Anatomy of a Decision

 

Rebecca enjoying a closure walk with
Bible study friend Eskedar at Entoto Park

We have big news and it deserves its own blogpost. So we will let you in on what has been happening under the surface in the past 3 months.

As you might know, Oren visited us for his winter break in December and January. During that time, we traveled to Kenya and Tanzania to reconnect with old friends and revisit places important to our family. We talked and wondered and heard Oren reflect on his own experience of spending his last two years of high school in Ethiopia. His conclusion was that it was tough on him. Although he made some good friends, he never felt like he was really graduating with his own class. He didn’t bond to this place. Two years was too short.

During our Christmas holiday, we also got a lot of questions. People were constantly asking us, so what’s your plan? Are you staying in Addis? How long? We wondered about it a lot ourselves. Upon our return to Addis, we spent some serious time talking through our options as a family. And we came to some unexpected conclusions.

David trying pottery on the
Eid holiday from school

About 9 months ago, we decided to extend our MCC term in Ethiopia, from June 2024 until June 2025. That would take David to the end of 10^th grade, a natural break in the Cambridge system. But this fall we had been watching with alarm as David’s high school became less and less satisfactory. This year, the school is so under-resourced that almost all 11^th and 12^th grade classes are being taught as online courses, not by direct instruction. There are far fewer qualified teachers for the high school level at all, including grades 9 and 10. The teachers who are present are stretched thin, trying to cover administrative duties as well as just a very few non-academic activities. The only real options for extracurricular activities is one sport team a season. Music, drama and leadership development opportunities are non-existent through the school; we forced David to join the community choir (which we love!) to have another musical expereice. We don’t want to blame the school – Addis Ababa is a hard place to live, and it's not a very attractive option for teachers who have to raise their own support to come and teach here. Recruitment has been tough. But we have also noted that even when David has been befriended by some amazing kids here, he also has never bonded with this place. He hates school and is unenthusiastic about learning. He has drawn increasingly inward, losing his curiosity about natural science (there’s no scope to explore), with little opportunity to grow in pursuits he tried and enjoyed in Tanzania: swimming, drama, arts and crafts, golf, fishing, etc.

We laid out our options as a family, and thought through each one carefully:

David with friends at Mama's Pottery,
a new option at Gulele Botanical Garden

1. We could complete our MCC Ethiopia assignment in 2025. But there were big problems with that plan.  The idea of pushing David through one more year of unenthusiastic school was hard for us and him. And then the idea of moving him to a new setting for grades 11 and 12? We heard from Oren how hard that was for him. We’d always assumed we would return to the US in 2025, and yet David said he would rather stay in Ethiopia than finish high school in the US. We realized that whenever we ended our term in Ethiopia, we were basically finished with international work with MCC. We had no desire to try to live and work in a totally new place; we have moved too much and are tired of building new communities and learning a new context. Yet, Paul is still very much at the top of his game in the international development field. It doesn’t make sense to consider retirement yet. And we have no illusions about how hard it would be for him to find professional work, returning to the US in his mid-60s. It also will put us in financial hardship. While we serve with MCC, we receive the rent from our US home as well as a college scholarship from MCC; paying for Oren’s college would be doubly hard if we left MCC.

2. We considered if we might extend our term in Ethiopia longer, to 2027. That would allow us to keep serving with MCC for 3 more years, solving the financial conundrum. But continuing longer here in Ethiopia, through David’s graduation, did not seem viable at all because of how hard it would be on David, stunting his learning and development at a key age. Staying here works well for some kids, but we don’t see it working well for the person that David is. Friends have cautioned us to make a decision to leave BEFORE we reach a crisis point.

Addis the process of beautification

3. We spent a fair bit of effort exploring a third option. We could plan to stay and work in Ethiopia until 2027 and send David to Rift Valley Academy, a boarding school in Kenya. To see if this could be a possibility, David and I took a special trip to Kenya to visit RVA. We were both really impressed by the beauty of the campus and the wide open spaces. David was blown away by the possibilities for art courses and sports, wood shop class, and science classes. He said that he really loved the school, but he would only go there if we moved there and be on staff so he could live with us. Clearly, that is not an option for us. We pressed the question, but David expressed clearly that he does not want to go to boarding school. We have enough experience with mission families and Paul’s own experience in boarding (which was fantastic for him) to know that there is nothing worse than forcing your child to go into boarding when he doesn’t want to, just so you can continue your mission work. And so that option was off the table for us.

