Posted on

ethiopia, here i come…

In less than a week, I get to go to Ethiopia and be with Jesus and precious people He loves.

I feel so excited, and also a little sad because I will miss my family. As friends prayed over me today and mentioned my husband and children’s names individually before the Lord, I was struck, again, by the beauty of my LIFE that I get to live here with them.

As I have said in recent posts, family life is hard. Sometimes I’m grieving, sometimes I’m confused. I am not saying it is smooth or easy. But it is beautiful.

About four years ago, I got my first tattoo and it was a step of faith – not the tattoo, but what it said and meant. It says “life is beautiful”. It was a time in my life where my daily existence didn’t feel beautiful, but I was proclaiming what GOD said about it! A year later, I went back and added three more lines to the tattoo, each saying “life is beautiful” in the three other languages that have greatly blessed and affected my life: Bambara (Mali), Amharic (Ethiopia-adopting Yemi), & Haitian Kreyol (Haiti-adopting Eva & Zoe).

Although I will keep it covered in Ethiopia most likely, the Amharic line goes with me next week as I live and abide in this truth: Ethiopian lives are beautiful. Each are created in the image of God. The ones living in the garbage dump in Kore, the ones working at the daycare, preschool, and kindergarten, the ones begging on a street corner. I am already overwhelmed (with heavy gratitude and awe) to foresee how many eyes and faces and hands and souls I will come in contact with, and I have ONE prayer…

That through the power of the Holy Spirit, my eyes and smile will convey that I value them, that Jesus loves them, that Creator God is for them not against them, that they are seen and known by Him, and that this Holy Spirit interaction will indeed enact desire for GRACE BY FAITH in Jesus.

Other than my last time in Ethiopia, I can’t think of a place I have gone that I could not speak at least a preschool version of the language. In Amharic, I’ve got nothing! How awesome to know that my lack and inability will be so deep and wide, making lots of room for Him to speak in the spirit realm.

As was confirmed with my sweet friends this morning, it is my lack and inability that truly is the “new wineskins” that Jesus needed me to prepare for Him to fill with new wine. Maybe the old wineskins were my laws and my self-righteousness, my abilities and commitment level and strengths. Now, both in this Ethiopian trip and in my new desire for the counseling and prayer ministry, I only have this to offer: Me (weaknesses & all) plus the grace and presence of Jesus. And how clear it is in this moment that my beautiful life was not meant to be anything but that.

Posted on

20 Years From Africa

October 25th always feels important. It also feels like it represents a different life I once lived, a life that very few people in my life can truly have access to.

I became a missionary with the IMB October 25, 1999 and –ironically and unplanned– it was exactly October 25th, 2000 that I came back home to Kentucky. I served in Mali, West Africa, in a village where my main goals were to learn the language, share the gospel in a variety of ways, and do basic first aid and any community help I could give.

I loved it. I felt like I was made for it!

I was really sick, however, and I didn’t have enough support from missionaries on the field to make it livable for any longer than that year, sadly.

I don’t write a blog today to say I have made total peace with that experience, but I do write to say I am glad I lived it. I will never forget Mamu’s face when she became a believer in Jesus. I will never forget the dugutigi’s laugh. I will never forget the dirty, beautiful, precious kids’ faces and fingers pressed through the metal shutters on my windows. I will never smell an outside fire without closing my eyes and being back in Dialakorobougou. It’s a memory no one can ever take away from me.

Twenty years ago! The children are grown men and women, with kids of their own. Many of them are likely not alive. I still randomly have dreams about flying back there spontaneously just to see how things have changed, and to see if my mud covered house is still there. I hope kids get to play in there. 🙂 I hope the gospel was passed down, and is still being passed down. I hope my friend Ane’s family is still living and happy.

I was just a little part of their lives for a little time. But it’s a part of my story. A chapter. And it’s neat to think I was a part of their stories, too. When I think of it this way, it’s really not all that complicated. I am happy I was there to share God’s love and mercy with anyone I could.

Jesus kept saying in the gospels to simply love God and love others. The NLT version I am reading right now says that Jesus said your neighbor is anyone who needs mercy. I look around and I see that everybody needs mercy. I need mercy, too.

We are all right now living out a chapter of our lives. I hope each of us are feeling mercy from others…and I hope each of us are carrying mercy to give. This chapter is all we have right now, and someday we will have the pleasure of seeing the whole book.

Posted on

Mamu

20140720-165831-61111549.jpgApproximately fourteen years ago, after weeks of storying through the Bible with several friends in my village, Dialakorobougou…

my friend, Mamu Coulibaly, heard the story of Jesus for the first time.

She was probably about 30 years old and had 6 kids. She had probably heard the name of Jesus because He is mentioned in the Muslim religion, but she had never heard that there was a way to have her sins washed away. She didn’t know that Creator God wanted a relationship with her and even created her for that very purpose. When she heard what Jesus did and why He did it, she told me she believed and asked how to start that relationship. Within a week or so, she came to my house and repeated a prayer with me; we talked about how to cultivate that new relationship with Someone you couldn’t see, and then I realized, we hadn’t made it past the crucifixion story!

Really, without thinking much of it, I got out my Bambara Bible and pictures and began telling her the story of the Jesus’s resurrection. I will never forget her reaction as long as I live! It was SO funny. As most missionaries can probably commiserate with, for a few moments in the story I wasn’t even sure if she was paying attention, but she apparently was because as soon as I said that after three days in the tomb, Jesus rose from the dead and walked around talking to people, she looked up at me like I had just pulled a practical joke on her. She kept shaking her head and kind of laughing, she kept saying ,”No, no, Safiatu…” I showed her the Bible, even though she was not literate, to point out that if it’s in here it’s true! I’ll never forget that moment.

That was July 20, 2000. Four of her children also became believers shortly after.

Sadly, when I left due to health issues at the end of October 2000, I wasn’t able to keep in touch. I had a missionary bring them some letters and wedding pictures for awhile but as the team disbursed, I had no connection. The address for Mamu would look something like this: Mamu Coulibaly (the equivalent of Sue Jones), Dialakorobougou, Mali, West Africa. No post office out there in the bush, no street name or house number. That makes me sad but it is wonderful to know I will indeed see her again someday.

“When we all get to Heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be! When we all see Jesus, we’ll sing and shout the victory!”