What's In A Name??

I don't think often about my name. In fact, it's not all that often that people even call my by my first name. I'm not sure when this started happening, but for the most part, people are pretty content calling me "Rudge" and don't use Amy. I don't mind, it identifies me right?

After yesterday I have been thinking a lot about my name. Amy means "Beloved". I love that! I am assuming that my parents knew that when they named me, but maybe not. A lot of the time in our culture, we are named because our parents thought it sounded cool or they knew someone by that name and they liked it. I've heard it said that the best way to pick a name for your kid is to yell it off the back porch to make sure it sounds good when you are trying to get your kid to come home for dinner. But a name means a lot, and I love mine. For me it is prophecy. I know I am the beloved of God and it makes me smile when I think about what I am named.

Yesterday, we did a food ourtreach in one of the villages. We walked from house to house (hut to hut) and gave out rice, beans and oil. We also asked the people if we could pray for them. We had a translator with us named Daniel because this village spoke mostly Recuba, which is a village language here. As we asked people for prayer requests I would also ask them for their name so that we could pray for them by name. What I found was that a lot of the meanings for the names that we heard were not uplifting. One little boy's name meant "death". He was an adorable 4 year old who has his entire life ahead of him and he will carry that name with him. Another man's name meant "wayward." Apparently before he was born his mother lost 3 children at birth and so she named him wayward assuming that she would lose him as well. He was now over 50 years old and still carries that name.

As I was walking and talking with Daniel, he said that in his education his University did a research project looking at as many African languages as possible and they could not find a word for "future." He said that from what he knows, the word does not exist in Africa. That blows my mind. There is a concept for the future...like tomorrow or the next week, but it does not carry the meaning that our language gives to the concept of a future. I think about the students that I do ministry with in Cincinnati and they are told from the time they are very young that there is a future out there waiting for them. For the most part they are encouraged to go out and make the most of themselves, encouraged to do great things. Just listen to a commencement speech, whether 5th grade, 8th grade or high school, and you will understand what I am talking about. In this village, though, there is such a lack of hope. There are very few who look toward the future with any kind of expectation of great things. This is a huge thing that needs to change here. There needs to be a word that depicts moving from despair to hope. There needs to be encouragement that there is more than being born, being hungry, having children, getting sick and dying. Then maybe the names they give their children will be more like "beloved" or "hope." Then maybe the world will look a little brighter for the children of Africa.