Our destination: Ethiopia
Our mission: to share the love and truth about Jesus, delivering supplies for women and children in need, including gifts for Christmas, which they celebrate on January 7th.
This trip has been a bit difficult to explain to Pinky. How much do you tell a 3 year old?
It's hard to explain to anyone what we are really going to be doing, since I don't exactly know myself. We've been talking a lot about helping the people in Ethiopia because they don't have the money they need to have a home or beds or clothes. That some of the kids don't have mommies and daddies to take care of them.
She has a lot of questions and ideas to help them:
"Can't daddy build them beds?"
"Can't we buy them a house?"
"Where are their mommies and daddies?"
"Why didn't Santa bring them any Christmas presents?"
After Christmas, we counted Bella's new stuffed animals and blankets. We counted 8. Then, I picked out a handful of stuffed animals that she doesn't play with often and that were small enough to fit in my suitcase, and she picked out 8. 8 stuffed animals to send for Christmas gifts to children around the world that she'll never meet.
This was not an easy task for our stuffed animal collector. The decisions were not easy and she did change her mind a couple of times. Then we picked one from her sister's basket, and one from her dad, and not to be left out, one of mine.
Together with our furry friends and bags and boxes of donations, the 2 of us met up with the rest of my team of travelers and we packed our supplies into 15ish giant duffle bags. Pinky's jobs were to help find matches for shoes and to count out the number of stuffed animals that needed to go in each bag. She saw pictures of some of the kids we will be visiting. We talked about the animal some of them might like to receive.
I don't know if or when Pinky will understand why we are going. I'm not sure what she will think when she realizes I won't be home on her birthday. I hope she knows that I don't have to be with her to love her. But more than that, I hope she is inspired to want to make a difference. To want to help those less fortunate than her. I want her to understand just how blessed we are to live where we live and have what we have. And I want her to know that sometimes we have to make sacrifices in order to do what is right.
We had Chinese tonight for dinner. I just so happened to have 3 fortune cookies in the cupboard for dessert. My husband's read something like this: "Decisions are easier when your values are known."
An important lesson to learn. An important lesson to teach.
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| One of our chosen friends who will be flying with me to Ethiopia. |
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| Donations zipped up and ready to go. |
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