When Canada Met Ethiopia

Sedrak and I with some of the little girlies

2am. Dead asleep, I hear the buzz from my cellphone go off. Rarely do I get a text at such an ungodly hour. When I finally awake from my unconscious state closer to 4am, my bleary eyes widen as I read this :  “(from Jeff Power) Here in Hurso, Sedrak is asking where u are :)”

A “hello” from one of the boys I met and befriended in East Africa.

It’s moments like this that jolt me from the more mundane parts of my job and CLEARLY remind me why I left teaching to go into humanitarian work.

Sedrak. Boys like Sedrak that you meet and fall in love with.

Separated by oceans, land and hours of flight, yet connected in one second by a simple text message.

I can get lost in the day-to-day work of sending e-mails, organizing events and doing training sessions. Lately, I’ve been speaking to middle school children, professionals and lay people about the amazing work that GHNI is doing other parts of the world. But what keeps it all real is that these are REAL people I’m talking about. It’s not merely an idea or a system that I’m communicating about. It’s a human being with dreams, passions, delights and a beating heart like you and I. Sedrak is a powerful reminder of that.

After you visit, work or live in another culture and return home, you often have two choices. Shelve it all, or choose to live in a reality that you have to actively stay engaged in.

Living in a Western country, it is so easy to hear of others’ misfortunes and not be affected  by it. We watch earthquakes and famines on T.V. while eating dinner. We hear about wars on the radio while driving to work. We see mothers dying of HIV on the front cover of newspapers and magazines. Yet, we can turn off the T.V., shut off the radio and throw away the newspaper without being the least bit disturbed by what we see.

Compassion is a choice.

It’s not the easiest choice, but it’s the right choice. When you meet boys like Sedrak who have few opportunities in life, you need to choose to feel, to care and to say, “I need to do something”.  We must put a face to each corner of our world, or else those parts of the world will simple disappear with a click of a button.

Please watch this amazing 6 minute video that my colleague, Shirin Faridi, shot and produced for GHNI after our volunteer compassion trip  to Ethiopia in July 2009. Yes, of course, it’s a plug to watch yours truly speak Amharic, but it’s ultimately me beckoning you to visit and engage in another world and asking you to decide to care. Watch, open your heart, and fall in love with the people of Hurso.