Bringing Macy Home: Thoughts on Easter

Why Ethiopia?

• One in six children die before their fifth birthday
• 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old
• 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
• The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years
• 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)
• 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone, and there are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia.
• Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa
• In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)
• Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)
• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school.
• Coffee prices (Ethiopia’s only major export) fell 40-60% from 1998-2002.
• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000.
• In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocked without any major seafaring ports.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Thoughts on Easter

We are looking forward to a weekend full of egghunts and family. But the BEST part of this Easter holiday is the fact that my older two kiddos "get" what Easter is about this year. Let's face it, Easter isn't as "sweet" as Christmas. With Christmas you get a baby born in a barn under a big shiny star. But Easter...oh Easter...it's painful. And bloody. And humbling. And although I love Christmas, and I am so very thankful that God sent a baby to save me from my sins, it's EASTER that humbles me. It's the fact that His Son, that baby He sent, died for ME and for YOU in a very painful, public way. Do we deserve for Him to do that for us? Heck no. But that is what it is ALL about. The fact that we DON'T deserve his Mercy. His Grace. The fact that I'm a sinner indeed, and that God's only Son died on that cross for me.
Jason and I watched the Passion of the Christ the other night. We went to see it in the theater in 2004 when it was released, but of course being Easter week it's on tv every night. The first time I saw it, I cried like a baby. It's PAINFUL to watch...it really is. But HELLO??!?! that's the point. As I watched it the other night from the comfort of my own couch, I focused a lot on Mary in the film. You see, back in 2004 I wasn't a Mommy yet. Now I'm a Mom to four precious little souls. And as I watched the agony that Mary was in my heart BROKE for totally different reasons than when I watched that movie several years ago. This time I imagined if it was MY son on that cross. Or ANY of my children for that matter. A child that I had held and cuddled and wiped tears from his eyes....and then having to watch my sweet child be beat and spit on and tortured and finally hung naked on a cross to die. Oh the AGONY. And then I think of how that same son of Mary is God's Son. And how it pained Him to see His child suffer like that. AND THEN I thought about how WE are all His children (keep up with me here!) and how it pains Him to see US hurting. And lost. And hungry. And hopeless. And of course, it all came back to Macy for me, as things often do. How God loved her before I ever laid eyes on her. How it hurt Him to see the pain and loneliness our daughter felt. How she now has a hope and a future. Just as WE all have a hope and a future thanks to His Son on the cross two thousand years ago.

And again, I'm humbled.