Paul and Rebecca Mosley in Ethiopia: 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: