To trust in God is a big comitment, not to mention a hard task to do. However... What if it's all you can do?
Before I left to Ethiopia, I was very distracted from God and my time with Him. I'd be praying and get a text, press pause on my conversation with God and reply to whomever had texted me. And if I do that with God, of course I did it with people. In the middle of a conversation, ears half on them and eyes fully on my phone. I wasn't the only one either, it's simply how our culture is and how technology has effected us.
But in Ethiopia we couldn't use our phones. Well... really we could, if we wanted to pay $200 a phone call. So we didn't. What I noticed is that the relationships we found there grew so much more fast, strong and real, which is why it was much harder to leave them there after just two weeks then it would ever be to leave someone here after just two weeks. In Ethiopia, people actually listened when we spoke, and we learned to listen to them.
Listening to the Ethiopians was so powerful. That's not what I expected either since there is such a big langage barrier. I expected to just guess at what they were saying, smile and nod. But then... I realized the effort they were putting in to speak english to me, just because they wanted to talk to me. Because they wanted to listen to me. Given, most of them knew more english than I did amahric I was inclined to put in just as much effort. I no longer wanted to assume what they were saying, but to actually know and understand and listen to what they were saying. Their words sounded different, and not because they pronounced english words funny. But because they seemed like they were from a different place....
Like, when we got told we were beautiful. It wasn't because they wanted something from us... it was because they thought we were beautiful. And what was special about this in specific, was we didn't all exactly look our best. Messy hair, little to no make up, greasy hair, unmatching clothes and they STILL said we were Konjo (beautiful) and they meant it, because it did come from a place of realness, of being genuine. Something we've lost in America....
At YoungLife camps, the last night you get an intense talk and you can decide to follow Christ or not. And being helpers we didn't have to stay and listen, mostly because we couldn't understand Amharic. Still about 5 of us stayed. And as we were sitting there listening to what sounded like jiberish I prayed. I prayed for those words to go into every kids heart in that room and that they would just speak to them. And I kinda heard myself telling myself to listen... So I listened and nothing. But I kept listening and I heard english in my head, something like what I imagined the talk being about. And afterwards I went up to Moji, our main leader and asked him what they talk was about. And it happened to be very similar to those words I herd in my head.
So I learned that God doesn't just speak one language. He speaks all languages, which I knew before but now I realize it. And you don't have to understand the person talking if you're listening for God's words.
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