Ruthie’s Blog

My New Boyfriend, Getinet : )

Thursday, February 9th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

This is my new boyfriend Getinet : )  This is a recent photo of us in the gardens at The Sheraton Hotel in Addis.  He’s a friend of my friend Carrie’s fiance.  We met at the court house when they got legally married.  We started talking at a coffee shop and didn’t stop for about 2 hours.  Being with him is a wonderful surprise.  I wasn’t expecting to date an Ethiopian guy, but Getinet is different and he says the same thing about me : )

Getinet runs a local ministry here called Strong Hearts Ethiopia, focusing on Community Health Evangelism in the community of Kore, a very poor neighborhood in Addis where many people live off of the local trash dump.  We have many things in common.  We both love Jesus, children, the poor, and we were both in Navigators in college.  I’m still pinching myself that this is real as I’ve never been in a relationship quite like this one before.  I’ve dated other guys but this is the first on that I actually could see sharing a life with.

Please pray for us as we get to know each other better.

Ode to Aunt Mary, who died recently

Thursday, February 9th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

This is something I wrote about my Aunt Mary, in light of her recent death and me being so far away….

My Memories of Aunt Mary

                I’mwriting this because I’m halfway around the world in Ethiopia right now and I cannot grieve in the presence of my family members who knew Aunt Mary and probably also share some of these same memories of her with me.

It’s crazy to think that when I last saw Aunt Mary she was in such perfect health.  We had just celebrated her 90^th
birthday (I’m so glad we honored her in this way while she was so coherent) and I was coming down to Southern California one more time to say goodbye to people before I left for Ethiopia yet again.  I was so tired from the drive from Fresno to Glendale that I decided it would be best to stop and see Aunt Mary and skip the LA rush hour traffic and leave for Long Beach (to see my Dad’s parents) later in the evening.

I arrived at her home on Oak Knoll, we chatted for a bit, and then we went out to a nice local restaurant in the cute little town of Montrose where there’s one main street with cute little shops and restaurants on it.  I remember that I had a delicious salad (I so miss salad in Ethiopia!), that I can still sort of taste.  We talked about life.  I asked her if she had any plans to move out of her home and live with her friend Nell who had just suffered a recent stroke.  Aunt Mary was sort of taking over her care since she had no family in town.  How ironic that just a few months later, Aunt Mary would suffer a stroke and would
need the same kind of care and support.

Aunt Mary had this way of being timeless to me.  I remember I coveted her beautiful white hair and wished that hopefully when I was as old as she was that I would have such beautiful white hair instead of the brittle gray that’s more common.  Aunt Mary would talk about World War II like it was yesterday.  I loved that.  It reminded me that the history I studied in books was real, that real people lived during that time, and that they were human beings just like me.  Whenever I came to Aunt Mary’s house there was this sense that time stopped.  I would sit next to her on her pretty flowered couch with cushions that were starting to sag and I felt like we could talk for hours.  She would always ask about my family members
on both sides, ask about Grandma and Grandpa Gus (especially if I had just come from visiting them), how school and or work was going, etc.  Here’s a kind of history of my relationship with her.

It wasn’t really until I came back from living in Germany that I really felt like I got to know Aunt Mary as an adult.
Before that I think I still had a relationship with her like that of a child—a cute younger person to look at and smile at but not someone with whom I could have an adult conversation.  When I lived in Germany I got to know her nephew Burt, his wife Seble, and their two children Lucy and Mary (who was named after Aunt Mary).  Little Mary was born the year I lived in
Germany.  I went and visited them before and after she was born, once alone and once with my family when they came to
visit.  It was fun to get together with distant relatives who also knew Aunt Mary and talk about her and the life in
Germany that we shared.  Burt talked about Aunt Mary with such admiration.  I could tell that he loved and admired her very much, particularly in how she had continued to care for her husband Bob, who had been suffering from diabetes and
multiple sclerosis (MS) for years.  It was during this time that I realized that I needed to talk to Aunt Mary more
and get to know her better.