 4.      The last option came up as a complete surprise to us late in Oren’s visit. At the end of December, our MCC colleagues serving as Representatives for the Kenya/Tanzania program announced that they were taking a new leadership role, and the position would be coming open in June. We had not even considered this opening as personally relevant until Oren pointed out that we should consider it. When we stopped to think about it, we recognized some compelling reasons:

 ·       we know the MCC Rep role very well and have managed an MCC program in Ethiopia on a similar scale; This is meaningful work we can both do together and seem to be gifted for. If we applied, we would be able to keep serving for another five years

·       the Kenya/Tanzania program is not totally new to us; we used to work in TZ and know the remaining partner organizations there well, and there are big food security programs that cross borders with Ethiopia; 

·       we have already spent time and energy learning Swahili, and Kenya feels familiar culturally; 

·       there is a thriving young adult volunteer exchange program in Kenya, something we have missed in Ethiopia; 

·       we could all live together and David could attend a good high school (Rosslyn Academy), with all the opportunities for personal growth that are missing for him here. In particular, we are excited to see David have the chance to return to swimming, to try out drama and musical theatre, to learn about pottery and woodworking, and more basically, to hopefully have the experience of enjoying a wider breadth of academic classes in science and humanities. 

·       David would have three years to adjust and build community in a new place, rather than just two, which can make a big difference in a young life.

Not a great effort at sushi, with
ingredients that came in 
our suitcases from other places

To make a long story short – we decided to apply for the Kenya/Tanzania Rep position in February. We knew it would be a competitive process. Praying friends counseled us to just apply and see what God would do. We were invited to interview. In the end, in the middle of our field visit to Tigray to understand the situation of hungry communities there, we received an offer to take this new job.  The same people who hired us are fully aware that they will need to work on hiring our replacements for the Ethiopia program. It was a devastating time to receive the offer, deep in the present moment of interacting with our team and project participants in Ethiopia. Yet in the middle of our 5 days of discernment, David also interviewed for Rosslyn and was accepted to the school, more or less settling the matter for us.

The major drawback to applying for this position was the sense that we would be breaking our deep commitments here in Addis Ababa too quickly. The MCC Ethiopia program is large and complicated, and we feel terrible about the idea of leaving our colleagues in the lurch. We are both extremely committed in our local international church: Paul is the main Sunday school teacher for older elementary kids, and I have served as an anchor on the small volunteer pastoral team for the past 2 years. We have made dear friends here, and it is painful to think about leaving them abruptly. Even at a deeper emotional level, it is not a good time in Ethiopia. We struggle daily with the feeling that we are walking away and abandoning a friend in need.

At the same time, we need to recognize that this Kenya/Tanzania position is the only international MCC position we would consider and we were given this offer. It is also painful to face the work of building a new community in a new place. And yet, we do know quite a few people based in Nairobi when we come to think of it. Work visits to Tanzania would give us the chance to also connect with old friends there. It is a hard and painful decision. But we need to find the energy to both grieve and rejoice at the same time. We were stuck and didn’t see a way out. This new job offer feels like another example of God rolling away a stone, sending an earthquake to unlock chains and open prison doors. It would be unfaithful not to also give thanks for this provision.

From the walk with Eskedar

So here is what lies ahead for us. We will travel to Kenya in the beginning of May for a week of Handover with the outgoing Reps. Ironically, they are the same couple that replaced us as Reps when we left the MCC Rwanda/Burundi program, and again when we released the Tanzania program to a joint Kenya/TZ program! Now we are following them into a position in return.

We will then come back to Ethiopia for about 6 weeks of closure here. We negotiated an arrangement in which we will continue to be responsible for the Ethiopia program administration until the beginning of August, to allow time for a good search process for our replacement(s). Physically we will leave the country on June 25 for a few days in Nairobi. We will then take a brief vacation in the US for July. School at Rosslyn Academy starts early for David so we will fly back to Nairobi to start a new season by August 5.

So now, we are abruptly entering a season of closure without the privilege of much time to prepare. We need to handle other changes and staff turnover on our team in the meantime, and many changes in our church and community. It will be an extremely busy time, and we will need prayer through it to arrive in Kenya as whole and functional people. So, thank you for praying for us.

The trinity of owls is still hovering in our compound

 

Eastertide and the search for healing and unity

Greyish Eagle Owl hovering in our yard

We had lots to report in our last blog about our work in Ethiopia and our sorrow at how hard life is for so many in this country. In contrast, this blog will be short.

After a deeply impactful monitoring visit to the North of Ethiopia, we returned to Addis to wrap up our fiscal year with a few crucial events, sitting right on top of the spiritual realities of Holy Week.

