Hope Deferred

I am beginning to understand how girls in third world countries walk into slavery. They are desperate. They are told, and believe, in America everyone is rich. They are told they will have enough to eat, a nice bed, and beautiful clothes, luxuries they could never dream of. They will be able to send support back to their family. Just come with us. They do.

Instead, they end up in horrible bondage and abuse with no way of escape.

It is hard for me as an outsider to truly understand the weight they feel. The lack of nourishing food, such as meat and vegetables is very common. To get a meal with meat is almost unheard of. Many have no bed off the dirt floor to sleep on. Dampness in the rainy season, creepy crawlers, and mosquitoes are constant companions. Poor eye health and blindness is a side effect of the sun’s brightness. There is no money for sunglasses, let alone with beautiful colors and styles. There are no vitamins to supplement their lack and poor health is very common.

There were few fathers seen anywhere. Many grow up with no father figure but for a few schoolteachers, so the thought of someone loving them is very appealing.

 All the schools demand mandatory uniforms, and each family must also buy school supplies. There are very few trade schools, and they are expensive too. School absence can be normal. Most girls have no sanitary protection for physical needs each month: again, missed school. Very few see the dream of a higher education come true. There are no jobs without a higher education.

If there is no money for food, how does one overcome poverty to succeed?

To live in Ethiopia means you must pay a taxi to go almost anywhere. They can walk and they do, but it is miles on dusty or muddy, hole-filled roads where your very life in God’s hand. There is no right or wrong side of the road. They drive anywhere their vehicle can fit, or almost fit anyway. Walking is a real experience. There are no sidewalks so the taxi’s drive right up to the edge of a store. If you are in the way, you’re in real trouble.  I saw a driver bump a man out of the way with the fender of his little taxi and keep going. Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way, (but animals do). Whoever gets there first and is the biggest, gets to go.

In America there are subways, trams, busses, bicycles, motorcycles, and of course individual cars and trucks. In America many families have three or four cars and or trucks. There’s nothing wrong with that.

The problem in Ethiopia is, if you don’t have the money for food, how do you pay a taxi?  Little children have to walk long distances with jugs or buckets to get water and then carry it back to their home. Some of the children walk more than an hour each way to go to school or church.

I’m thinking of a set of triplet girls. They were eighteen years old and have graduated from school. One is going to college to be an accountant. One works as a cook at a little café. The third hasn’t found a job and their mother is a day laborer. That means she may look all day for pieces of charcoal from the burning sites. She can sell the pieces for a few pennies, usually not enough to buy food.

They are discouraged, depressed, and yet they get up and do it again the next day. They are often sick with anemia, digestive upsets, and colds. Think how appealing the sound of a wonderful job in the states sounds to them. 

A sponsor gives forty dollars a month for a student. Forty dollars will give one girl access to a college education. Access to food, a bed off the floor, medical care and a chance at a life free from poverty AND predators. This family would need three or four sponsors to even stand a chance.

Can you picture it now after COVID? Think what it has done in America where food banks are common, unemployment paid for months on end. NOT there.

Normally a social worker visits every three weeks to monitor their health and state of mind. When I was there, because of donations friends had given to me, I was able to buy cooking oil, teff (a small grain high in protein to make bread), and pasta. I had friends donate socks, new underwear, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste for each family. There were twenty-five families in desperate need. With the war nearby that has grown in number.

If anyone wants to feel the joy of giving, please go to www.facebook.com/Blessingthechildrenintl and share their page so others will become aware of the need. Give a blessing to this family or any of the others in need. You may call Teri.Haag@BlessingtheChildren.org at 989-667-8850 to become a sponsor or to get more information. Thank you in advance for your compassion and love. As you act, you become God’s hands and feet.