Work and Rest Pics

 Two trusses in place at the Bantu church.

 Raising the roof...quite a sight.

 Our lawn mower and goat, Abdi (hope).

 Making the journey to Abebee...getting ready to wade the river.

The new congregation of Bili Malima.

Wading one of the rivers on the way to Abebee.

Work and Rest

We have had the opportunity to engage in many facets of ministry this week; it’s been an exciting and fruitful seven days.  Saturday was mainly spent working at the Bantu church construction site.  The majority of the walls, doors, and window frames are completed, and this past weekend the trusses went up to support the roof.  The Bantu church is gray stone with peaked windows all around, and it is situated next to a massive African tree.  The trusses are huge and elevate the roof of the church high above other buildings in Bantu.  As one of our guards, Katama, said as he watched the trusses go up from our house, “guyyaa baareedaa!” or “beautiful day!”  It will be a beautiful house of the Lord when it is completed. 

Much work was also needed on the Bantu church well this week.  It is a relatively deep well compared to many hand-dug wells in the area, and it has had a problem with caving in at the bottom.  The men have worked all week to dig out and sink concrete supports down to the water line.  It’s incredible how far down the digger climbs into the well.  We were also blessed to have Ted Mettetal and Jimmy Leatherwood from Hope Springs Water here this week.  They have been rehabilitating a truck-mounted drilling rig that will be able to bore deep water wells in the near future.  Ted and Jimmy also worked on getting a solar-power pump up and running for the Bantu church well.  This will allow the church to pump water even on days the electricity is off. 

Sunday morning we traveled out to Bili Malima, the village where The Woodlands team held VBS, and met with 16 believers for the first service of their new church plant.  It was quite a journey.  We drove as far as we could until the mud got too deep, and then we walked the remainder of the way.  Larry carried Matthew, Berhanu carried the guitar, I carried the backpack with all our Bibles, and the boys just worked not to fall over in the mud.  Our feet were covered in mud by the time we made it to the house for church, but the difficulty in getting there only made the occasion more meaningful.  Larry preached a message on new life, and it is so awesome to contemplate the new life God is bringing to this community.

I got to meet with the Bantu Ladies’ program on Monday evening for their weekly meeting.  It was such a great experience to be with these women as they worshiped and prayed.  They were very gracious to allow me to join with them.  While we are here, I will have the opportunity to share some biblical storytelling practices with them.  Our goal is to teach them the methods of biblical storytelling just like the pastors learn in the Bible Institute.  We’re focusing on five stories that teach “Jesus is Lord” that they can memorize and tell to friends, neighbors, and family members who are unbelievers.  I had a wonderful time sharing with the women and learning from them.

On the more personal side of things, Thursday night we got to host Berhanu, Shewa, and their baby, Yacob, for dinner in our home.  We are so thankful for their friendship and fellowship, and we loved the chance to play with Yacob.  I have also started working with Berhanu on learning some computer programs that would be useful for the Bantu church.  He is a tremendous help for us in learning the Oromiffa language.  We also got a goat this week, compliments of Jim.  The grass in our yard has grown pretty long now that a fence is up and keeps grazing livestock out, and we thought a goat would solve the problem and be fun for the boys.  He is a little black billy goat about six months old, and it’s fun to see the boys lead him around the way they do Baxter back home.  We named him “Abdi” which in Oromiffa means “hope.” 

It has rained like crazy over the past five days, multiple times a day.  The ground is completely saturated and the mud is everywhere and deep.  As inconvenient as it is for us, rain is life to the people here who survive as subsistence farmers.  It does make ministry challenging though…we are planning to go out to Abebee to distribute 2000 Meals 4 Multitudes and to show the Jesus film in Oromiffa at the Bantu church as a community event.  We are waiting for an evening without rain to show the film and dry enough ground that we can cross the rivers on the road to Abebee. 

We did brave the trek out to Abebee on Thursday afternoon so that we could coordinate a day to distribute meals. We made it halfway in the car and only got stuck in the mud once.  Then we waded through a creek, traveled by “gaarrii” or horse cart to the river, waded the river, and traveled by gaarrii to the Abebee church.  We are (hopefully) set to distribute meals on Monday.  While there we discovered the Abebee church well was out of commission, so Larry and the pastors were able to get that back up and running.  Then we made the long (and muddy) trip home.  Thursday morning, in the midst of a rain storm, we stood at our front door and watched a moth migration.  Thousands of moths flew past our house…it was a great picture of perseverance under trial.

