Dispatch from Ethiopia by Laura Belcher

Learning well from my mother's green thumb and my brother's knowledge of foliage in all its forms, I've had an eye out for "the green" on this adventure. My head turns with the welcome of bright abundance-green leaves and vibrant blossoms. My surprise, my wonderful surprise seeing plants native to South Carolina AND to Ethiopia. How can it be that I walk along beside lantana, coleus, canna lilies, zinnias, geraniums, spider plants? Wonder and intrigue that my eyes witness and enjoy the same blossoms as my new friends in Ethiopia.

But then. . . but then my vision explores the other. My heart leaps at the sight of rare, native blossoms. We are here in Ethiopia at the end of the rainy season so the foliage green is bright and variant, the fruit and the petals bursting.

I do not know the names of these exotic creations so I grace them with nicknames: bottle-brush feathers, tiny blue moments, yellow cones, delicate daisies, orange bursts, pink hellos, Gamecock poinsettias, tangerine trumpets, fuchsia cups, yellow fireworks.

Our God is big. Our God is creative. Our God is beauty and He spreads His many forms throughout this whole wide world. Right now, I only speak of His beauty in blossoms--it's the only subject accessible to words right now. There will come a time in the months ahead for my soul and spirit to be given different language to describe more of the majesty of the Lord expressed in this land. For now, I speak in bursts, blossoms, hellos, and moments.