All Partner Meeting: Each year, we invite two or three staff members of our MCC implementing partners to gather together for a few days of capacity building and networking. We typically focus on topics relevant to best practices in development work: how to incorporate self-help groups in projects, safeguarding of children and vulnerable project participants, and how to easily collect monitoring data digitally to measure project impact. 

Ninja game

But this past year has been a hard one for the whole country of Ethiopia. On our team, we agreed that peacebuilding is essential for everything else we do. Moreover, there is a sense that the people of Ethiopia are collectively traumatized by the past three years of conflict and insecurity. Thus we decided that we would invite an outside group to facilitate two days of training on trauma awareness and how to plan for trauma-sensitive development programs.

Hana seriously engaging in play 

When I stopped to think about it in advance, I wondered if we were entering dangerous territory, raising questions of trauma with our gathering of partner staff. After all, we had participants coming from Afar and Tigray, Amhara and Oromia, Gambella and Addis and other parts of the country. I think at least half of our partners have been in situations of risking violent death at the hands of militants from one of the other ethnic groups represented. When the question of trauma comes up, blame can also rise to the surface. We prayed for mutual understanding and probably could and should have prayed even more.

how much can you balance?

Thankfully, The Child Development Training and Research Center (CDTRC) is one of the few organizations we have found with real expertise in engaging adults and children in discussions about trauma. They go beyond PowerPoint lectures to really engage their participants in self-reflection. And their method really works to build a safe space for listening to one another across differences. They interspersed times of energetic and hilarious games, allowing people the opportunity to release their tightly held stress. Even though the entire meeting was in Amharic, I could at least participate in playing a lot of the games.

Where is the pain?

 Other sessions were quite deep and serious. In one exercise, participants were given band-aids and told to put them on whatever part of their body was feeling the pain of trauma. Then, in small groups, they explained why they felt pain in those ways and what lay behind the pain. Our accountant later said that people were basically sharing the same pain, witnessing so much injustice and suffering around them.

Partner meeting group photo

Paul and I basically just observed the training from the back, wanting to be sure the facilitators were free to use Amharic as a common language better understood by most. Also, we were frantically trying to finish up the necessary data entry into Insight, our new digital Program Management system. All the old LogFrames for our past projects had to be entered by hand into the new system before the April 2 deadline of the new fiscal year. And at the same time, Paul needed to complete a massively long report on all our MCC work, to be submitted to the Agency governing charities. He spent an entire day preparing that 50-page report of narrative, tables, finances, etc. I was also responsible for several HR things related to the end of the fiscal year (salary memos, making sure we had all things well accounted for in our budget, etc).

Facilitator Lensa

The partner meeting was really too brief. Still, we were present and we could share meals and conversation with different people in the break times. I was so glad to see many of those dedicated development professionals. I connected well with many of them during past visits to their projects, but conflict has prevented us from meeting recently. In particular, I think of Meaza, a gender specialist working on the conservation agriculture project near Debre Markos. All of the project staff were basically on lockdown between May and November. She told me that she had revived her old passion for writing poetry and that it helps now to express what she and her country are going through. She has a young son, just 3 years old, and she takes care that he doesn’t watch the news or listen to bitter political talk. She said that her family tells her she should get out of her region, and find a job with an international NGO. But she loves being a social worker and connecting directly with the rural community. Meaza is a deeply beautiful person and I have so much admiration for her. It was a gift to sit across from her. I am not sure when or if I will see her again.

Illustrating Christian unity

On Thursday morning, I had to run off to a completely different gathering, this one facilitated by the Bible Society of Ethiopia. I struggled and labored to understand three academic talks (in Amharic) on the importance and value of maintaining Christian unity between the Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Churches. The Trinitarian Forum, developed by BSE, is a unique place where these different Christians can meet. And in the conference room, it is easy to agree that unity is the only way forward for good news for the country. I got a lovely shot of this staged expression of Christian unity. Let us keep praying that such unity is possible and supported by people and leaders out on the street.

And then we hit the end of Holy Week. Our congregation hosted a joint service for Good Friday, together with St. Matthew’s Anglican Church. They did most of the work and organization and we just provided the space. But still, this kind of joint effort raised a lot of appreciation from people – why should we always meet in our separate buildings with tiny groups for special services? And in fact, the church was full for a very somber service.

