The courageous women of Ethiopia

We've recently gone on a trip to Jinka over New Years (more pictures will follow later I promise), we saw many, many different things on our trip but one of the things that really stayed with me was the women. You have to drive for two days in order to get to Jinka and all along the way we saw women. Women carrying so much firewood or corn or water that I wondered how they could even stand upright let alone walk. We saw women cleaning and cooking and looking after their babies, and not just women, young girls were working too. We met a woman who had just lost her third in a row in labor, and another who had given birth to an abnormal child. As well as several others who were waiting patiently for their babies to arrive. Not to mention the missionaries we visited, both of them have been here, on their own, 15 years or more. When I look at these courageous women I find myself looking at my life and feeling a little guilty. My problems don't seem so big anymore. I would love to learn from these women where their strength comes from. How do you find the willpower and the joy to go on, to get up every morning, to simply live. I'm not implying that my life is so much better than theirs or that they would be so much happier if their lives were just more carefree or sheltered. I'm simply fascinated and humbled.

Sometimes it's easy to feel like I'm a mature adult who's learned a good deal about life and how to live it, I mean I do live in Ethiopia without my parents right?! But meeting these women I realize that I have a long way to go. It also gives me hope, hope because although these women were all very very different and although I didn't really get to know many of them very well, they were all living their life, most of them with a smile on their lips. It gives me hope that one day I will be able to live a courageous life as woman. That maybe one day I will find my place in the world where I honor God and serve other people. It also gives me hope that if God really is calling me to be a single missionary, then, with the power and strength that comes through him, I can do it. All in all our trip to Jinka gave me a renewed respect in the women of Ethiopia, both the lokals and the expats and it made me realize how much I can learn from them, and how much I want to.