What Love Has Done

Several weeks ago I quite literally stumbled across a book I had borrowed from a friend who spent a year of her life using her gifts and talents as a nurse in Sierre Leone, Africa, a country deemed one of the poorest in the world. Shoved under a table in our bedroom, surrounded by empty holy water bottles and forgotten Christmas cards from years past, I pulled out the book, wiped the dust off the cover and looked at it for the first time in nearly two years. Quite honestly, I knew the book was about Africa when I borrowed it but I was ignorant of its content. The work was a collection of essays from a variety of sources including Richard Stearns, President of World Vision, Bono, lead singer of U2, and Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa. Despite the diversity of the authors, their message was a collected cry for the world - governments, churches, individuals - to wake up and unite against the African AIDS crisis. As I absorbed the nature of the book, I broke down and cried again over Africa and the slaughter caused on this continent and her people by HIV/AIDS.

Last night I pulled a book entitled African Kingdoms off its shelf. Skimming its content, I read how missionaries from Alexandria, the commercial capital of Egypt and the spiritual center of the Christian faith in Northern Africa, had aided in the conversion of Ethiopia to Christianity in 333 CE. I saw pictures of churches hewed from stone with names like St. George and St. Mary, with Greek crosses, as well as frescoes of the Samaritan woman drawing water from the well for Christ and the Three Holy Youths, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, written on the walls. This was the land from which many Orthodox saints emerged - saints like St. Anthony the Great, who in obedience to Christ's words to the rich man, sold all his worldly possessions and retired to the desert where he lived as a hermit; St. Moses the Ethiopian, a robber who converted to Christianity under the influence of an abbot whose monastery St. Moses was attempting to pillage; and St. Mary of Egypt, who after divinely being denied entrance into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem repented of her debauched way of life and fled to the desert where she lived the remainder of her years in physical solitude, devoting herself to Christ through aesthetic efforts.

A few months ago I was painfully ignorant of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa poignantly described as "a tsunami in slow motion." Yes, like so many Americans, I knew that Africa was being hit particularly hard by this disease, but I had no idea that over 34 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa have been infected with HIV and that nearly 15 million children had already been orphaned as a result. I knew there was extreme poverty in Ethiopia and that our adoption agency, Holt International, had recently opened up international adoptions from this country, but I did not realize how dire the situation was and continues to be.

Four months ago I had never heard of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital city, or of Haregewoin Teffera, an Ethiopian woman and Orthodox Christian who after suffering the loss of her husband and her eldest daughter began to receive child after countless child into her home to nurture and care and nurse the physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds caused by poverty, disease, and death, so that these little ones might be granted new life. I had never heard of author Melissa Faye Greene or her work There Is No Me Without You but after crying through the first two chapters of this book, a still small voice began to speak to me about the possibility of adopting a child from Ethiopia. I objected, wholeheartedly and with tears. "No. I can't. It is too hard. I do a horrible job incorporating Korean culture into our lives, how can you expect me to incorporate another? It will be a betrayal of my children. I may never return to Korea." But despite my numerous objections, I knew in my heart what we were to do and hesitatingly I began to disclose to friends my belief that we were supposed to adopt from Ethiopia.

Today we finally sent in our adoption application, which has been sitting on our counter for over three months. The application itself is a bit of a mess - I had to cross out Korea as the country we wanted to adopt from and write in its place Ethiopia and make a couple other adjustments related to this change. I am at peace with our decision and excited about the adventure ahead of us, recognizing Christ's call is often difficult, fraught with obstacles, and a bit demanding as He continues to ask each one of us over and over again to move away from our ordinary and proper places. Leave your father and mother. Let the dead bury the dead. Keep your hand on the plow and do not look back. Sell what you own, give the money to the poor and come follow me (Luke 14:26; 9:60, 62; 18:22). What this means for each one of us will vary dramatically. For some, it may indeed mean selling all they have and living a life of total poverty or living in caves in the desert. For most of us, it will mean striving to create peace filled lives where God has placed us, paying close attention to discern His unique vocation for each of us in the midst of our daily lives, and sometimes following Him to places we would not have thought to go.