In 2002 my assistant pastor asked me to go give a talk for her in Ethiopia. It was for an AIDS conference, but she couldn't go what with her being South African and our government's fears of all things African. She was afraid they wouldn't let her back into the country. Oh and she does have 2 children here in the states. So of course Mother M said yes. Doesn't everyone just pick up and toot off to Ethiopia? It was a real garden spot after 911 right? Long and short of it, after the shots, the visas etc, pastor didn't write the paper, but I went anyway. I figured I would figure it out when I got there. I am a woman of faith.
Two days into the conference and I still wasn't sure why I was there. In truth I was the only honky social worker amongst hundreds of well-educated women theologians from all over Africa. While seated in my group they passed around condoms (male and female) and the women didn't know what they were or how to use them. So I wound up doing AIDS training with no "models" (read black dildos) nor drawings of the female anatomy. I used bananas and melons and you can just figure out how that worked.
The following day we drove to see the head of the Blue Nile and Debre Libanos, the oldest church in Christendom. As we drove into this exquisite countryside, a faint mist dampening the windshield, we saw only vacant huts (we call them shambas in Kenya). The roads were strangely barren of the usual hordes of people who walk them carrying their bundles on their donkeys or more impressively on their heads. I turned to the driver to ask, and then it hit me. AIDS they were all dead from AIDS. Indeed in that part of Ethiopia the infection rate was over 30%.
My heart sank. Here I was thinking I was going to make this huge difference in people's lives, and the vastness of the problem led me to despair. Who was I do make any change? What could I possibly do one lone woman trying to teach and hoping to help children? I was a social worker from Boston, and I swore Africa was the last place I wanted to visit. Ha! Slowly I understood His message: "Be a raindrop, I will bring the rain."
What I have learned is that there are many folks with really good hearts that want to do something for the planet, but either they get overwhelmed with the problem or they want to do it by themselves and yesterday would be their time schedule. Maybe it's working in Africa and seeing people lead their lives with such grace, maybe it's learning that it is always His way not my way that has helped me understand this concept. We have to have faith that we are all raindrops and our job isn't to fix the world, but to join with others and maybe make a little puddle, but ultimately have faith that God will clean it up. |
