Gullaweing meeting

Today I met this young lady and was struck by the giant cultural and economic divide in our lives. I was born in a hospital with a low mortality rate for infants and a team of people on hand to provide assistance should anything go wrong with my delivery. She was born in a mud hut in a country with a mortality rate where 1 in 4 children die before reaching the age of five.

I attended 13 years of free public education as a child and six years of college courses as an adult. She will probably not attend more than two or three years of primary school--which in Doro/Gullaweing means a class of many children with one teacher meeting under a tree with few, if any, teaching materials.

I always had plenty to eat, toys to play with and a variety of clothes and shoes to wear. She probably has 3-4 clothing items and will wear them until they are tattered. She plays with sticks, rocks and bits of rubbish when not helping with her younger siblings.

I have been treated with respect in my culture as a female. She will grow up with few social rights and little choice as to whether she marries or not or whether her husband will also have other wives.

She will likely remain mostly illiterate for life. I have worked and received fair pay at a number of companies who were grateful to have me as an employee. She will work harder than I ever have and her pay will be that her children have sorghum porridge to eat once or twice a day on most days.

I have traveled to three continents. She may never see Ethiopia which is less than 100 miles away. I am a citizen of a strong country providing freedom and countless opportunities. She has never known peace in her short life and if history repeats itself, may always live in the shadow of war.

I have owned a car since the age of 18 and enjoy the comfort of a solid roof over my head (at least while in the US). She may ride in a car only a dozen or so times in her life, at the charity of someone she doesn't know well and sleeps on the ground on a mat in a mud hut.

I enjoy a diet including a variety of foods, flavors and nutrients. She eats sorghum porridge, greens that grow wild and occasionally will be able to have maize and mango in their season. She will daily carry many kilograms of weight on her head as she provides food and water for her family until she is too old to walk.

I own electronics that she would not even begin to understand.

I was raised in a family where I was taught the truth of creation, the fall of mankind and the death of a perfect Savior for my redemption. She lives in a village that is overshadowed by spiritual darkness. Her mother fears what evil spirits might do to them.

However--this day--our worlds collided. She sat beside me on a log and we listened together to a story in her heart language about a powerful God who created us and cares about us. Maybe God will pull this child out of darkness and into His marvelous light--and perhaps He'll allow some of His light to shine out of me into her life in the coming years as I live on the edge of her world.

Vicki teaches a Bible lesson in Maaban at the girl's fledgling church in Gullaweing.