Meeting Ibsa

May 26th, 2009
Zeway, Ethiopia

Joanna, Tom, Jake, Drew, and I drove only a short distance from the FH (food for the hungry) compound to meet Ibsa.

Upon meeting Ibsa, I first noticed his bright white shirt, clean jeans, and leather shoes. He took us into his little room. There javascript:void(0)was a twin-sized foam pad in his room with about 2 feet of floor space in front of the pad and about 8 inches of floor space on one side. Maybe a few books by his bedside.

Ibsa had received this new mattress and new clothes through money from the Show Me Zeway project.

I took a quick glance of the courtyard behind me before entering the tiny room. There were several surrounding buildings including one 2-story building. It seems like it was all made of concrete. This multi-structure compound with center courtyard use to be Ibsa's family's house until his parents died. He now rents out the small room for $5 a month (one of the highest rents we heard of)

Ibsa invited us in and we all crammed in. I stood next to him. We started with some questions and had them translated by his social worker. There were a lot of awkward pauses. It was all astounding to take in. Here was the boy from the other side of the world who I had prayed for for over 9 months. He was one of the several from the pictures we received that pulled my heartstrings extra hard. It was his prayer request that got me: "Pray that someone would be my family."

He was timid and he answered questions as quietly and quickly as possible. Undoubtedly a very intimidating situation. I felt like we crammed him into a little room and snapped interrogation lights on.

We shared with him the pictures of the people of Grace in their Zeway t-shirts. This seemed to lighten things up a bit as we all started speaking a little more naturally.

I saw on his wall, written in English, "The Lord is my shepherd" I asked Ibsa who wrote this and he said he did. I asked him what it meant to him and he said, "The Lord is my shepherd. He watches over me."

I responded, " Me too. The Lord is my shepherd too. In some way we are both sheep in the same flock and we have the same shepherd watching over us."

He smiled. But not particularly moved.

I walked away not being overly emotional. I'm not sure why except I may have still been in a daze asking the question to myself, "Where am I?"

I did walk away a little concerned that we hadn't connected with Ibsa. Not knowing if it was circumstances ( a bunch of white adults staring at a teenager) or due to Ibsa's life circumstances, perhaps he had trouble connecting with people. Just couldn't read the situation.

But the emotion did come finally. It brought me great joy and hope to see Ibsa come meandering down the street to the FH compound where we were all hanging out. With his new clothes on, a smirk on his face and his nonchalant walk, he could have been any other teenage boy. A green screen behind him, and he could have been transported to the campus of Grace.

He sidled up to Tom and let Tom put his arm around him for at least 30 minutes. I think Tom dared not move as to lose the moment with this orphaned boy from Zeway. I hoped Tom wouldn't move either as I enjoyed watching the quiet affection between them.

-A Journal Excerpt