For Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginnings End

Here I am. I'm 22. I'm heading to Chad Africa to work at Bere Hospital for 6 months. I'll be working as a nurse-ish-like-sort-of-person learning: suturing, medicines, child delivery, TB care, malaria treatment and a different way of living. For those of you who know me, I'm impulsive, a slight bit disorganized, have a bad memory, a big fear of dogs, a little fear of the dark and have this itch inside me to please people. Those are some of the things God's going to have deal with this year. Just maybe our weaknesses He can turn into our strengths. Maybe he'll use us in our weakness. Maybe in our fear of failing, he'll remind us of what courage feels like and we'll step up to big, tough, scary tasks; be brave! Maybe he'll teach us to turn our worry into PETITIONS of prayer to Him. Maybe he'll create a story from our rough experiences that will be told from our open-book-selvesand inspire others. Weakness-Strength. I'm banking on it.
I arrived in DC at 3pm. I said goodbye to my parents and Alex at the airport (happy goodbyes right mom?) in Seattle after an awesome trip to the San Juan Islands, bikin' around. My mom snuck all sorts of things into my bags. I keep finding random things...like dolls, wooden giraffes, orange purses containing quarters and BARS of SOAP! You are funny mom. :) My flight to DC was great. Sat by Courtney, a makeup artist on her way to Paris. Follow our dreams...that's what she reminded me of. Thanks Courtney. :) The flight to Addis, ET was delayed from 8:30 p.m. until 2 a.m. Oh dear. So I decided to go into DC. I talked to a lady and she said taxi's were 40 bucks one way! Yikers! What a rip-off! So she recommended I try to bum a ride from one of the free airport shuttles. If you know me, you know I love free things. I lugged my huge backpack down almost a half a mile to the H2 station (hotel shuttle) and asked Scotty, the Comfort Inn driver man, when the next shuttle would leave. He said, "soon" and asked me what room I was at the hotel. "Err.....Umm....well I don't exactly have a reservation. Could I please have a ride though? I would like to leave the airport but taxis are expensive." He replied that he had nice bones in his body and let me get on. Another lady had overheard me talking a bit about Africa and came over to give me a $20 bill towards my trip. PEOPLE are GOOD! I met lots of nice people in DC. I ran into Deb, an airline stewardess who rode with me on the shuttle into DC. I hung out with her as I waited to sneak on another shuttle back to the airport. She was awesome and I wish her the best in her flights. I did some things in town..including tripping on the sidewalk infront of traffic with my huge backpack on. Max, the next shuttle driver, asked me where I needed to go. I told him I needed to catch a plane. He said, "alright, I'll take you." I felt bad though because I wasn't even staying at the hotel and I was going to be the only one on whole 10 person shuttle. Just me and Max. So I confessed. He smiled and said that he wasn't doing anything and that he'd take me. Once again. PEOPLE are GOOD!
The flight was not long considering I took a sleeping pill and was out the entire time. I got up once the entire 15 hours! haha My seat mate was one of a group going to do food distribution in ET. He couldn't figure out how I was sleeping so well. :)
We were delayed here on our way to Chad and I've spent the last day and a half with Anlsey Howe and Allison Rott in Addis Abbaba, the capital of Ethiopia. We've been put up in a hotel by the airlines and fed three meals a day of good rice, veggis, eggs, soup, fresh bread, salad, yogurt, hot cocoa. This morning went by taxi and then foot all over this town. It's a different world here. That's all I can say now. I'm starting to process all these things...I just wrote a paragraph about what is in my mind...but it's not clear yet. So many of you that I am writing to know exactly what I'm talking about and what I'll have to process. What about all these beggars. They are not beggars that are bumming money for drugs. These are legitamate needy people. What about all those sad lions at the ZOO...they looked so unhappy. What about my defensive mode? Is this how I should be? I think everyone is out to get me sometimes. That doesn't coincide with having a focus on others and not myself. Sort, sort, sort...file this thought here...dismiss this one....dwell on this one...this one matters...ah. This is just the beginning.
When trying to go places, we have to weave through the huge variety of people, run across traffic (it is crazy here. i thought we were going to hit people in our taxi so many times), jump over water trails...not sure what the water was. But something about it just makes me a bit wide-eyed and excited! It's like trekkin' all around :) I'm sitting at a coffee shop. We disguised ourselves with some of Ansley's head scarves and walked into town tonight. Noone even knew we were Americans! :) hehe But time to go to sleep. You guys are awesome friends, family and teachers. You gotta know that as I looked through the list and added you to this email, I felt like "WOW. these PEOPLE are GOOD!" Next time maybe I'll write to you from in my hut. Love Love Love, Emily Safe Star Wilkens.
P.S. I asked my taxi driver if he could please drive carefully because we didn't have seatbelts. :) See I am as careful as Fletcher..say with a broken leg and maybe with a baby in his backpack. Like really careful and cautious.
Irresistable Revolution: "I got very frustrated and angry, wondering how these extremes could exist in the same world, let alone in the same church. Sometimes I just got cynical. That was the easiest thing to feel, as cynicism takes very little energy." But just possibly, the JOY of the Lord can be our strength/energy to do more than feel cynical.