Wede Bet (Goin Home)

 

   “Last night, Kayla!” Cherrie exclaimed.

My last night? I guess it is… By the time this blog lands in your inboxes, I will be hovering over the Atlantic. Thank you, Charles, for making it so that I don’t have to do this by ship. It’s tomorrow? Wow. Not very poetic, I know, but that’s really the word that has come out of my mouth the most this week. Wow.

I just read my first blog from July, 2012. In the middle I said:

“There are so many unknowns about this year. Yet, I remain excited to see what God will make out of me, how He will change me, and what He will do with me in Ethiopia.”

I study my tired feet on the coffee table and think about what God did make of me, how He changed me, and how He used me in Ethiopia this year. Um…again, wow. I marvel at those changes.

My best friend from nursing school, Caitlin, could tell you. I filled her blue eyes with pictures and her ears with stories of Ethiopia for the longest two years of our young lives. She kindly never told me to talk about something different, and I never did! She always said she was going to come visit me in Ethiopia when I was living there. A lot of people say that, and no one has ever come. But Caitlin came. J
She came two hours late on a midnight flight from Kenya on September 1^st. We planned for her to come for the last ten days of my time here. I was so excited for her to come. I had a sticky note on my computer screen entitled: Stuff to Do with Caitlin. It has been a wonderful week of showing her my world here, which is so very different from any world she has ever known. I took Caitlin to my clinic twice, where we saw patients together.

On the last day we had some really tough patients.
 A young man who had gotten his foot run over by a grinder at work came in. He had a blood soaked bandage wrapped around his toes. I pealed it off the wound and found old loosened stitches that were supposedly holding his severed skin together. The gash went across his big toe and the second one. I took those stitches out, and replaced them with new ones. Caitlin opened my packages and handed me my tools. (For any of my CCC instructors that are reading this, we did keep sterile procedure.) ;) Thank you again to the emergency room doctors who taught me to suture a short time ago. We wrapped his toes afresh, gave him a baggie to change his dressings, and instructed him to go to a clinic to have the stitches removed.

One woman limped in on swollen feet. She fell into the plastic chair and struggled through pursed lips to breathe. Her lungs were a mess, her heart beat was irregular and fast, blood pressure was high. The urinalysis led us to believe her kidneys weren’t doing their job. Caitlin shook her head. “She needs a cardiac specialist.” I agreed. We do have some cardiac and respiratory medicines in the clinic, but when we run out it’s gone. We are not able to do proper follow-up, and that was my last day there. I had taken the remainder of my tithe to give away to a patient at the clinic. I closed the money in her hand and told her to go to the cardiac clinic in the city. She also told me that part of her home had been demolished by the government as they built a road in that area. She was living in half a house with her alcoholic husband. Before she left, we all gathered around her and prayed. We prayed over her health, her marriage, her financial situation, and her spiritual life. By the Amen, everyone was crying. We hugged her good-bye, and she puffed out the door. As soon as she left I dismissed myself to the store room and fell apart. My last day in the clinic brought a lot of surprised emotions. At this moment there is no one to replace me. The clinic falls under Great Hope, the Ethiopian NGO I have been working under. Emily and I have been volunteers, but we are leaning toward handing it over to the Ethiopian people so they are not dependant on us foreigners. The Ethiopian nurse would need a salary, but at this point there is not a budget with which to hire one. Pray that God provides a sponsor to pay for a nurse’s salary. Until He provides those funds, the clinic door is closed.

           I asked Caitlin if she thought I had changed. She nodded vigorously. “Oh yes. You grew up a lot.” She said I was less naïve, and now knew how to just get things done. “For example,” She threw a hand out for emphasis, “when we were in Korah and I had to go to the bathroom. You showed me the hole and I said, ‘Eww! No way’. You were like, ‘Don’t be a baby! Just pull down your pants and go!’”
           While I did indeed become very comfortable squatting over a hole, the greater changes took place in my heart. This year, I saw tragedy and loss, victory and salvations, birth and death, suffering and relief of suffering. I saw so much. In everything I walked through, there was only one thing that remained consistent. Jesus Christ, my hope of glory, is all that I need. He is. He is all that you need too. In America, the land of plenty and material blessing, we are often distracted by our possessions. The word for “stuff” in Amharic is Ika. I think it’s one of those words that sound like their meaning. Ika. Stuff. When we are sitting in the middle of all our ika it’s hard to see. There is not a lot of ika here in Ethiopia. But, believe it or not there is plenty of distraction here too.

Most people who have been on short term mission trips think that being a missionary on a foreign field is just a long term spiritual high. I can now testify and affirm that it is not. This year was the most spiritually rigorous period of time I have ever experienced. Even on the mission field, I had to intentionally make time to spend in prayer and in God’s Word. The Christian community here is small, making fellowship hard to find. The presence of Satan is real and heavy in the places I have been working. This year was hard. My family, my friends, my community, my home, English speakers, convenience, deli meat sandwiches were all on the other side of the ocean. (No one judge me on the sandwiches.) My few American friends here and I would look at each other and bemoan the things we were missing. Our ika. We moan and joke together about what we miss, but I know all my friends here would agree that Ethiopia will teach you that Jesus Christ is all that we need. We were put on this earth to know God, and to bring glory to His name. Regardless of where He has called you, in the home of your birth or a mud house in the Congo, know God. Bring Him glory. He is all that you need.

I am flying home as you read. Please pray for my transition back to America. I do not expect it to be easy. I don’t know where God will have me put my next step. I’ll keep you posted. Thank you for following with me on this journey and for your prayers and support.

I love you all, and I’ll see you on the other side.