If I’m going to be completely honest, in many ways I saw our return trip to Ethiopia as a task to be checked off my to-do list. Sure, I love the people and culture and food of Ethiopia, but I also knew that a return trip was going to be difficult. I often felt like a saleswoman pitching an idea to my sons. “Oh, it will be so good for us all to go back! I want you to be proud to be from Ethiopia! The weather is beautiful, and you’ll get to miss three day of school. What’s not to love!?” In trying to sell to them, I was also selling the idea to myself.
Other adoptive parents had told me that a return trip helped their kids feel more grounded, anchored. They reassured me that their adopted children came home feeling more confident in who they are and proud of their heritage. But I also had my own list of worries, lengthy, as usual: How would they handle the language barrier? Would Ethiopians judge us for not helping them retain Amharic? What about the abject poverty? Would that make my sons feel guilty when looking at our American abundance? My oldest son chose to go by his American middle name several years ago, but in Ethiopia we would return to his Ethiopian first name. Would that be difficult for him? I love a lot of things about God. I’m grateful beyond words that I am free from sin and death in Christ. I love the beauty of His creation and His people. And on this trip, over and over again, I was in awe of God’s ability to take my doubts and make something beautiful. From the second we got off the plane, this trip was better than I expected. I won’t share lots of details out of protection of my sons’ privacy, but I can share some of the simple goodness that made the trip better than anticipated. Other than our first day of extra fatigue, none of us experienced jet lag in Ethiopia. We immediately switched to the new time zone and slept through the night every night except one. Our guest house was perfect. Our room was small, but the hospitality was generous and the pancakes delicious. The boys made sweet memories trying to teach the guard to dribble a basketball that we left behind for him to enjoy. We ate so much injera -- at an amazing tibs stand, at traditional restaurants, in homes with cherished friends, at our guest house. Every bite was a delicious taste of “home” for all of us. And we never got sick. Not once. Not from the food or the water or the bumpy roads or the city exhaust. We were healthy and safe, and that is cause for celebration. On our second full day in Ethiopia, we left the city for the first time. With Solomon, our treasured driver and friend, behind the wheel, we drove south to visit Adadi Mariam, a rock-hewn church just a short drive outside of Addis. With a soundtrack of Teddy Afro and fistfuls of kolo, my favorite Ethiopian snack food, we raced by donkeys carrying loads of hay, farmers harvesting teff, and children helping in the fields. We stopped at a roadside vendor for sips of homemade beer and vodka, and we explored fields with volcanic rocks. Solomon paid to let the boys ride on a donkey cart, and after our visit to the church, built in the 12th century, we stopped for a coffee ceremony with a local family. This generosity was just the precursor to several other acts of selfless giving the four of us experienced, stories that we will tell and retell in the coming weeks and years. I’ve thought of Jesus’ teaching about the widow’s mite several times in the last week. Another day we drove north to the Portuguese Bridge with stops along the way for honey wine, avocado juice, and apple-bananas. The night before we had seen hyenas in the wild, and this day we saw baboons running free. We spent lunch on Thanksgiving Day overlooking the Jemma Gorge with misir wat and injera substituted for turkey and mashed potatoes. The view and the company were the best, and the gratitude was bubbling to my surface more than ever before on Thanksgiving Day. While in Ethiopia, I had a dream that upon our return, I was unable to talk of the trip without crying. And initially that was true. On the flight home I choked back tears several times because I was so overwhelmed by God’s goodness in all of the stories that were woven together during our short visit. We had questions answered that we hadn’t even planned to ask, and we saw pieces of the puzzle fall perfectly into place. On our first Sunday back at church, I couldn’t talk of our experience without tears; the words felt unspeakable, the experience too holy to name. And that’s God for you. He takes something that we see as an obligatory task on our to-do list and turns it into one of the best experiences of our life (and I'm not exaggerating). Water to wine, ashes to beauty. Victory from the grave. Since returning home we’ve faced some struggles. My self-diagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder has been in full swing as I ache for the sunshine and 70s of Addis, and my boys have had to dig their way out of a homework hole after being gone for a few days. Our hearts ache for friends old and new in Ethiopia. But the trip wasn’t a dream to wake up from; it was a destination we can return to. And I promise that we will.
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Facebook told me that today is National Sibling Day and that Cambridge Analytica stole all my personal data. Seems like a day to celebrate!
Basically, I have the two best siblings in the world, and no one can disagree. So there. I was the youngest by a few years, so I was equally parts spoiled and annoying. Mostly, family folklore says I was annoying. My earliest childhood memories include being dangled over the banister by Doug and struggling for breath as I suffocated (nearly) to death in the toy box. I had apparently gone TOO FAR, so he emptied out every. single. toy and then shoved me in and sat on the lid. I fully blame him for my claustrophobia and greatest fear of being buried alive. (I could also maybe blame the Days of Our Lives storyline in which Carly was buried alive by Vivian. But then we would have to also blame my mother for letting me watch DOOL at such a young age.) I'm guessing Brenda was equally annoyed by me. On the night of her junior prom, I was delegated the essential task of taking the traditional photo of Brenda and Rich (now her husband of over 20 years!) in front of the fireplace. Mom and Dad were already at the high school prepping for their chaperone duties. I, however, was clearly (and justifiably) angry that earlier that same day Brenda had refused to let me sleep in her full-size bed that night. Instead I would be forced to suffer another night in my comfortable twin bed that was just the right size for me. So because I was so deservedly angry, I posed Brenda and Rich in front of the mantle and snapped the photo. This was the pre-digital era, so imagine their surprise when they picked up the printed photos a week later to realize that I had snapped the perfect photo....from the neck down. I'd like to say that I got better with age, but that doesn't seem to be the case. When I was a freshman in college, I spent a month in Paris studying the language and culture. And also the male German tourists and the wine. Doug and Brenda drove several hours to retrieve me from the airport in Chicago. I spent the first six hours of the trip sobbing uncontrollably in the backseat because I was so desperate to return to the beautiful language and culture. And also to the male German tourists and the wine. I was an inconsolable mess of "I DON'T WANNA GO HOME!" So because they truly cared about my cultural development, they planned stops at the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan and the birthplace of John Deere. While I may not have been excited at the time, today I can look back with gratitude that I had these essential experiences in American history. (Excuse the photo quality. This was still the pre-digital age.) Despite my annoying tendencies, my siblings are two of my best friends today. Doug took me to a Billy Joel concert where I cried like a baby during "Piano Man." I can also attribute my uncanny knowledge about Larry Bird to Doug. He played the trumpet when I walked down the aisle, he routinely provides free medical advice, and he sends the best texts about our shared love of podcasts. (Give Revisionist History and Heavyweight a listen.) He loves me and my husband and my kids, and he makes a mean gin and tonic. Basically, he's the best. Brenda (a.k.a. B) brought her firstborn to visit me in my tiny studio apartment in Cedar Falls where we watched classic musicals on DVD. She sings the best harmonies to the Indigo Girls on roads trips, and she didn't even freak out when I cried at her 40th birthday party because post-adoptive depression is REAL. When I told her we were thinking about moving to Saint Paul, she didn't complain for one second but instead, in the fashion of our Grandma Dorothy, she encouraged and supported us every step of the way. Basically, she's the best. So today I raise a glass to Doug and Brenda. We don't always get to choose our family, but seriously these two are my #1 pick! (I'll write a blog for Cambridge Analytica some other day.) |
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September 2020
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