Away We Go

In less than 24 hours my friend and co-worker, Jill VanderBent and I will be boarding a plane for Addis Ababa Ethiopia!

We are headed to the other side of the world to teach a group of people that we know very little about their language, culture, customs, even day to day life. We are going to need to be humble and learn way more from them before we can even begin to think we can be teachers. We will meet children living in orphanages. Children who have experienced grief, loss and trauma more than we can imagine. We will listen to roosters and mice and crawl across the roof as we sleep. We will be breathing smog and diesel all day. We will be richer than everyone we see. We will see Muslims and Christians, Mercedes and Donkeys sharing the same streets. This trip came up very quickly and we have had little time to plan, but as we drove all over West Michigan today getting ready we pondered a few thoughts...

Emotions: How will this experience impact us emotionally? How will we react? Emotionally, Intellectually? Will we keep a wall up to keep on task and then will the experience set in later? Or will we meet people, children, families that will bring us to tears immediately? When and how will we react? Intellectually it is there, but when we let it sink into our heart what will that feel like?How can we prevent trauma, secondary can you or do you just have to take really good care of yourself? How can you take really good care of yourself in another, foreign country. How much self care will we need to prevent trauma?


Experience: What will Africa be like? What will we be drawn to, the people, the environment? Will it meet our expectations? What are our expectations and where did they come from. Every time I reference Africa it is to tell children where all the cool animals come from, or where the Lion King lives. Will we want to take all the children home and how will it feel when we can't. Will we ever throw away uneaten food again?

Training: How will it go? Will what we prepared apply? Will they like what we worked so hard on? Will they get my sense of humor?

So with that on our minds we both head to bed, one in Holland the other in Jenison, our last night with our families for 11 days. Stay posted faithful readers and new readers! We are excited to have you along for the ride!