I don't know what to say.

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One of my very close friends hid a note in my bag before I left. A line from it has stuck with me this whole trip.

“Please have an amazing time on this trip. Soak everything up and realize the world you are in.”

Also shortly before we left he and I were discussing whether there is a spiritual aspect to the world or not. I generally try to convince him by the positive things I have seen happen in my life that I point to God with. This entry is different and it saddens me to write this.

2 How long, O LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, "Violence!"
but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.
Habakkuk 1:2-4

One of the groups of Americans and Ethiopians work with former prostitutes from the street. Wednesday night half of the group went out to see Addis Ababa at night and who WinSouls (the nonprofit org) does its work. They generally buy an hour of the women’s time and just talk with them and show them that someone cares. Addis has between 4-7 million people depending on the source. After 9pm the city shuts down and becomes the property of the night. In Addis it’s said there are 70,000 street girls. Tonight we heard their experience from being out between 9pm-12am.

South Markato
- The alley was uneven cobble stone making it hard to walk. The sides were lined with sheet metal of small huts. Lined up down the street were women and girls waiting in front of open doors. They saw in side one hut. It was a bed a foot from the door and two feet to the wall. There were coins and condoms on the bed. In the corner was the woman’s baby. The city has many interesting smells but this entire street smelled of incense. There were young girls waiting no more that 16 years old. At a corner of the street stood police men. The street is said to go on for kilometers like this.
- I never want to talk about this again. There is nothing else in my life I can think of like this.
- I tried to journal about it this morning but all I could do was cry. I didn’t want to write because it would be as though I was accepting that the place was real.
- That place had a feeling of evil submersing it. When I think of evil and satan I think of a gross brown/green smell not the smell of incense.
- I imagined if one of them was my sister who I love so much. I don’t know what I would do.
- As we walked the air was so thick. There was a presence that I could only describe as evil.
- All the poverty I have seen so far has made me feel grief. I didn’t have that feeling tonight but one of anger. I was pissed off. How could this place be?
- Do you see this quarter dollar coin, this is wealth on that street. This is more than any of the girls go for. This nickel is what these women are going for. These women have never had any one of value use their name. No one has ever smiled at them.
- The kids at the orphanages we work at aren’t miracles. They come from this street.
- How can we respond to this?
- We have to respond.
- I have never been in a scarier place in my entire life.
- We have become friends with the former prostitutes that we work with during the day. I put these faces in the girls we were seeing on that street and my heart broke.
- Today when we met wit the former prostitutes, we told them about our experience. I was overwhelmed by their sense of hope. They told us that Jesus does transform lives. These women want to go and share the hope of Jesus with the other women. All of them agreed that there is an evil spirit on that street. Even thought they have better lives than they ever had before, that evil spirit still calls them back. They said that once a woman goes back she will never return because that spirit is too strong. Before we left today the women prayed a prayer of thanksgiving that our women had been sent half way around the world to show that someone cared.

After seeing this I understand a piece of scripture.
“Who ever is given much, much is required.” Luke

Though I was not there our team members described it well enough. The Americans who had not given much thought to evil back in the states described something that made me feel absolute hopelessness and disgust. You must understand that these women are on the street not because it is high paying but because they want to eat. Others are just searching for shelter for the night to who ever will give it to them.

We just sat in that room. Nothing could really be said to change it.

We cried.

All of us sat and wept. We did the only thing we knew to do at that moment and prayed.

I was told before this trip that I would get messed up from the experiences I would have.

The poverty is more than I could have imagined. Yesterday on my way to work I have a five minute walk between buses. Within that short walk I counted 18 beggars. Most of these suffered from some very obvious serious sickness such as blindness or elephantitis.

The children I work with I have fell in love with. There is too much to say about how amazing these kids are.

But nothing has messed me up more than just hearing about the absolute injustice that happens on that street at night so that those women can survive. We have heard of stories of men going out into the rural villages telling young women that they will have a better life and they are taken to the street.

How can this be? How do none of us back home know about this? As people what do we do for these other women?

One of my brothers jokingly said this before I left. “You shouldn’t go. You’ll care too much when you get back.”

The one member that said he never wanted talk about it again also said, “But I will. I will talk about it again. I will say more so that people would know what is happening.”

I didn’t know what to do with this. This entry isn’t to preach at anyone. It is just so more people will know.

A student mentioned the next part of the beginning scripture.

The Lord 's Answer
5 "Look at the nations and watch—
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told.

Habakkuk 1:5

I trying to soak up the world we live in. That is sometimes hard to do. I don’t understand much and I don’t know how well I communicated it back, but there has to be some hope.

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Comments

[Jenny D]

The Lord is With Us
Psalm 46:1-3. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives away, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though the waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling." - All in Ethiopia- I can only imagine that you feel like the world you knew is melting away and every comfort you ever have had is being shaken violently. Amazing to see what detestation it takes before we are willing to take the masks off our eyes to the grip Satan has on this world. Do not be downcast all you saints! Psalm 42:5 "What are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? HOPE IN GOD; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God." All I can give you is my prayers and let me assure you- you have them daily- and the hope that God gives us in the promise of His sovereignty and loving character. Isaiah 40:28-31. "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary and young men shall fall exhausted, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." Keep running for the Lord all you brothers and sisters!