Spoke too soon!

OK, so maybe I spoke too soon!

Having written yesterday about how I felt relatively comfortable being in the US on vacation, even though it was so soon after being in Ethiopia and Rwanda, and how I seemed to be able to span the gap between the massively different cultures, I then had an experience last night which reminded me about reverse culture shock, and how it can get you at the most random of times.

We had a lovely day yesterday – up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, hiking, picnicking, clambering on insanely huge boulders, and just reveling in God’s creation. Then it was back to our friends’ house to enjoy a lovely meal and conversation together; and we were finishing the evening by strolling down to the town centre to try out the local Frozen Yogurt shop for desserts.

And that was when it got me – as we stepped into the shop I was confronted by about 14 different varieties of Frozen Yogurt that I had to choose between, plus about 30 different toppings and 8 different sauces. And the pot sizes went from large to obscenely large. As I did some deep breaths to try and contain the rising panic, the song playing on the in-shop entertainment system switched and it became ‘You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone’. Don’t know who it was by, but I do know that the last time I heard that song being sung was in Addis Ababa just over a week ago when the oldest group sang it as part of the cup song performance that they did.

All the images and faces came flooding back, and I felt as though I had been knocked sideways; the contrast between the then-and-now seemed too much to get my head round.

One of the girls in that group singing the cup song was Frehiot, or Free for short. Free is 17 and she was born to a high class prostitute working in a big hotel. When Free was just 3 years old, her Mum gave her away to be ‘cared for’ by her Aunty. Free was very badly absued and at one point the abuse was such that her arm was broken. Free’s childhood revolved around being abused, having to make bootleg whisky and missing lots of school . She was very unhappy to say the least.

Last year her Mum met Women At Risk and, through participation in their programme and her subsequent total change in lifestyle, she asked to have Free back. Free is now living with her mum again, and is very happy. She is back at school and studying to work in agriculture, with a new sense of hope. A lovely ending to the story, but her lost childhood still lingers in those big brown eyes.

So when I heard the song yesterday evening, the stories of Free, and Abel, and Turako, and Mandela, all came flooding back, and I felt somewhat overwhelmed with the contrast between the two locations.

Now I don’t want this to sound as though it is an anti-American blog: we have some great friends out here, who are really passionate about helping the hurting and the lost and broken, both in their own communities, and in the wider world, but it just felt incongruous to be in a land of so much when just across the Atlantic are so many with so little. In the small hours of last night I worked out that just one of the homes in this particular neighbourhood could fit about 30 of the Ethiopian shacks I was in last week – how does that stack up!!!  How does it work that the water coming from the sprinkler systems here to keep the grass so nicely green and watered, could provide safe drinking water for all the street kids of Rwanda?

But as I pounded the streets this morning, still mulling it over, I reached the conclusion that it’s OK to feel confused about it all, that it’s a sign I’m still human, and have a soft heart. It’s not my place to judge, it’s my place to love; and to share the stories of the people I love, and who God loves, whatever their nationality or status in life. At the end of the day God loves the Ethiopians and the Rwandans and the Americans – God made them all, and loves them all; who am I to do anything different!