An invitation...

I saw this video on a friend’s Facebook feed yesterday.

 

Katie is 21. She has 14 kids.  Yes, 14! 14 orphaned children in Uganda. Some might call her amazing. Others call her inspiring. Others might call her crazy. Whatever you call her, her big heart as a young mama is apparent: she is committed to these 14 kids as her own.

I don’t live in Uganda (anymore), nor do I have any kids there (well, not exactly anyways.. just one named Sylvia but that’s a different story for another day! :)).

But I do have orphaned children in my care -  about 400 of them, in Ethiopia. I have for the last 2 years or so - not physically, but responsibility for the financial gifts that enable their care. I haven’t spent every waking hour caring for these AIDS-orphaned children... but in some sense, I do. Most of my waking hours are filled with thinking, reading, talking, stewing, dreaming, planning, and asking how we can help more kids in great need.

I’m sure no one else is counting :) ....  but it is 7 days away from my {un.orphan’d} film night for these AIDS orphans in Ethiopia. It's been a count-down since last year. :) My waking hours are definitely full – and many, as I sort out last details. Late nights into the wee hours of the morning and slightly compromised sanity... it’s not work; it’s life. :)

“People say to me all the time, wow, you are so lucky that you’ve found what God wants you to do with your life!”

What I really, really love is how Katie responds.

.... Well, I didn’t find it ?!.... It was just in the Bible!! Jesus does not ask that we care for the less fortunate..... He demands it. When calling ourselves Christ-followers, caring for orphans, and the desolate, and the widow are not an option... it's a requirement.

We don’t have to move our lives to Africa. But what if we all took up the radical - [and radically ordinary!] - call to care for the orphaned? To want nothing more in the world (and nothing less) than to see these children... born into poverty and vulnerability that takes their parents from them... have the chance to live, to flourish? And to so know Jesus' heart and extravagant compassion more than we could ever imagine? His demand is not harsh or even demanding.... when it becomes our own heart's cry & joy to see it into reality. We smile. And love. And smile.

:)

It’s nothing novel or profound. But it is an invitation. :)

I would like to invite you into this journey that is so far from over.


And I'd like to invite you to this...

I've already invited many of you personally. If I haven't... I have meant to! I haven't probably because I've been running around to get some very awesome live entertainment, like a dance performance by Ugandan refugee children!! :D And....making silly mustaches for a photobooth. :P But you are invited.

Each of these kids has a name, and a story. My mind has blanked momentarily on the two boys in the top row but L-R: Addishiwot, Bethelhem, Sinteyehu, Beza, Daniel, Helen, Zemzem, Ermiyas, Zerihun, and Yeabsira. They want to be nurses (Addishiwot and Beza), doctors (Bethelhem, and Yeabsira), scientists (Sinteyehu and Daniel), lawyers (Helen), engineers (Ermiyas and Zerihun), and pilots (Zemzem). 

Each of them has a story. :) These little kids live a tremendously difficult life. But they also have dreams of a different future. They just need a little help writing it into reality.

Each of these little lives has a story. The invitation is, would you be a part of it? 

If yes, then come!! ... it might be amazing, inspiring, or crazy. Hopefully all at the same time. :)

Come... it'll be grand. :)

[just let me know if you're coming:)  Facebook or rainbowc@hope-international.com]

Urban poverty is a funny cat

The city can be a beautiful place. Splashy amenities, entertainment, cafes for a mid-afternoon break... it’s the world at your fingertips! And then there’s those on the margins. Ooh yah. What do we “do” about “those”?

“Here” (Canada) or “there” (Ethiopia). Urban poverty. It’s a different story.. or mosaic of stories... than rural poverty. Clean water, agriculture, sanitation. Those sometimes, are a bit easier. To grasp and to swallow.  

This is just barely a story, and most likely will come out somewhat scattered, but somewhere to start. 

Addis Ababa is a bustling place. Hotels, restaurants, air-conditioned, escalator’ed malls. It’s sometimes not a far cry from the familiar comforts of "home". As soon as we stepped foot outside the hotel, we are confronted //surrounded// by a very real reality that we don’t see here – at least quite so much and so readily: kids on the street. Kids running up with open hands. Young mothers with babies on their backs, putting fingers to their mouths to ask for food. Kids peering little faces into our van windows, sometimes with a little box of gum or pocket tissues for a sale. The dusty, worn reality of these kids in tattered rags makes "dirt poor" ring with really different tone than we so often use with flippancy. A picture would tell volumes more.. but I didn't take any.

