Last night, the final night in Ethiopia, I
got some sickness bug that totally wiped me out. It’s a long time since I’ve
been ill like that, and I had forgotten how exhausting and draining it is to do
even the simplest tasks.
Queuing at the check-in line at the airport
I just had to keep sitting on the floor as I didn’t have the energy to stand up,
and everything was done in slow motion. Most of the flight home was spent
sleeping as I didn’t have the energy to do anything else.
I didn’t enjoy the experience at all, but
one thing it did do was cause me to reflect on the fact that for some of the
people that I’ve met this week, that feeling of exhaustion and being washed out
is the norm. Whether it is due to long-term illness, or due to poverty and lack
of regular nutritional food, for some they have to carry out all their tasks in
this state. And as a result they don’t get their tasks done very fast which
means they get less done than is needed, and so the spiral downwards continues.
How to escape or break that spiral is the
key, and the sad truth is that for some it might not happen if they don’t have access to the right
help. But for others, the spiral can be broken, through the intervention of
agencies such as Women At Risk, AHISDO, GNPDR, and all the other CRED Partners
who are working tirelessly to bring hope into the dark lives of so many. It’s
an honour to be able to be involved in their work, even in a small way, and as
a result help ensure that the poverty spiral is broken.
I don’t particularly want that bug again,
but I do love the way that God can use even the most uncomfortable experiences
to help prompt us to become more aware about His work in this world
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