joy and bathed in buckets.

I can more easily relate to the Israelites in the Bible though, when after God preformed His great miracles and delivered them thru the Red Sea and free from the slavery of the Egyptians, yet it didn’t take long for them to begin grumbling and complaining when they reached the wilderness. They had first-hand seen God’s power, but in their human weakness it didn’t take long for them to forget that God was in control and they turned to complaining. My hardships are minimal yet I quickly went from praising my life living in Ethiopia, to grumbling and complaining about not being able to have a hot shower, or the fact that it takes a process to make coffee and I can’t go to Starbucks on a bad day. Then I go on a home visit to one of our program families and even though there was a water shortage she wants to use her water to make me coffee, we visit, we laugh, we share of our lives in her little one room dirt house that is so welcoming and full of joy and it hits me that she has probably never had a hot shower before-this is a luxury not a necessity to find joy in life. No matter how difficult my days are they are nothing in comparison to most of the families around me. When it comes down to it I am spoiled and I have a choice and opportunity, I can return to Canada to all my comforts any day, but most of these woman and children can only hope and dream of rising above poverty.

I read a quote by an African pastor named Mensa Otabil, he said, “God does not bless you for yourself-He blesses you for others.” I want to use my blessing to bless others!

This is what we are hoping to do thru the Income Generating Project for our program families. We want to help empower and equip them to rise up and bring change to their circumstances. We want to bring hope impacting one family at a time.  Exciting things are happening as plans come together and really we don’t feel like we are doing it, but getting to be a part of the miraculous work of God as we walk in the wilderness!