On Holy Saturday, we hosted youth group at our house. I arranged a Prayer Mosaic, taking youth around our yard, to different stations where they could ponder some of the events of Jesus’ last week, and what it would have been like to be there as a disciple. Just a few kids came – I think there was a big soccer tournament going on for some. But the kids who came seemed to engage well with this kind of imaginative prayer. After they were finished with the serious part of things, we allowed them to come in the house and color eggs – this was a new experience for some who come from families with very theologically correct understandings of Eastertide (and truly there is nothing very Christian about coloring eggs, but we like to do it because it is fun and creative and relaxing).

As a special surprise towards the end of our youth group time, I pointed out an owl that had come to roost in our yard. It was perched just above the guest container, the room that had served as our symbolic “tomb” during the prayer mosaic. I was so moved to see an owl come to visit us in this time and place. 

Juvenile eagle owl

There was a special and hard time in Arusha when we enjoyed a visitation of owls as a real consolation. And it feels the same way now. In fact, over the entire past week, they have remained with us, a trinity of owls, mother, father, and juvenile. We have identified them as “Greyish Eagle Owls.” Our guards are fascinated by how fascinated we are by them. In Ethiopian culture, owls give people a shudder, as a harbinger of death. But I have been firm in telling all our staff that they are a gift, a sign of the hovering of the Holy Spirit. I don’t want any rocks thrown at these gorgeous creatures to scare them off. For as long as they remain with us, they are a thrill to see, every time.

Easter Dawn

On Sunday morning, we rose before 5 am so that we could arrive at our church sunrise service before 6 am across the city. It was fully dark as we began the worship service, passing the light of candles among us, celebrating the renewed triumph of light over darkness. Our new pastor, Rebecka, preached a meaningful sermon on the stones of Easter. And I was impressed by the need to give even more praise and glory to God when he rolls away stones from our graves, from the places where we are stuck and out of options. Sometimes it’s easy to just remain in the habit of grief and despair and harder to break out into rejoicing when God actually answers and changes the situation.

Easter sermon

Easter at Redeemer is always followed by a wonderful potluck breakfast together. And the Norwegian Lutheran compound is perfect as a venue with a big dining hall where we can just barely all squeeze in. I sat at a table with 3 Ethiopians of different backgrounds and we spent a little too much time debating politics. But we also had a good chance to share other things that are more uplifting. And after a leisurely time, we headed back home, arriving by 9:30. It’s amazing what all you can fit into a morning when you start at 6 am! After a very nice nap, We shared a wonderful relaxed and delicious Easter lunch with the Kempen family. It’s so nice to have friends here that really feel like extended family and we give thanks for that.

Eyerus' birthday cake

The new week began without any Easter Monday holiday – because Western Easter falls at a totally different time than Orthodox Easter. We won’t get to celebrate Fasika until the beginning of May! Anyway, yes, the week began with lots of bad news about satisfying government requirements. The Charities Association rejected our report and asked for all the pieces to be sent as separate files. Then they rejected it again, asking for a much longer narrative report on all our work. Paul was tearing his hair out, but just had to sit and work it out.

On Tuesday, I left early to drive to Bishoftu for another occasion to celebrate Christian unity. The Meserete Kristos Church president, Desalegn Abebe, had initiated a gathering of Anabaptist Church leaders from 4 countries in the region: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia. MKC played the hosts, and then MCC supported a few bishops and leaders from each national church to fly in. I was delighted to meet up with Tanzanian church leaders again whom I had known quite well during our time in Arusha. 

Tanzanian Mennonite Church leaders
Jumanne Magiri, Emmanuel Hagai
and Bishop Kisare

The Ugandan pastors were new to me, and it was also helpful to meet them. Sadly the Kenyans’ flight was delayed. Pastor Desalegn had invited me to come and start out their meeting by sharing the word of God; I was honored to accept that request. My presence also meant that at least one woman was present for part of the gathering 😉. Other MKC department leaders attended the opening session, but then after lunch, we left the actual church heads to have some more intimate time to discuss how to be salt and light in their contexts.It's very good to see Anabaptist leaders developing their own network of relationships apart from being directed to do so by western missions.

There is more to share and the next blog will come soon with more personal news. But let this Eastertide blogpost stand in for now, with hope for healing and unity, in a situation that often feels very much like tomb closed off by a heavy stone. 

A few bonus photos:

Church leaders' exchange from the pulpit viewpoint

Standing by the MCC tree at MKC seminary

Paul and I took the dogs to Gulele right after our field visit

The beautiful acacia in our yard at dusk

What passes for a "Nature walk" in our neighborhood

Dahlias blooming again with all the rain