Helen Keller
Recorded by Lucille, December 27, 1930
It's about two in the morning and I am wrestling.
I am immersed in Ethiopia in my head. The house is quiet and the sounds and people and demands of the world as I've known it are all snoring softly in their beds.
The world as I've discovered it, is wide awake.
Ethiopia is eleven hours ahead, so my friends working across the Atlantic are busy tackling the sounds, people and demands of their world. Stephne might rescue a baby this day, or train an Ethiopian social worker. The doctors and staff at Soddo Christian Hospital may remove a tumor or repair an intestine. They will certainly save a life. They face a different sort of health care crisis there. Sam has returned to the children's home from his visit back to the states, his heart full to bursting and tearing as it's affections take root on two continents, for the children he's lived with these past sixth months have taken up residence in his heart.
In my mind I'm in Ethiopia because a few things happened to me when I visited there last November.
*One, I left a part of my heart there. How could I not? I met dear friends, hugged countless strangers, ate lamb cooked over a fire with kocho bread, listened to the joy-drenched voices rising from barefoot coffee farmers. I fell in love.
*Two, I discovered that there was a part of my life I hadn't yet lived, would have entirely missed had I given into the pressing limitations, the perpetual temptations and the whispers of my past that worked as a team to try and talk me into staying put, right here in my cozy house. I would have missed it! I would never have known that I could participate in something that much bigger than my day to day life. I would have missed the opportunity to see the handiwork of a huge God as he faithfully revealed himself in Ethiopia.
*Three, I realized that my personal "highest possibilities", well, I haven't attained them yet! Not by a long shot! But, I'm thrilled to know in my heart and by my experience that limitations, temptations and failures are lies but the fight is real and the joy is found in beating the lies down just enough to glimpse the higher things.
There are failures of the world.
There are failures of my life and even of this day.
Sometimes the limitations, even the very small ones, when stacked upon each other like so many bricks, can seem to form a mountain insurmountable. Much like the one made of dirty dishes in my kitchen sink.
They'll wait for tomorrow.
For tonight, I'll keep working on the website ideas for New Covenant Foundation, I'll look at the pictures and remember that the failures of the world have built a mountain of poverty in places like Ethiopia, and it takes me, and you, and a few other willing folks, to knock it down.
Africa does seem to have that effect on people, I've noticed. Especially someone with a heart for serving, as you obviously do. Can't wait to see how God uses this unrest!
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