Big Ears

In Yirgalem, Ethiopia in 2010, our team was conducting the first training in what would become a

Janet - my mentor, big sis, and fellow ice cream junkie!

long and extremely successful project. Our participants were community development workers, educators, and health professionals from both our partner organization and the Ethiopian government. If you want to know more about how life-changing this training was for all of us, read my very first post in this blog series. One day, Janet was facilitating a lesson on the attitudes of a successful community worker. To illustrate, she drew a simple cartoon face with huge ears and a tiny mouth. The point was that they should spend much more time listening to the people in the communities than talking to (or worse, at) them. Through the resulting laughter, the truth of this message resonated with all. One wonderful young woman burst into tears after confessing that she had admonished people for not responding to the lectures she had given them on visit after visit. She had come to realize that the fault was not with them, but with her. That illustration has served us well in several countries with different languages and cultures. And the message is still true.

Why do I bring up this old story now before I leave on my trip? Because God has been working on my heart in a number of ways to remind me that the message applies to me, too. In my enthusiasm on these trips, I have an unfortunate tendency to talk too much and listen too little (my humble apologies to all my previous team members!), and I'm getting the message that I need to be very intentional about changing this pattern. In my last post, I described my role this time as an "observer". Now I know I should include "listener" in my job description as well.

Another way to describe this is humility. It's terribly easy to fall into a pattern of believing that we come with all of the expertise and experience and simply download all of this into people's mental hard drives. What arrogance! And while I have never consciously thought of myself as superior to any of the people I've met, I know I've been guilty nonetheless. So here's another role - "learner". I know well from experience what amazing stories the community members and the development workers have to share. This time, I want to be intentional about learning and recording those stories.

While my intentions are good, I know how hard it will be to be consistent in this behavior when I'm excited, exhausted, or exasperated. Please pray that the Holy Spirit would fill me with the character of Jesus each day, and that all that I meet would feel honored and respected - and listened to. And I promise to share some of those stories when I return!

Jim/Whit/Tesfalem