“Please 1 birr” (6 cents) ? 

I was with a group of senior highschool students (more about them later). Some of them have part time jobs – waitressing, cashiering. ALL of them stressing about calculus homework and AP biology exams.  They are the lucky ones. They have grades for university to worry about.  I just stop and celebrate that. Side note: “#firstworldproblems" ? I hate that. 

In Addis, the challenges multiply when you realize there’s HIV/AIDS in the mix. Too many die from the deadly disease each year, victims of poverty and the sex trade. And too many still leave children behind. It’s little wonder – though definitely grief – there are so many children desperate for a dollar – or just one birr – on the streets.  “Too many.”

What do you do? 

I “befriended” this little girl last year. Sort of. Not really. I spent a couple days in Addis on my own before the team arrived last year and there was this little 4 year old, always outside my hotel, always with a beautiful set of smiley, curious eyes. And always more pocket tissue than I could need.

A hotel staff would come by to translate after my first Amharic hello always gave way to charades:

What’s your name?

(something I couldn’t pronounce very well)

How old are you?

(puts 4 fingers up)

Where’s your mom?

(points down the street)

Do you have brothers and sisters?

(smiles and nods)

Where are they?

They’re working too. [ie, selling gum & tissue]

I found her outside as I stepped out of my hotel just as I had a pinch more free time in the afternoon my last day.

Should we get something to eat?

(eager nod)

There was a glitzy glass-walled coffee shop across the street, so we crossed the road. She knew where she was(n’t) welcome, so she stayed on the street while I stepped up on the entrance and went inside.

I went in and asked if I could buy a pastry or cake for the little girl (yes). Can she come in and pick it out? One of the staff, bless his heart, was extravagantly kind, went out and called her in. She picked out a piece of cake that caught her eye and some cookies to pack away for her family. Can we eat it here? They seated us at a table & helped her climb up on the big chair.

I didn’t talk to her much again for the rest of the time we were there, because before her first bite, her eyes had caught sight of a giant flatscreen TV on the wall. (hands still wrapped around a package of tissues)

It was a Tour de France race. I still smile remembering that little smile of hers. I still smile. :) Eyes perplexed then delightedly wide, the corners of a gasp-opened mouth crept up into a smile that stayed just as-is for the next hour or so as spandex-clad cyclists zipped across the screen.

 

I don't hope to be exploitative in sharing these pictures. And that disclaimer, I know, changes little. We are so imperfect in our pursuit of justice. Even in our best efforts, though we try – and oh, I try!  - our pursuit of God and our pursuit of justice is so imperfect. So flawed. Yet there is grace. And God still delights. And offers us His delight in sharing in His justice, which is perfect. Wholly perfect. We get a glimpse as we take part.

Should I have brought her in there? I don’t know. Nothing’s “changed”, and there’s definitely room to see more harm done than good. I know. Injustice might not have very clean & tidy good answers. Easy fixes are hard to come by, all the more for urban poverty. I have not seen her again since that last day; I didn’t find her again this year and of course, I didn’t expect to. I have no idea where she is or how she is. To be honest, I’ve thought of her little until I got back to Addis this year. A few times, but not many. Back in Addis, I looked into the faces of many little kids wondering if I might see her smile. (Or even more honestly, wondering if I would recognize her if I did).

For her, I have done nothing and am doing nothing to meet real needs. Except maybe, just maybe and just a little, in the big, marble-clad, cafe-culture, trendy city of Addis, shake the status quo, just a little. If I can even suppose that much. I wonder if they ever let her in again.

But maybe for myself, I’ve entered into the reality of life on the streets of Addis. The kids are not a sea of faces. They are real little people, with real lives, real stories that go on. Whether I am aware or not, whether I am involved or not. Whether I blur them into a general common story of misfortune, or if I take the time to know their life & their story uniquely.

But maybe most of all, I come to treasure a little more myself our support & care for the AIDS orphans in Addis. It’s not-perfect, not-easy, not-tidy... but for these kids, it’s real. It’s sustainable. It’s life-changing for good. So also it is for me. 

