My husband needed to visit Ethiopia with a Christian organization team from the U. S. that collaborates with a dynamic and urgent compassionate ministry. He urged me to go on the trip, too. Agreeing to do that was one of the most meaningful decisions I've made in many years.
Once we landed in Addis Abbaba, the capital, we met an American team based there. Then, from inside and outside Addis, an enthusiastic and helpful Ethiopian counterpart team guided us.
The visiting U. S. team is part of U. S.-Ethiopian services to people across age,ethnic, and religious groups in Ethiopia. They wanted to witness on-the-ground assessments of present and future needs of the organization that stands close by many Ethiopians in critical circumstances.
Like many other places, parts of Ethiopia grapple with poverty, HIV/AIDS, high unemployment, especially among young men, and other problems.
We spent a challenging week in a convoy of hardy vehicles on paved and outlying roads a plane ride from Addis, in an area called Jemma. We returned to Addis, where we had a tour of the Ethiopia team's headquarters. We were to learn more about the vital skills, relief, and comfort the organization's teams share through programs like housing and education for orphans, palliative care for AIDS patients, and proposed jobs training for young adults. We had already met with people in the Jemma area who are part of the caring relationships there.
The counterpart team members had been giving us information all along, answering our many questions. That day, they gave oral presentations about the headquarters' functions. Although we had been impressed with the team's efforts all week, it struck me later that I had never heard friendlier, more succinct, informative, or well-prepared presentations than the team members gave to us at their headquarters. The details reinforced what we had already seen and heard, and then added new information to tie it together.
Later I asked my husband about his impressions of the headquarters tour we had that day. Without hesitation he said, "They were enthusiastic, dedicated, and they know what they are doing."
Each team member had welcomed us and given brief summaries of their individual office roles and interrelated functions. The talks communicated careful preparation and thought, with essential facts about various duties and accomplishments. Key offices that were represented included administration and finance, and childcare, education, health, and jobs programs.
The counterpart team's confidence and dedication shone through their relaxed, expert delivery. Telling about their missions and work, they covered the main areas of information flow: the
Who, What, Why, How, When, and Where of it all.
Their welcoming enthusiasm and evident dedication that we witnessed in the field with them plus the key facts communicated and tied together at headquarters, rounded out the unforgettable week for us. Other people's enthusiasm, dedication, and knowledge of experience as well as data touched us. They gave us the full week that proved to us there was a larger purpose in our going there than we had known in advance.
We received so much more than we were able to give to them!
We left there with more understanding of why we had gone so far from home to be with people most of us had never met before.
No formal event could have endednthe week better than the headquarters visit.Standing in the offices, listening to the experience, hopes, and dreams of larger and newer programs, we felt somehow more a part of their mission.
Their presentations took us behind the scenes into the workings that make the programs come to life with staff, provisions, and other help. We began to realize even more what it takes for that team---and many others that collaborate with them---to make happen on the ground all that we had witnessed and experienced. We understood better the inter-related workings required to help orphans, families, and others. Many of them had shared part of their lives with us.
Reflecting on that remarkable week, I know that the busy and on-the-move experiences with brothers and sisters in Christ from Ethiopia and home were a deeply moving tutorial. The personal relationships that week underlined the essence of the enthusiasm, dedication, and knowledge my husband spoke about to describe the presentations.
Enthusiasm. Dedication. Knowledge. Balanced together, those parts not only make words memorable. They also define much of what we need for life. The joy of Christ is the source of enthusiasm for the Christian; God's dedication to us moves our devotion to Him; the knowledge God gives from the Holy Spirit guides us daily.
The life of Jesus Christ communicates the infinite, faithful, and eternal love of God. "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8 NIV).
I have always heard from everyone I know that going out of the country on a mission trip is always amazing and a huge blessing for those who went and for those who were visited.
I think eminating the life of Christ is the most rewarding thing we can do yet not comprehended because He is so amazing.
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