Epiphanies in Ethiopia

I just returned from the most amazing trip to Ethiopia.  I went with several wonderful ladies through the Adera Foundation. Check out all their projects at www.aderafoundation.org. 
I really struggled in my decision to go on this trip... not for lack of desire.  I very much wanted to go; it was the cost that I struggled with. I was telling Christian "the money for the plane ticket alone could pay several months' salary for the orphanage workers...it could feed hundreds of kids a meal...I just think the money could be much-better used elsewhere."  And he replied, "We have already been giving money to those causes for years. YOU really want to go, and I think you should do it!"  The conversation wasn't actually that short :) but that was the gist of it.  I haven't been on a mission trip in 10 years; I have been on several throughout my life, serving as a nurse on many of them... yet this gnawing thing inside me kept saying that the money could be better spent elsewhere.  And while there's truth in that statement, I think he knew that it would do my heart an abundance of good to travel to the place and work with the foundation that I have been making diapers for and sending money to.
I work as a school nurse in a Title 1 elementary school-meaning more than 75% of our kids are on free/reduced lunch.  It's one of the poorer areas of the DFW metroplex. I have found myself continually drawn to the "underdogs" for my entire life, and have sought to help the poor as a general life-aim. Yet I have found myself increasingly put-out and kind of disgusted with American "poverty", since I have seen third-world poverty first-hand.  I have done many things throughout the years to help the kids at my school (as anyone would, who had my job), and have been repeatedly frustrated with parents who tell me things like, "We can't afford glasses for our son- can you help us?"  And I round up my resources and give the parent a free eyeglasses voucher- then she reaches into her purse for her iPhone with her manicured hands.  I mention all of this as a preface to my biggest revelation while in Ethiopia...
I was working at the day care helping to give the kids a bath.  They were a bunch of squirming, giggling 4 year old boys...as I rubbed lotion on one little boy's legs, I was thinking, "this feels just the same as when I'm putting a band-aid on a kid in Texas..." I had thought I might have a Mother Teresa-like beatific moment where the clouds parted, and glory of heaven would shine down on me.  I had even made sure that these were the POOREST of all the kids in Ethiopia- I knew they were the poorest in Addis, the capital city- but I asked our Ethiopian driver Solomon if they were the poorest in the whole country, and he said they were. He said people in the countryside have land, and they can farm and sustain themselves- but these people, have barely anything.  I was honestly expecting to feel something like "my life is now complete, I have helped the poorest of the poor."  But I had nothing like that. I had the feeling of how SIMILAR it was to when I help someone, just a regular person, not someone in great "need"... honestly it was kind of disappointing.  Yet in the long run, I think it's quite encouraging.  To help ANYONE, even if I don't determine that their need is that great, is a blessed thing to do.  I think Aesop wrote, "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."
I think the best thing to happen overall on my trip, was that it renewed my desire to give to these people. It gave faces and personalities to the statistics. I found out that Ethiopia's greatest need seems to be employment opportunities- the official statistic says 30% are unemployed- but I heard from a well-educated man there, who says that it's actually much higher than that- the government is embarrassed to release a more accurate statistic.  I took over a sewing machine, and hoped to teach a woman there how to do some basic mending- and I found that one of the caregivers at the daycare had been through a complete sewing course. I asked her why she didn't work in that area, and she says there are no jobs.
And to my great distress, I heard several first-hand stories of women who were lured to Arab countries to serve as maids- yet when they arrived, the man of the house raped them and treated them as slaves.  Their passports were taken by the man of  the house, and when the wife found out that the man and the "maid" were having sex, then the wife hated the maid as well.  The "lucky" ones get out alive, if they can find someone in the Arab country who is kind enough to help them get back to Ethiopia.  One story is that the family sold their only cow, to pay for their daughter's plane ticket to the Arab country- and then when she finally returned, she had been traumatized, and the family had nothing. It's a horrible story that I heard over and over again, in my short 10 days there.
So my brain is in constant motion. I am trying to figure out how to help these women, these people. I know nothing about economics...I was trying to figure out how we could get an au pair service started for some of these young women- it would be a wonderful opportunity- but the logistics would be insane.  The flight from Ethipia to the US is about 28 hours total, on average, including layovers.
So for now, I am going to support Adera's IGA (Income Generating Activity) initiative. They have hired 4 ladies to work full time making beads from paper, and then making necklaces out of them. I plan on starting an Etsy shop soon so that we can sell the beads and reroute the money back to the ladies, in hopes that they can hire even more women and give them a job, and dignity.  Even though they don't make much money by our standards, the money they make can help them get fresh food for their children instead of digging for waste food from the local dump.