It's not a quick fix, but maybe that's never what they were asking for. Maybe just a walk alongside.

By a twist of grace, I’ve found myself somewhat responsible for children orphaned by AIDS in Addis. For now, about 400 of them directly.

And for these kids, and hopefully more, “urban poverty” doesn’t end at a conundrum.

And for those through which that has become true, who have gone before me, or have since joined me..  Thank You. :)

More about this little girl later. 

And disclaimer again, this is my personal blog. These are my thoughts, not my work's, and represent nothing more or less than just my wanderings that you're welcome to join into. :)

Urban poverty is a funny cat.

Keep your coins, I want change

So, I'm having a meeting over coffee at a Tim Hortons and a homeless man is 25cents short of change for his order and turns around to ask if anyone might have a quarter. To their chagrin, an older couple tsk tsk's at him as I slip him some change. On the way out, the lady leans over to me to say, "If you do that every time, you'll go broke!" "I think we've got lots to share." "Well, that was very kind of you!" if 25 cents has become our measure of extraordinary kindness, we've got bigger issues to deal with. "Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbors, "Come back later; I'll give it tomorrow" - when you now have it with you." -Proverbs 3:27-28

I didn't say it to be cheeky. And I didn't post this to my Facebook status to be funny. I'd just met with a bunch of high schoolers I took to Ethiopia in March over their Spring Break, and was afterwards having coffee with one of the students from last year's team. I was asking them what life has been like since coming home, and asking if they might -sacrificially- choose to support an AIDS orphan in Ethiopia for with a monthly gift of $40 a month, having seen first-hand how through those gifts, lives truly (read: TRULY) can. be. changed. $40 a month is not a small amount for a high school student. It also is in their power to act.

It is for all of us.

The verse was what I happened to be reading this morning. Proverbs - Proverbs 3, especially. Words of wisdom. Words to live by in living well. "Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, for [wisdom] is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. [Wisdom]'s ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed. Do not let wisdom and understanding out of your sight.. they will be life for you." (3:13-14,17-18, 21-22)

The encounter with this lady grieved me. I spoke to her kindly.

Something else I was just reading yesterday while on the skytrain, in a book called "New Monasticism". the premise of it about living in intentional community. Used without permission, but I feel like he wouldn't mind too much. :)

*  *  *

The stories we hear about money are mostly stories about scarcity. The reason we have economics, I learned in college, is because of scarcity. There’s just not enough stuff for everyone to get what they want. We’ve got limited resources and unlimited desires. So human beings develop systems to organize our economic relations and try to make sure everyone gets enough. We try to dream up the system that will best deliver the resources to the people who need them. We do this because we have to in order to survive.

Rarely do we question this basic story. Most debates about economics simply ask which of the systems that people have dreamed up best distributes the limited resources available to us. We accept the assumption the scarcity. But Jesus didn’t. [There’s] a story about how Jesus taught and healed all day once in a deserted place where a crowd had followed him. About suppertime, when the disciples no doubt starting to get hungry themselves, they came to Jesus and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves” (Matt 14:15). The disciples were being economic realists. There wasn’t enough food in that deserted place for all those people. Two fish and five loaves of bread – that was all they had. But Jesus said, “They need not go away, you give them something to eat” (14:16).

Jesus didn’t buy the assumption of scarcity. He knew a different story about how the world works. In the beginning, the earth was dark and void of any resources. But God spoke and there was light. God spoke and there was land, water, trees, and fish. “All things came into being through [Christ], and without him not one thing came into being “(John 1:3). Jesus knew a story that didn’t begin with scarcity but with God.

There is an economy of abundance that is more real than the stories of scarcity that we know. Jesus took the two fish and five loaves, gave thanks, and broke the bread. He broke it just as he would later break the bread that he called his body. And he gave it to the disciples. “You give them something to eat,” he told them. And it had sounded like nonsense. But they did. The disciples shared what they had and, miraculously, it was more than enough. “And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full” (14:20).

If we have any hope of salvation, it is because of the miracle of God’s abundance. And if we believe the story of justification by faith, I guess we ought to receive the gift of God’s economy by faith too.