So when I came back from living in Germany, I was still going to school in Long Beach (just about an hour’s drive away from Glendale).  I made more of an effort to see Aunt Mary whenever I drove through Glendale.  I would sit on her flowered couch and she would tell me stories about World War II, the USO, moving to America, meeting Uncle Bob, getting married, having Jim, what it was like to live in America as a foreigner, her latest volunteer work and classes, her church, her groups of friends, etc.  One time I even went with her to her friend’s house (Jenny McDonald I think whose husband was best friends with Bob in school) where a bunch of older ladies were.  They also talked about World War II like it was yesterday!  I was very proud of Mary for finding such a wonderful group of women to be a part of and befriend for the many decades that
she lived in America.  She made a life for herself here, along with Bob and Jim of course, and found a home in America.  Which leads me to some of her stories…

Aunt Mary liked to tell stories about the past. She would tell the same stories to me whenever I came to visit her.  Sometimes she would repeat the same stories during the same visit, because she had forgotten that she told them to me.  Sometimes this would annoy me and would take more patience the second time around, but then I realized that I wanted to get
the story right and she loved telling them.  She lived by herself after Bob died and just loved to sit and chat.  Now I’m rather thankful that she repeated those stories, because I remember them better.  I’ll always regret not recording them on my MP3 player, but I want to type out what I do remember nonetheless….

Aunt Mary’s family was from Britain but she grew up in Brazil.  Actually I should go back further.  Before her family moved to Brazil, they lived in the Southern part of the United States.  They owned a plantation (Big bummer in my opinion) and after the Civil War when they lost their livelihood, they moved to Brazil, in hopes of a better future.  This is a bit controversial to me since they owned slaves and got wealthy on the backs of poor, trafficked Africans, but the past cannot be changed, only the present and future and I’m so grateful that we no longer have such slavery in the United States of America
(my thoughts).

So, Aunt Mary grew up in a large British family in the warm, tropical country of Brazil, in Sao Paolo (a place I’ve always wanted to visit!).  She was the youngest, I believe.  She grew up speaking English with her family and schoolmates and Portuguese with her maids and other locals.  She never completely forgot her Portuguese, even after living in the states for so long.  She said it came out most often in her kitchen.  Both of her parents died before she turned 18 and she lived some of the time with older siblings.  I don’t remember many details from her childhood, except that her brothers taught her to sail by pushing her out into the water by herself in a little sail boat (if I remember correctly).  She loved to sail and she and Uncle Bob would do this often together.  Uncle Bob even built a boat for them to sail in.

One time her parents and older siblings went to Britain/England for a time.  They were dropping two of their sons off at boarding school.  They lived in a hotel or small space for several months and Aunt Mary’s mom had to take care of a few
of their young children while her father worked and took care of other business.  The weather was horrible for those few months and Aunt Mary’s mother felt very isolated in that little place taking care of the kids by herself.  Aunt Mary’s mother gave her husband and ultimatum saying something about how she was going to go back to Brazil where it was warm and sunny and he could join her if he wanted.  Aunt Mary would laugh as she told that punch line.  Of course, they did go back to Brazil.

When World War II hit, she worked for the British Embassy doing secretarial and intelligence work.  She worked in a place that was hidden away from sight so that her work was a secret.  But she said that her work there was so boring for her, so she decided to quit.  She talked about how later she met up with her old boss who was shocked and somewhat horrified that she didn’t have her British citizenship while she was working for them.  He had assumed that since she spoke British English and came from a British family that she must already have her British citizenship.  It was a slight technicality but during World War II with so much intelligence work going on, it was a bigger deal.  So her old boss quickly processed her British citizenship for her and never told anyone above him that a woman who hadn’t been a British citizen had worked for the British Embassy!

I’m not exactly sure, but I think shortly after that she worked as a secretary in another position.  After her parents
died, it became very necessary that she work to earn her own living.  But not long after that, she was hired to work at the USO.  There were many American GIs in Brazil and few local Brazilians who spoke English, so there weren’t many people to choose from when hiring someone to work at the USO.  Aunt Mary said that she never had to apply for a job in Brazil.  People just knew about her and her skills and would call her up and ask her if she wanted a job.

So Aunt Mary entertained American GIs in Brazil during World War II.  Aunt Mary was always very beautiful, particularly in her younger days, and when I think of this time in her life, I try to imagine all of these homesick young American men who didn’t have enough pretty girls around to dance and talk with.  I’m sure that she got lots of attention!  She
told stories of dances and other things that she and her co-workers would arrange for the men.  I don’t remember all of the specifics.  I wish I did.  I hope someone does.

