I was hoping that 4 posts in March would keep us caught up for at least 2 weeks, but I was mistaken. March is a particularly busy month for our MCC program because the 31st is the end of our fiscal year. As a non-profit, we have to spend certain allocated funds which we cannot rollover. This puts a lot of pressure on us to complete certain activities, like a professional staff retreat, an all partners meeting, and a few smaller home and office projects for which we have some funds.
The fact that we had to evacuate in December, and were not able to move around the country between October and the end of January had meant that we had delayed a number of these activities and have now had to cram them into the end of the year while things are relatively stable here. (Note: we still need to do some advance intelligence before we travel far out of Addis as there have been pockets of attacks (not by the TPLF), primarily by extremist Oromo separatists that create some anxiety around travel.
Despite this, we did take several trips out of town for retreats and had people come to Addis to meet us from around the country for our partners' meeting. Here is a brief synopsis of the 5 events that have happened in the past two weeks.
1) Staff Retreat: Part of keeping up team morale among our office staff, is participating in an annual retreat. We have not had one since we officially took our role last February and were looking forward to having one in November before the war heated up. It was a bit of a squeeze but we did find a weekend when everyone was free and scheduled a two-day trip to Lake Langano, about 3 hours south of Addis in Oromo region. There are a number of resorts along the lake as it is a destination for local tourism, as well as some international tourists as well. We headed out in 3 vehicles on a Friday. We had altogether, our accountant Eyerusalem and her husband Moses, our logistics officer Wondeweson, whose wife, unfortunately, could not travel that weekend so he came alone, our food security officer Mesfin with his two daughters, both younger than David, and Solomon our senior program officer with his wife and two daughters (both in high school). Our whole family came along as well, of course.
We arrived, in staggered groups in the late afternoon. The Sabana Resort was nice with a main dining area and a number of independent bungalows. It sat on a bluff about 200 feet over the lake, so there was a brief walk down to it. The lake is a bit unusual in that it looks kind of reddish-brown for most of the day. The color is not caused by soil erosion, though, but rather a high amount of minerals shed by the volcanic rock all around it. The beach was very pebbly, so you needed water shoes to walk around, and most of the rock was volcanic, some pieces even floated on top of the water. The temperature and in the first part of the day the water was very still and nice for wading and swimming. The exception to that was sticking one's head underwater, about one foot down the water got cold quickly and eerily became pitch black. The mineral content is so heavy that it completely blocks out the sun, like you are doing deep sea diving. We found it unnerving to swim under the water, and generally kept our heads above.
I also brought our inflatable stand-up paddleboard and David brought his fishing rods. Everyone enjoyed the paddleboard and other inflatables we brought, particularly Mesfin's girls. David did not have any luck fishing though. I enjoyed taking the paddleboard out quite far in the morning as the water was very calm. The lake was far too big to get anywhere near the middle. There was also a playground by the lake which had some swings and a giant chess board that kept Oren occupied.
On Saturday morning our team had breakfast together with families, then took an hour to reflect on 'sabbath', and what rest looks like in our lives. We then spent a good part of the rest of the day by the beach swimming and even played some volleyball. In the evening we had dinner together again before bed.
On Sunday morning, Solomon's wife Seble, preached for us, as she is quite the evangelist. Rebecca and I were happy to learn some Amharic worship songs as well, as we are continuing to try to improve our conversational abilities. We again spent part of the day at the beach. Unfortunately, our family had to leave on Sunday as Oren had 'mock A level' exams all the next week starting on Monday. We drove back with Mesfin and his daughters who also had to be back for school.
The following week Oren had exams most days, and when he did not, he was home 'studying'. Despite the fact that it looked like there were alot of videogames played during study time, he aced all of his mock A levels (we found out this week).
2) Prophetic Peace Plenary: Rebecca and I spent our days in the office trying to catch up on work and prepare for the events of the week ahead. We did have one interesting in-town field visit to see a small project that MCC had supported. Several weeks ago, we were approached by the head of an Evangelical Church Network about providing some funding as well as a keynote speaker who could bring a peace lens to the Gospel and galvanize evangelical church leaders to be active peacebuilders in their communities. Having worked in a number of post-conflict countries, we do have a lot of contacts, especially in Rwanda and Burundi where we worked with a number of amazing genocide survivors. We recommended a pastor named Celestin Museka, a Rwandese hutu whose family was murdered after the genocide. His journey to forgive the murderers, and even eventually finance the education of the imprisoned children of the perpetrators is a shattering story of divine grace.
