On the day we were able to go to the weekly food distribution that Food for the Hungry (http://www.fh.org/ ) sponsors (which I might add – YOU help sponsor when you sponsor a child there in Jido ) we watched as piles of flour, beans and oil were divided between each family unit –– helping support the entire family – and ultimately the entire village !

I went around meeting the moms and their children taking pictures of them and showing them afterward.  Before I knew it, moms were congregating all around me asking me to take a picture of “their” baby which was snuggled on their back (of course, I knew what they were asking even though I didn’t understand the words).   Much harder of course, was the picture I took  of the mom who carried her little baby girl  burning up with a fever, most likely from malaria!  Yet even with all of that, these women were so overjoyed to see their little baby’s picture! – another “universal language”.

However, my most vivid moment of that universal language of a mom’s heart was when we went to visit our sponsored child, Beshenena.  You have to understand the beauty of these visits – we all go in as a team with the FH (Food for the Hungry) social worker and our own personal FH group guide who helps interpret and navigate the day for us.  As we enter their mud hut, typically  about 10′ x 12′ in size ,the layout  might have one window, a small cook space in the corner, bedding on the floor where probably the family sleeps, decorations of simple pictures or woven objects and sometimes a chicken or two wandering in. They insist that we all sit in their most comfortable places – usually a little stool that reminded me of a cow milking stool – or possibly a long , simply built bench.  The people there treat others with such honor and dignity and it means so much to them that you came across the ocean just to see them.  They are incredibly thankful that you have “remembered” them, a theme they often used while thanking us,  as in one visit where the little boy of the child-headed household said, “Take a picture of me with your eyes so you’ll never forget me.”   In wanting to “connect” with Beshenana’s mom, I told her I had 4 children of my own—as she was a mother of 5.  I also told her the joy of having 4 children along with 2 grandchildren and one on the way.  She said how blessed I was to have lived to see my children’s children – at least that’s what I thought she said – until I realized that what she actually said was how blessed it was that my own children had lived long enough to have and see their own children.  It was then that I understood her greatest prayer for her children – that they live—period !  As my own son, Ben, was sick a couple of days on the trip, I understood the vulnerability and cries of a mother for her children to be healthy and live  but I realized that this is a way of everyday life for these moms.

God reminded me that He is very present in Jido as well as in my hometown here in the United States and that He does see and He does hear the cries of these moms in Jido and He sent what He thought best to encourage this Ethiopian mom – another mom — me – to be Jesus with skin on to her.  I’ll never , ever underestimate the power of “God with us” as we go in person to be “with” others and love them skin to skin –  and maybe that’s the best universal language of all !

Please visit Food for the Hungry (http://www.fh.org/) and consider making a difference in the lives of the “least of these” by sponsoring a child or better yet… go visit them in person.  Also, maybe you’d like to be a part of building a better future for the kids in Jido, Ethiopia…check out what Hope Church (http://cthope.com/#/serve-the-world/jido-ethiopia) is doing to build a much needed high school there.   I promise you, you’ll  be the one most blessed !!