While Aunt Mary was working for the USO, she and an American GI fell in love and got engaged.  After World War II, she decided to move to America, Oregon to be specific, and live in the same town as her fiancé before they got married.  So she
made the long journey from Brazil to America to a tiny Oregonian town.  She lived with or very close to her fiancé and his parents.  But soon after she moved there, her fiancé decided that he wasn’t ready to get married and they broke off their engagement.  Aunt Mary said it soon became very awkward for her to stay in this town because suddenly everyone there knew that she was no longer his fiancée.  So, she soon left.  Decades later she said that she had a phone conversation with this man.  She said they had a pleasant conversation and I think they both realized that it was all for the best that they didn’t get married to each other.  He later married someone else and so did she.  That’s a wonderful story in itself.

So, there was Aunt Mary, in a foreign country by herself, and not sure what to do next.  I think it was shortly after this
that she moved to California and got yet another secretarial position.  She had planned or was thinking very seriously of returning to Brazil when she went on a weekend ski trip and met a very special man, my Great Uncle Bob.  They quickly fell in love, but they waited until after Bob’s sister, Martha (my grandma) married William Gustafson (my grandpa) to announce their engagement.

Aunt Mary liked to tell me the story of when she first met Bob’s parents (Nana and Papa).  They were a bit apprehensive that their son had decided to be with a Brazilian woman.  They didn’t know what to expect when first meeting Mary.  They weren’t sure what kind of a Brazilian woman she was.  Aunt Mary definitely sensed this when she first met them, but as soon as she told them that her family had lived in the Southern part of the United States, she noticed that they breathed a kind of sigh of relief (Aunt Mary always laughed at this part of the story).  Bob’s parents grew up in Texas and Mississippi and were very much Southerners, so the fact that her family had lived in a place that was familiar to them was a bit of a good sign.  Although I got the sense that Papa and particularly Nana maybe didn’t completely approve of Aunt Mary, as if there couldn’t ever be a woman who was good enough for their son.  It was just a sense I had though.  I don’t have much evidence.

Nonetheless, Aunt Mary proved herself to be a very devoted wife to Bob and more and more as time went on.  She married him knowing that Bob was infertile (from a childhood illness, I forget which one) and that they would never be able to conceive children together.  They adopted a beautiful baby boy named Jim.  Since I’ve always had a heart for adoption, I asked Mary what that process was like for her.  She said that adoptions at that time were always closed and she didn’t have much or maybe any contact with Jim’s birth mother.  She met Jim for the first time right after he was born.  When I asked her how she felt
about bonding to this brand new baby she said, “The moment I saw Jim, he was mine.”  (That’s for you Jim!)  I love that and hope and pray that when I adopt a child or more that I will feel the same, without any difficulty bonding with my new baby.

When I think about the marital vows, “in sickness and in health,” I think about Aunt Mary, my Grandma Gus, my Granddad Van, and my dad (Aunt Mary once said that my mom just fell in love with my dad, and that it had nothing to do with the fact that he came from a wealthy family.  I love that too, because it’s true.).  These are all people who have shown me the true meaning of sticking by a spouse in sickness and in health.  Their example both inspires and humbles me.  What a huge commitment!  Those vows are so very serious.  They mean to care for someone when they’re disabled, when they can’t go to the bathroom on their own, when they’re crying almost daily in pain, when they can hardly speak to you because of their
condition.  With Uncle Bob’s diabetes and multiple sclerosis, Aunt Mary showed the true promise of her words to stick by
Uncle Bob in sickness and in health.  She became his advocate, his caregiver, and a lifeline for him to keep going, no
matter what the day held.  I’ll always be grateful to her for showing such devotion. This is my greatest and most precious memory of her and will always be my first thought of her whenever I think of her and her life.  I think it is her greatest legacy.

At the moment, I am dating a wonderful, Godly Ethiopian man and as I start to contemplate the possibility of marrying him and all that means, I will remember Aunt Mary and Uncle Bob and think of the words “in sickness and in health.”

