Intro to a New Series: Dwell

Photo Credit: Elise Tegegne

Just this past January, my husband Dagi, almost-one-year-old son Jeremiah and I flew to Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, for the first time in over three years. Addis was the city of many personal beginnings: my first real job (teaching high school French at a mission school), my first time living away from home (in a compound walled in concrete), my first kiss (a gentle Addis local whom I married). 

Along with Indianapolis, Addis is one of the halves of our home.

During our recent, month-long stay with my in-laws in the heights of Addis, Psalm 84 was my oxygen. This poem guided my prayers each morning and my prayers throughout the day. In the jar of jetlag, How lovely is your dwelling place. In the haven of my mother-in-law’s garden, How lovely is your dwelling place. In ever-clogged traffic, How lovely is your dwelling place. In the dinner table’s halo, How lovely is your dwelling place. As I struggled to dance with a culture I knew and didn’t know, as I watched my son explore the other half of his identity, as I braided myself again into our Ethiopian community, How lovely is your dwelling place. 

My next series will meditate on this prayer: How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of Hosts!

Being new to all this blogging business, I’m experimenting with a new rhythm: longer (~1,000 words) and fewer (monthly) postings. I’m not sure what exactly each essay will look like, but I do know that because God has pressed these words on my heart and brain (again, again), He will give me the words. 

As always, I am deeply grateful for your companionship on the journey.