The fact that they were able to get Celestin, within a matter of weeks to agree to the invitation and travel from Texas, where he now lives, to Addis, was a miracle in itself. Rebecca and I attended the plenary where he spoke to nearly 2000 evangelical church leaders from around the country. For him, the gospel of reconciliation in Christ requires us to be reconciled to our enemies--at great personal sacrifice. He challenged the leaders here saying how bad ethnic hatred was, even among Christians just prior to the genocide. I was shocked when he said bluntly--"And here, I think, at this moment, you may be worse!".
He went on to say, "but the difference between Ethiopia and Rwanda is, the genocide has not happened here yet. That means you still have the chance to repent and stop it." He pulled no punches and challenged them, as church leaders, to give ethnic hatred and division no quarter.
After the powerful testimony, the room was silent. Rebeca and I had a chance to talk with Celestin and the President of the Evangelical Fellowship. It was clear that they were moved by his word. We will see if prophetic voices rise up from the church against the simmering cauldron of ethnic division here.
3) Church Retreat Weekend: I think we might need a retreat from retreating soon. The fact was, the weekend after our staff retreat, we had a retreat with our church. It also was on a lake, in roughly the same direction, but not quite as far as the one we went to for our staff retreat. The SIM compound on Bishoftu Lake is a place we have come a few times before and is really quite nice. The lake is deep, but the water is clear (although you can't see the bottom.) This is no resort. The bungalows are quite run down and were built to frugal missionary standards even when they were new, 40-50 years ago. Our family shared a pretty tiny room with a public bathroom. But we did enjoy bringing our stand-up paddleboard and fishing equipment again. David had more luck this time, catching over a dozen tilapia.
We had a nice time with our church community doing sports and hiking by day, then singing, and playing games by night. On Saturday evening, Rebecca and I were asked to lead a set of folk and line dances. We did some favorites of ours including Pata Pata, Yerusalema, and the Virginia Reel. Everyone participated and it was a great time!! (sorry no photos as I was calling). We had church by the lake on Sunday morning, then our Annual General Metting in the afternoon. Rebecca is now officially on the pastoral team.
We returned in the afternoon Sunday, just in time to join our small group. We slept well Sunday night after a very active weekend.
4) All Partners Meeting: The following week was no less hectic than any of the previous ones. Again, the reason for cramming so much into March is to spend our budget for certain annual activities before the end of the fiscal year. The All Partners Meeting is an annual gathering of our partners for the purpose of capacity building as well as networking. It is usually held over several days at a conference location, where people from out of town can stay overnight. Because of COVID, MCC Ethiopia has not had one in 2 years. It is a blessing that COVID incidence is way down here at the moment.
The meeting was on a Tuesday and Wednesday with most of our staff presenting something. Rebecca did a longer presentation on 'Safeguarding' (against sexual exploitation), a partner of ours, Food for the Hungry did a presentation on Complaint Mechanism in emergency interventions. It is a challenge to find ways to allow vulnerable people to report back situations where they may be exploited or unjustly treated, especially in an emergency situation, like an IDP camp intervention.
Solomon, Mesfin, and I presented on the more mundane topic of reporting for MCC, especially updates to our protocols and report templates. It was actually a good time despite having to leave the house at 6:45 am both mornings to get there on time. It always felt like a long, but rewarding day. We had about 24 in attendance on both days, and many reported back how much they appreciated the discussions.
5) Rebecca Preaching: The last two days of the week, were still filled with frantic administrative work as the fiscal year-end approached before the weekend. Rebecca and I spent all day Thursday and Friday working in the office even though we usually try to take time off for at least half the day on Friday.
The weekend remained busy with Rebecca preparing a sermon on Saturday morning, then us hosting our next-door neighbors' Birthday in our yard. They are good friends so that was fine and we had a nice evening with two other families.
Rebecca preached on Sunday and in one person's opinion "Knocked it out of the park." Her message was on Mary anointing Jesus' feet at Bethany, but she did it in the persona of Mary's sister Martha. It was quite clever and creative!
Link to audio here.
I need to come up for air at this point. We are hoping April is less eventful than March, but we will see.
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