So thank you Aunt Mary, for wanting to befriend me as an adult and telling me all of your wonderful stories.  Thank you Aunt Mary for showing me that in
marriage when the going gets tough, the tough get going.  Thank you for all of your wonderful hosting of our family for Christmas mornings and other special gatherings.  Thank you for being such an example to me of what it means to age gracefully and with dignity.  Thank you for joining our family, our community, and our country.  I’m so glad that you didn’t go back to Brazil so that you could be a part of us in this way, although I still hope to visit your Brazil one day.  I’m sorry that I didn’t get to say goodbye to you in person.  This is the best that I can do for now.  May you enjoy the wonderful Light of Jesus in Heaven and all of the people you love there!  Someday, I’ll be there with you too!

Love,

Your Grand Niece Ruthie

Timket–A Very Special Ethiopian Epiphany

Thursday, February 9th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Evening Ceremony

View from my window. They danced and sang!

My neighbor friend showed me around : )

I love the colorful umbrellas!

Timket was on January 20th.  Timket means Epiphany.  It’s a celebration of Jesus becoming a human being, His baptism, and something to do with the Ark of the Covenant but I’m not sure what exactly.  It’s an Orthodox holiday and my roommates and I had the privilege of watching the whole procession go by our apartment.  We just happen to live on the road that they take from a local church to the central square of the city.

It was very moving to watch.  I was surprised to find myself a little teary-eyed.  The Orthodox Church has its origins from the book of Acts when Phillip converted an Ethiopian eunuch.  It’s amazing to think of all that a eunuch could do : )  I don’t agree with everything about the Orthodox Church here, but I can’t help but notice the level of devotion Orthodox Christians have to God.  This ceremony obviously meant a lot to the people participating.

Sweet Little Boy

Thursday, February 9th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Here he is!

This is a picture of the sweet boy who looks for me as I come down the stairs and runs out of his house and says “Hi!”  His sweet hello reminds me that every day is a good day simply because it was given to me as a gift.  Thanks Amonyal!  You light up my day!  BTW, he loves looking at this picture : )

Pretty Addis Skyline!

Thursday, February 9th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

This was the view out of my window one night.  It’s the African Union building all lit up with the full moon.  So pretty!!!!  It was magical!!!

Rwanda!!!

Thursday, February 9th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Rwandan Sunset!

Carine and I with my new dress.

Love this picture! Wish it wasn't upside down!

So, I’ve felt like a bit of a spoiled American lately, because I’ve been to three countries in the course of a month.  Rwanda was my third.  Right after I spent three days in Uganda, I took a short flight across Lake Victoria to Kigali, Rwanda, where my friend Carine and her three kids live.  I met Carine during my first year in Ethiopia.  We were in the same Home Care Group together.  We quickly related to each other because we had both just moved to Ethiopia and were getting used to things together.  We also had wonderful times of prayer and fellowship and I loved hanging out with her 3 kids.

After a year of living in Ethiopia, Carine and her husband felt like they should move their family to Rwanda.  Both Carine and her husband are Rwandese but grew up in Congo.  So much to the sadness of our Home Care Group, they moved away, but we never forgot them.  Carine is one of my African mamas and I knew that I really wanted to visit her and her family sometime.  I was so excited when the opportunity came up!

So, I spent three days with Carine and her three kids.  We had a great time of just being together, talking about the Lord, praying, going to church, and just sharing life with each other.  The kids have become more and more beautiful and lovely.  We also got to go swimming in the “Hotel Rwanda” pool and Carine had a dress made for me.  Altogether, we had a great time and we have hopes of seeing each other again sometime soon, maybe even for a vacation in another country nearby.  That would be so fun!

Uganda!!!

Monday, February 6th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

View of Kampala

The kids who stared at me when I came to their neighborhood

A Girls Home

Another Boys Home

Another Girls Home--they danced for us!

Our friends' backyard

Lake Victoria!

The sweet girl who requested to escort me to the airport entrance

For over 20 years, I have been hearing about this family who live in Uganda as missionaries and the ministry that they do there.  My parents were friends with them in college.  I’ve always read their newsletters and have been inspired by the wonderful Jesus-inspired work that they do.  So, since Uganda isn’t that far away from Ethiopia and God was leading me to do so,  I decided to come and visit.

