African Women

Written October 25, 2010

“We’re actually living in Africa.” The thought dawned on me once again this evening as Sarah and I were watching a documentary about three “Lost Boys” from Sudan. (Fascinating documentary by the way! It’s called “God Grew Tired of Us.” Watch it if you get a chance!!!) That thought randomly occurs to me from time to time. It’s strange to be living the life of a Student Missionary. It’s just like a former SM told me before I came over here: “When you get to the mission field, you’re still you. You’ll still have good days, you’ll still have bad days. You’ll still be Olivia.” Nothing could be more true. As I grow up, I’ve found that the big changes in life never feel the way I expect them to. I feel that when I reach that “next level” of life, I will feel different; that in a way, I’ll be a different person. Graduating high school, turning 18, going to college, becoming a Student Missionary—all of these are milestones that come with certain expectations. Every time, however, I find that I am still me. Different circumstances, different challenges, but the same me. And so it is with living on another continent. “Life in Africa” sounds exotic to me. But it’s not, really. Yes, there is an adjustment period and things are different. But the more cultural barriers I overcome, the more I realize that life here is not all that different from life in the States. I do still have wonderful days, days where I see all the love and beauty of the people and places around me. And, yes, I still have rotten days—days where life is overwhelming and I wish for different circumstances. Anyways, I feel like recently my blog entries have been musings on the irony of life—probably not too fun to read. Guess I’m just trying to process life and all the things it is teaching me.

On a (hopefully) more interesting note, life here in Ethiopia continues to chug on by. Tomorrow marks week TEN for Sarah and I here in this little orphanage. Outside of our normal “routine” of teaching, clinic visits, and orphanage time, we’ve had time with other Farenjiis over the last week. There are two groups here right now working on the orphanage, one from Montana and the other from Oregon. The main project has been to build a small library under the water tower on campus. They also hope to work on a garden, do more construction on the new boys’ dorm, in addition to other odd jobs. It’s been fun to have them here. Also, last week, Sarah and I joined Taylor for a trip Southeast. He had business in Addis and then in Adama, which is an hour South of Addis and invited us to join him. Since a two-hour bus ride is much easier than a nine-hour one (the length of a bus ride to Gimbie, where he lives), we decided to take two days off and join him. We also hadn’t been feeling 100% and were eager for some time to rest and recuperate. So, after school on Wednesday, we caught a bus to Addis Ababa and our vacation began. We spent the first night in Addis, and enjoyed INCREDIBLE food at a Greek restaurant in town. Real pizza, delicious bread and olive oil, and much more. Yum! Games and a funny video finished our fun evening and we were off to bed. Our trip to Adama began early the next morning. While in Adama, we enjoyed more tasty food, lots of much needed sleep, fun friend time, as well as being “adopted” by a local Adventist couple, who showed us their schools (which were INCREDIBLE—future SMs, contact me for more info), took us to lunch on Friday, vespers, church, Sabbath lunch, and had us over Saturday night to their friends’ house for food and fellowship. The trip was just what we needed to rejuvenate and get ready for another week at the orphanage. And so we’re back—back to real life. Missionaries will be here for two more weeks, and then we only have a few weeks on our own until Thanksgiving, which we’ll spend at Gimbie. Time is flying by. Life isn’t easy, but God is good. I was sad to come back to the busyness of life here on Sunday, but being mobbed with hugs by the kids upon our return helped ease me back into it. Blessings to all of you around the world! Thanks again for the emails, letters, and packages. Hugs to you all!