Dear Friends,
What does it mean to be a missionary? Traditionally, missionaries were people with a goal – to tell those people the Good News. In my understanding, the Good News is still the focus – freedom from captivity, hope in desperation, the victory over death that is ours because of the generous love of God. I, however, do not think we take the message to those people, but more and more to brothers and sisters who look different, eat different foods, speak different languages, and live very differently from us. We learn their names, we learn to communicate with them, we learn to love their food and appreciate their life-style. It is not a matter of taking something to them that they don’t have, but of being with them and encouraging them in the love of God as we learn from them how God speaks to and guides them. In turn, we are encouraged by their faith.
Those are the kinds of thoughts that come to my brain as I have time to sit and think. And because the work of my mission assignment is going so slowly, I have a lot of time to sit and think. My thoughts usually start with, “what the heck am I doing here?”. And then move on to such thoughts as those above. I have experienced God’s and encouragement through the people of Ethiopia in many ways. The longer I stay here, the more sure I am that these tall, thin, very dark-skinned people, most of whom cannot communicate effectively with this short(ish), rather fat, white woman, nor I with them, are my brothers and sisters.
When my brother, Okello, called to tell me that he had just returned from visiting a village that had been attacked the day before by some people from across the border, I was devastated with him. This is a yearly occurrence, that, heard on the news, might cause me to shake my head in disgust while I’m listening. But these are my brother’s people. They lost relatives to a mortar and in burning houses. Their children were captured, taken to a different country, maybe with the intention of selling them – girls get a higher price, we hear … But no one really knows because there is no tracking system. What we do know is that a bunch of children have just been terrorized, their relatives left to agonize their loss. I grieve, weeping, beside them. How long, Oh Lord? How long, how long?
Last year, Michael and I took a course on Trauma Healing. We learned how to use materials printed by the American Bible Society to walk people through the steps of healing wounds of their hearts. Eventually, we will be qualified to learn to be Trauma Healing trainers, but the first step is to lead a couple of trauma healing groups. In the week before the events above, at the request of some members of an Anywaa congregation in Gambella town, we started leading a group of women and men who will work through the process of healing the wounds of their hearts. Some of these wounds will be related to the attack on the village Okello visited, or something similar. An important part of the process is taking our wounds to the cross. Each participant writes their pain on a paper, then we have a short ceremony of burning those papers as a sign that we no longer carry what Jesus has already carried for us.
The Community Health Evangelism programs I have been promoting are moving forward slowly. When people hear the idea, they are eager to adopt them. The work of learning the process and taking the steps to implement what they learn is more difficult. After one committee meeting (in which most of the members did not show up) one of the pastors, Mary Nyacieng, haltingly tried to tell me “good-bye, I’ll see you tomorrow” in English. I responded (via a translator) with a thought I’d been having recently. “I’ve been thinking of teaching English to women pastors,” I said. “Oh no, not only pastors!” another woman chimed in. “We’ll start on Monday,” they said. And so we did. And so Rachel’s English Class was started. We have a dozen students in Grade 1. I love it! And I may learn some Nuer in the process. I am impatiently wondering what God will do with this group. After we get down some basic vocabulary, we will move on to talking about healthy living and other ideas from the CHE program. I know already that God is building relationships. I have met many of these women before, but, because of the communication gap, have not been able to get to know them. I am so very thankful for the opportunity to learn to know each of them more personally.
I hope you will look for ways to join me in expanding your “family”. I look forward to getting to know you better, too.
Rachel
PS: I bought an injera (Ethiopian bread) griddle (a metad, in Amharic) and filled it with water. We now enjoy bird-watching with our morning coffee and evening supper. That’s one of the noisy glossy starlings that show up regularly.