Maybe the most radical thing about God’s economy is that it frees us to be generous. Jesus said “Give to everyone who begs from you” (Matt. 5:42), but I don’t think we believe he really meant it. How could you possibly give to whoever asks? There are limited resources and unlimited request. Wouldn’t you go broke?

Jesus who calls us to generosity is the One who created everything out of nothing and fed five thousand with two fishes and five loaves of bread. As we receive the gift of God’s economy, we are able to better practice the generosity that Jesus thought possible.

I’m not saying that generosity always overcomes the deep divisions that exist between the haves and the have-nots. But God invites us into a context where it’s possible. And sometimes, by grace, the miracle of reconciliation really does happen.

Because the people of God are called together to bless all the peoples of the earth, we can’t step back from public engagement with the filthy rotten system that crushes many of God’s children. But neither do we resist it with the weapons of the world. New monasticism has been learning that celebration is our best tactic of resistance. We celebrate because God has already given to us the daily bread and debt forgiveness that we need to end poverty now.

Our resistance does not come from fear that we will destroy ourselves if we do not take care of the poor, even though that is true. It does not even come from anger, though there are good reasons to be angry with the filthy rotten system. Instead, we resist out of joy. We defy the filthy rotten system when we share our bread with neighbours and remember the manna economy God has given us to enjoy.

~ (adapted from) New Monasticism - Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.

*   *   *

I've been meaning to share some stories from Ethiopia. All I've got for two months is a bunch of zebras on Facebook. :S I will sit down and do it tomorrow.

Bless :)

Rainbow

What if I'm the one?

I had sooooo very many stories I wanted to share from Ethiopia last year... and some of my thoughts through the year. And they were to be well illustrated with all kinds of great photos! But... there never seems to be enough hours in a day or days in a year (even on a leap year)! :)  Somehow the whole year's flown by, I've hoarded my pictures :P, and here I am again, about to hop onto a flight again over the Atlantic! Why? For Take 2 of a special UNION team of senior highschool students from Yale Secondary School  from Abbotsford, BC. And, why?

To see the reality of poverty and need as it really is...

... tangible opportunities for change...

... and the place we find ourselves in in the world to respond!

A video for you :)  Made by one of the students on the team last year after we got back.



I love it. Because it asks just the right question :)  (well, there are many good questions to ask.. but it asks a good one!).


And if I see one more child walking
Just one more mile for water
If I wait one more minute longer
It's one too many


When I think of what could be
If we let our hearts believe
That it takes just one
Just one
Could turn this all around


And if we're living history
How will they think of you and me
If it takes just one, just one
What if, what if, what if I'm the one?

What if I'm the one? Not to be a hero, or the saviour. But to be a friend?  And if you come to know HOPE and HOPE's projects... oooh, how true you will see that is! More, when I get the chance. :)

An elementary school a few blocks from HOPE's office in New West did a "Run For Water" about this time last year, to raise money for clean water in Ethiopia. After their event, the Grade 2/3 class walked over from their school to gleefully deliver all the funds they raised, and we had cupcakes to celebrate. A month or two later, a little boy from that school came back with his mom. He'd just turned 8. He rang our bell and handed over a little envelope of money. It was his birthday money.

I want to give it to the kids in Ethiopia to have clean water. 

That little guy got it. :) His eagerness to open his hands to give nothing more or less than just what he had, with a heart of joy and compassion... will change the world.

John 6:5-15. A story of five thousand hungry people and a compassionate, miraculous Jesus. And... a little boy. With five small barley loaves and two small fish he was willing to share. If you don't know how the story ends... it ends well. :) With no more hungry people. And a lot of leftovers.

I wonder what became of that little boy in that little glimmer, that little glimpse of being part of heaven gracing the earth. :)  What else did he believe enough to see into reality?

When I think of what could be
If we let our hearts believe
That it takes just one
Just one 
Could turn this all around

"UNION", our overseas volunteer program, stands for "Understanding Needs In Other Nations". I don't think "WIITO?" will have the same ring. But with open eyes and hearts, I hope that's what it inspires. :)

 What if I'm the one?

:)

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I don't think I'll have any internet access at all while I'm away.... so hopefully I'll be better at playing blog catch up this time when I get back..we'll see! :)  Til then,  much love! ~ Rainbow