Lalibela and some thoughts from Karen

Hi all,
Before jumping into our Lalibela experience, we felt it important to recap last Thursday. As Josh mentioned we all felt pretty discouraged last Monday evening, in part due to the teaching and in part due to the time at “Joy Home” and woodshop. Thursday afternoons mirror our Monday afternoons, so we didn’t quite know what to expect as the girls and guys headed off in our separate directions.
Unsurprisingly, God proved faithful yet again. The 10 girls at Joy Home shyly greeted us and we began to show them how to make pineapple pizza. While the girls seemed interested and helpful, they still were a bit reserved with us. As the pizzas were cooking, we told the girls that we had brought a camera, a photo printer, and decorations for a craft—the girls came alive at this! They scurried to their rooms to get ready for their “photo shoot”, some trying on 3 or 4 outfits to get the right look. Once all the pictures were taken, the girls huddled around the photo printer, watching with joy and giggles as the pictures slowly made their way out of the printer. Konjit, the woman in charge of the girls’ home, told us that these were the first pictures that some of the girls had of themselves. We felt God really blessing our interactions and relationships with the girls and couldn’t wait to return Monday.
The boys were similarly blessed with some good conversations and interactions at the woodshop. For the last hour of their time, there was a project that all three guys, a shop teacher, and some of the shop students all worked on together. This facilitated a time for talking, sharing, and even a few theological discussions. The boys joined us in the minivan with dirt and glue on their hands and big smiles on their faces at the end of the afternoon.
Now on to the Lalibela adventure! Our flight to Lalibela went smoothly. We stepped off the plane onto the gravel runway, smaller than most parking lots in the States, and were surrounded by green hills and lush countryside. After the constant crush of people, sooty black car fumes, and dusty roads of Addis, we all took a couple deep breaths—inhaling the fresh air and the natural beauty that surrounded us. As we drove into Lalibela from the airport, it felt as if we were driving back in time. Straw and mud huts dotted the hills and shepherds looked up from their herds of sheep and goats to smile and wave at us.
We spent the day touring the ancient Orthodox churches for which the city is famous. These churches were built in the 1100-1200s and carved out of the soft red rock of the land. Many of these churches were literally carved from the top down and then the inside of the building was hollowed out from the stone. It’s amazing to think of the manpower and determination that it took to carve these beautiful churches. The centuries-old sanctuaries are still being used as places of worship. It was humbling to look down at the floors of the churches, worn smooth by hundreds of thousands of feet coming to worship across time, knowing that our footsteps were now joining theirs.
We got to see a service in progress with about a dozen priests and clergy chanting in praise to God. Stephen’s highlight of the trip occurred in that dimly lit sanctuary when an elderly gentleman mistook Stephen for a pillar in the church and was about to kiss his stomach. The man was quite surprised when the “wall” moved out of his way! Another of the group’s highlights was getting to travel through an underground tunnel that connected two of the churches.
Overall the trip was awe-inspiring and restorative; it was a nice mini-break as we reached our two-week mark. Thank you for your continued prayers and support as we continue this week with teaching and serving.
~Karen and the rest of the gang

Hola mis amigos/as! July 5, 2007

Josh here with the next edition of Our Life in Ethiopia: The delightful tale of seven wonderful servants adventuring… Sorry, but there has been a running joke that my blog segment would be more soap opera than update, but fear not, I’m here to inform. (Pretty sure Karen & Stephen are going to hook up though)
Where to begin? Well this has been our first full week with some semblance of routine. It began on Sunday with a visit to Pastor Matheos’ church. Pastor Matheos has been our companion and translator on all of our ministry adventures, consistently taking care of us and adopting us as his sheep. It was great to experience worship at an Ethiopian church and proved enlightening despite the language barrier. Occasionally we would receive interpretations as to what the sermon was about or what the songs we were singing actually meant. Or, thanks to our Amharic lessons, we would pick up words we recognized here and there causing us to smile and meet eyes excited by the familiar words. The speaker focused on the obedience exhibited in the life of Joshua using Joshua 1:1-9 and 1 Cor. 10. The rest of our day was preparation for our teaching debut. At 3 pm we left for a traditional coffee ceremony at Pastor Matheo’s house followed by an Ethiopian dinner at the Crown Hotel with entertainment taking the form of excellent traditional dancers…and our very own Joe. The room is fairly large, seating 100 people or so. Well the music gets going and the dancers get to dancing and pretty soon some nice middle-aged Ethiopian men to the left of us are standing up dancing along. So naturally Joe, jumps up and starts clapping along to the beat with a little awkward hip shaking thrown in for good measure. Next thing we know he’s running over to the middle aged men having a dance off Ethiopian style. Dancing over here is all about moving your shoulders, chest and neck to the beat. So there’s Joe with his hands on his hips thrusting his upper body and all of us crying from laughing so hard. What made it even better was that half of the place was watching Joe instead of the dancers.
We entered classrooms Monday morning ready to teach English, one of the major tasks for which we had prepared, only to be severely humbled and forced to take a step back and rethink a few things. Most of the kids proved to be more of a handful than we had expected and our limited language skills impacted our abilities to present our lessons in an understandable way. We left the school that day disheartened, but continued on to the feeding center at Hope headquarters to serve some familiar faces and see some of our new friends. After that, we split up and the girls went to “Joy Home” a house ministry to about a dozen orphan girls ages 10-16. Meanwhile the guys went back to HOPE school to spend some time with our friends in the woodworking shop. There were a few discouraging and uncomfortable parts of the afternoon as well and by the time we all regrouped at home we were pretty down. Together we discussed our experiences as well as a plan of action. We realized that maybe this teaching thing was not going to go as planned but either way we would pray and seek God’s guidance. So Tuesday morning we had our Amharic lessons followed by a trip to the ASCO Children’s Center, a home run by the Sisters of Charity for HIV+/AIDS children. We took a brief tour of the facilities and then we spent time with the directors discussing the possibility of some ongoing teaching to the children. The day went by but unfortunately for me, it was not much more than just another day. We prayed that night for God to give us patience with the children, and that we would be filled with strength and love to approach all of our teaching with a different perspective. I was reminded of the Scripture telling us that it is when we are weak that we realize the true strength of God. The next morning was a beautiful reminder that God answers prayer. The kids were attentive and quiet, ready for instruction and eager to learn - that’s what I saw in the classroom Stephen and I were in and basically mirrored the input from everyone else. We celebrated our victory in the classroom (and the 4th of July) with steak, hamburgers and fries, our attempt at being American. It was refreshing to sit down and have lunch together rather than rushing from place to place eating our granola bars and trail mix in the minibus.
Wednesday afternoon we began teaching at the ASCO Center and it was a great experience which we will be continuing a couple days each week. This trip has reminded me that a beautiful thing about service is that everyone is called to serve, just in different ways. Each individual has his or her unique talents and strengths that fill different niches. We can do more together than we can do alone. This is the truth found in the body of Christ. Pray for us as we leave for Lalibela Friday morning at 5am; although this might not be posted until we get back so…maybe just keep us in prayer for all of our ongoing and new relationships and ministries. Thank you for all of the support, prayer and love, keep it coming.

-Josh and the Ethiopian Entourage