Addis

I am sitting in my living room on a blessed afternoon off, enjoying my teammates, Matt and Charissa. We are working on our updates, and struggling together to describe what we have been doing here. To describe a vision trip in which I for one, have felt like the world has been swirling around me for most of the past month. By God’s grace, our feet have remained firmly planted in His word, and in His truth, have kept us from getting caught up in the tornado of Addis Ababa.

My trip has looked (on the surface), as follows:

Our team: Matt and Charissa Fry (fellow DTS’ers and dear friends from Norman), Brian Bain and Crystal Reeves (both DTS), Emily and Ellen (nursing students from Austin), Jonathan, Kimmy, and their 15 month old daughter Jocelyn (a family from Tyler- Jocelyn has been the darling of our team), and Vic Anderson (DTS professor and our leader), and Julie, his daughter. We all came with different desires, and with willing malleable hearts, and have enjoyed each other immensely. All of our time has looked different, and rarely have we all worked on the same project at the same time. Nevertheless, God has given us a heart for each other and a tone of laughter. I have been amazed at the servant-heartedness of our team.

IEC- Sundays, our team helped with the International Evangelical Church. 1500 people from all over the world attend IEC, and our team leader, Vic, used to pastor there, We led worship (I played the djembe!), taught Sunday School classes, and Crystal, Charissa and I led a class on Godly Beauty for women. Our class was four Sunday’s long, and went better than we ever could have hoped. We chatted with women about beauty in different culture, looked at God’s word to see what He saw as beautiful, and celebrated visible and invisible beauty in ourselves and in the world.

Class- For the first three weeks I was here, we took a class on Contextualized Education at a seminary. We talked with future pastors and leaders of the Ethiopian churches about how to be better teachers and stewards of the knowledge God has given us, and how to bring Truth into any context.

ESL- In the evenings, starting that first week, some of our team helped out with an English class at a Christian College connected with IEC. Students who did not pass the first English exam must pass this class in order to enroll in the fall in college. The classroom is very fun, and we love helping the teacher, but it is also sad and difficult. Some students are progressing so well, others will not pass. They are humble and dedicated, and are giving up their lives to serve Christ, and I hurt for their frustration with English. I wish the stinking Christian College could just be in Amharic.

VBS- After the Contextualized Education course ended, a ministry called People In Need began a program for children of impoverished, mostly HIV positive, mothers. The program runs on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for ten weeks. We showed up the first day thinking we were assisting. The PIN people, however, thought we were running the whole show. This type of surprise has been fairly typical in Addis, so we rolled with it. That night, were able to write the bible curriculum. As a theme, we decided to focus on God’s desire for a relationship with humans, and went chronologically through the Bible telling stories of God’s pursuit of Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, etc. The program is run in Amharic, so we used translators. I never thought I would enjoy this ministry as much as I did, but today was our last day, and I was sad to leave. I played Isaac in the drama, and thankfully, God (Jonathan) jumped in to save me before Abraham (Matt), stuck me with some very sharp rolled up paper. The kids laughed and loved it. We pray for their salvation, and are grateful for how easy they are to work with.

Outside of these regular ministries, we have been visiting and serving at orphanages, girls homes, and most recently I was able to go to a ministry called Women at Risk, the only ministry I’ve found here that works exclusively with prostitution. This experience deserves an entire update, so I plan on blogging about it later.

We have also been able to get outside of the city twice now, for which I praise God. Everything you’ve read about so far has been exclusively Addis. You’ve read nothing about the rolling mountains and lush valleys of Ethiopia, about the three thousand year old tree with a trunk bigger than my apartment and branches to cradle our whole team. I simply can’t write it all!

Sunday, Matt and Charissa and I leave to visit Beletch Mesfine, the child I sponsor through World Vision. I get chills when I think about being able to greet her. Would you pray for our safe travel? The trip will take four days, and we will be going to a very remote part of Southwest Ethiopia. Pray for safe travel, and that I will not overwhelm Beletch or her family with enthusiasm.