Melkam Gena! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Yesterday was the Ethiopian Christmas so Kali and I enjoyed the feasts of injera, wot, and popcorn at Semu and Winta's houses.
Kali and I have moved up to Mekelle, a city in the northern Tigray region of Ethiopia. We are enjoying the perfect weather of 50 F nights and 85 F sunny days. The average rainfall for Mekelle these next 2 months is 0 mm. Kali and I are enjoying living on our own, cooking all our meals from scratch, learning about the orthodox culture, but most of all spending time with the kids at the youth center. Kali and I are working for SIM (Service in Mission) which is a Christian NGO that began in Sudan and spread to Ethiopia in the early 1930's. SIM has numerous projects throughout Ethiopia that minister to people's physical needs: food, medicine, education, and shelter and by doing so sharing Christ's love through action.
The Mekelle Youth Center is a place where youth come for English classes, computer classes, HIV/AIDS education, and sports. The purpose of the center is to provide a safe haven for youth to be youth and learn essential character values. Approximately 400 kids come to the center each day. The center has been in Mekelle for 5 years and has been praised by the government for its programs and for the model it has been for the community.
Kali and I work closely with the Girls Anti-Aids Club, Girls basketball team, Youth Team building, English Classes, and Sports (all the volleyball, knock-out, ping pong, bingo, and soccer you could imagine.) There is a core group of 10 girls that we are focusing on building relationships with. The first day I walked into the Girls Anti-Aids club room they were all dancing and singing to Mariah Carey's We Belong Together and I just felt like I was right back in my dorm room at Lawrenceville. It's amazing how we share such similar interests and taste in music, clothes, movies, humor, yet come from tremendously different backgrounds.
For example, our friend Emebete, 16, loves Heath Ledger and Beyonce, and seems just like any other 16 year old American girl, but today I learned she was orphaned when she was 8 after her mother died and her father disappeared. Social services took her to this organization in Mekelle called Operation Rescue which is a community and family based child care program that cares for orphans, street children, and works to train mothers and educate the children. Emebete was so poor, just like a child on one of those horrific TV commercials that is digging through the trash, but now thanks to her sponsors, who give $15 dollars a month, she's in school, has nice clothes, and a chance to have a childhood. It's neat to think that $15 dollars a month really did change a little African child's life.
Speaking of giving, that is something that the Lord has really been teaching me. He's shed so much light on how stingy I am even though I have so much. The Ethiopians absolutely amaze me in their generosity. When we went to Semu and Winta's houses for Christmas, Semu's sister, who essentially stands as Semu's mother because her mother moved to Saudi Arabia to work as a maid to pay for her 3 girls education after her husband (Semu's father) passed away. They haven't seen her in 4 years. But her sweet sister gave us as many servings as we could possibly eat plus more and performed a coffee ceremony, in all which took about 3 hours. She didn't eat until after we left and gave us the best food. (which is a really big deal because Christmas is the one time a year they will slaughter a goat.) What would our world look like if we always gave others our best? How does Semu's sister who has nothing, give and offer everything to us, foreigners from America who have so much.
She reminded me of the widow in the gospel of Mark 12:41 who put in too small coins, worth only a fraction of a penny in the offering. Jesus says to the disciples, "I tell you the truth this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty, put in everything —all she had to live on."
Daily, constantly, the Ethiopians who 97% are unemployed and live on much less than a dollar a day, give their best food, best coffee, best chair, best smiles, and best attitude. How is it that they, who have nothing, give everything freely, and I who have so much am so hesitant to share my meal?
And it's not just because we are Americans and they are trying to impress us, they truly look after their neighbors. All the kids in the compound are looked after by every mother, beggars share with other beggars. A few minutes ago as I was sitting in this internet café, two blind men were helping each other down the street.
How different would our world look if we could truly love our neighbors as ourselves, and not just give them our leftover's, but like Semu's sister and the widow, gave our best?
Please pray that our hearts would grow more in tune with God's purpose for our time in Mekelle, that we would develop close relationships with the girls, that we can give our best and give a fraction of what the Ethiopians give us, for peace in Somalia and that the conflict would not escalate here in Ethiopia, health, safety, energy, hope, and that the Lord would break our hearts with the things that break His heart.
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Ashley S. Zeiger
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