It proved to be very timely for me, because the kind of leadership training that they do is similar to what I believe in about minsitry.  They have leadership academies for older high school students.  They take regular high school classes but also learn about the precepts of Jesus and his servant leadership skills.  From those students they get mentors to mentor teenagers in group homes who have been abandoned by their families and or caught up in dangerous behaviors.  They also sponsor part of the students’ university fees with scholarships.  They are expanding into more countries and have been very successful.  I was very inspired by this ministry and was reminded once again that Jesus is beautiful and when we really come to know Him, we can’t help but serve Him like He serves us!

Seeing Matt Again, Plus His Ethiopian Girlfriend!

Monday, February 6th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

The first year I was here, I worked at a school.  There were two other farenjis (the word for foreigners here) who also worked there that year.  One was my roommate and still really good friend named Cindy.  The other was Matt, who came from America.  Even though he left after one year of living here, I don’t think his heart ever completely left Ethiopia.  He has continued to stay connected with local NGOs and volunteer work, fundraising for them from the U.S.  He’s doing research for his masters’ thesis in Ethiopia and now has an Ethiopian girlfriend.  It was fun to see them both when he came to visit in January and catch up.  Ethiopia has this way of getting into your soul.  It never quite leaves you, it seems and Matt definitely represents that phenomenon.

Ethiopian Christmas Celebration at WAR

Monday, February 6th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

After I came back from South Africa, it was still Christmastime!  Yes, since Ethiopian Christmas isn’t until January 7th it kind of made me feel like I went back in time : )  At Women At Risk, my co-worker Seble and I organized a Christmas Celebration just the day before on January 6th.  My parents and I sponsored it, but Seble and kids lead it.  Seble gave a mini-sermon on the meaning of Christmas, the kids did a drama of the Christmas story and a song, we gave them difo dabo (really good traditional, spongey Ethiopian bread–Love It!) with tea, and then we gave each of them a gift.  The gifts were meaningful because WAR had not been able to afford to buy backpacks and school clothes for all of the kids, to my parents and I were happy to do it.  So now, every child has a backpack and a school uniform.  Yay!  It’s such a privilege to give!  Oh and Abi was able to come.  He sat on my lap most of the time : )  Fortuna did not come.  But Tariku came with his mom.  He’s a very disabled kid who always has a smile on his face and lights up his mom’s life!

South Africa

Sunday, February 5th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments

Sleeping Baby

Christmas Cuteness!

Awesome Hair!

In Fall 2010 when I was really sick, I went to a prayer meeting.  There at the prayer meeting, God gave me the desire to go back to South Africa, where I had been four years ago, and hold abandoned babies.  This is the place where God first started calling me into ministry with prostituted women through a testimony that I heard from a friend.  At the time I was so sick that I thought it would be impossible for me to go, so I asked God to confirm it.  He did in some pretty amazing ways.  The next day I got two emails from the organization that I had worked for before and I hadn’t heard from them in over a year.  One of them was about a baby I had taken care of who I was afraid wouldn’t get adopted because of brain damage.  The email had said that he had been adopted and was now living in Europe.  What an answer to prayer for him and for me.  So, I knew that if I ended up in Ethiopia again, at some point I would go back to South Africa.

After I finished teaching my percussion class in December, I had three weeks off.  The organization that I worked for, HotelHope, was going to need volunteers around Christmastime so I had decided to go then.  HotelHope is an organization for abandoned children.  It was started just a few years ago.  They have one baby house where children ages 0 months to 3 years old are taken care of.

I was only there for two weeks, but during those two weeks, a lot happened.  I got to be a mom!  So fun!  I felt like I was a mother of 10 little children, along with other volunteers, of course!  I taught a toddler who had been left in a hospital bed for several months how to crawl.  I went with the older kids to the zoo.  I changed lots of nappies (diapers).  I celebrated Christmas with the kids.  I got to stay in a nice home with a pool, make new friends and visit with old ones.  I got to eat gluten free pasta and rice crackers since South Africa has more in the way of gluten free food available.  I also got horribly sick and read a really good book called Lead Like Jesus.  And I got lots of practical ideas on how to run the day care that I’m helping to start in Ethiopia.

So, even though I was bummed about getting sick, I had a wondeful time being with the kids.  I still miss some of them and wish that I could see them again.  It was a orientation for me to be more prepared for the work I will be doing in Ethiopia!

***P.S.  I can’t post pictures of the kids’ faces for legal/confidentiality reasons.