Tonight Larry is picking up his mother, Linda, at the airport for a ten day stay!  We are so excited to have Mimi visit and experience life here with us.  It will be a great encouragement to us as we reach the halfway point of our summer here in Ethiopia.  Would you pray for continued opportunities this week as Larry preaches Sunday morning in Bantu, we distribute Meals 4 Multitudes in Abebee and Bottonee, the ladies’ program, showing the Jesus film, and whatever else God places in our path?!  We will head back into town next Monday evening (July 7) for our weekly Addis trip.  Have a wonderful week!

Pics from The Woodlands' Team

 Baptizing new believers in the river just outside Bantu.

 Centering the supports for the church door.

 The wonderful tree that provided shade for VBS.

 Sharing stickers = sharing love

 This was Logan's favorite part of the week....giving out stickers to children during women's ministry.

 The well is up and running!

 My sweet sister in Christ, Negasse.

 Support posts, windows, and door frames in the Abebee church.

 Making friends with a baby donkey.

Parachutes are fun for everyone!

The Harvest is Here, Your Kingdom is Near

We are so excited to share with you all that God has done to advance His kingdom these past five days.  This was a week of tremendous encouragement and fellowship for us as we were joined by wonderful friends from our home church.   What a blessing to be surrounded by their love and support this week.

What an incredible week!  We drove out early Sunday morning and joined the Bantu church for worship.  After the service was over, the church walked about 15 minutes to the river for a baptism ceremony.  The choir led the way with singing and drums, and the congregation followed.   The river is a community place, and as we gathered for the baptism, others were gathered to wash clothes, haul water, and bathe.  Our pastors were able to share the Gospel message to many who will not walk through the gates of the church.  Ten new believers were baptized this Sunday.  It was truly a celebration of new life, and we were honored to be able to take part in it. 

The walk down to the river was tiring, but the walk up was pretty exhausting.  The African sun, 8,000 feet elevation, two streams to cross, a constant uphill, and three little boys made for a difficult trek.  But it also provided a wonderful opportunity to see the body of Christ at work as our American and Ethiopian friends continuously came along side to help get our boys back to the church.

Vacation Bible School was an incredible experience this year.  We hosted VBS in a small cabalee outside the village of Abebee.  A cabalee is a very tiny village…bigger than just a hamlet of ten or so homes, but not large enough to have stores or a market.  We were invited to Bili Malima by a family of believers who attend the Abebee church.  They have been eager to start a church in their own cabalee, and were gracious hosts for this first evangelism effort.  We could not have asked for a more picture perfect site…a very large courtyard area surrounded by the family’s huts and a huge African tree providing shade.  About 150 children attended each day, and they were so wonderfully behaved and eager to participate and hear about Jesus.   It was a perfect situation for us with the boys; the children were friendly and interested but not overwhelming.  The boys had a great time attending Bible school and making friends.  It was a very fruitful week in Bili Malima.  About 200 children, women, and men heard the Gospel, and 15 became new believers in Christ!  A new church has been planted, and we will go this Sunday to celebrate the first service in Bili Malima! 

We spent our afternoons in Abebee at the new church site.  Our ladies led Bible programs for women each day and told Bible stories to the children gathered around.  About 60 women attended the Bible programs and around 100 children heard the Bible stories.  Our hope is that these interactions will fuel interest and they will come to the Abebee church to learn more.  The men on the team helped in the construction of the new church building and worked to complete the water well on the church property.  We were able to frame the doors and windows for the church and get the well up and running.  Next week we will have the opportunity to pass out Meals 4 Multitudes at the school in Abebee.

This week has been a wonderful encouragement to us from a ministry perspective, and we are looking forward to many more opportunities to serve in the coming weeks.  We are doing well in other areas too.  Josh has a cold, so we could use some prayers that it is short lived and the rest of the boys stay healthy.  We could also use prayers for good rest; we are pretty tired at the end of each day.  We’ll be back into town next Friday…thank you for all your love and support!

New Pics!

 On a hilltop overlooking the village of Bantu.  Our home and the school is in the immediate background.

 Exploring with Uncle Russell.

Playing with baby calves in our backyard one day this week.

 Warkeenesh and "Mah-ttie" playing swords.

Russell, Larry, and one of our guards, Taro, repairing the sewage pipe.

 Rural Pastors' Bible Institute.

A walk in the village.

A view of our home.

Broken

Tonight we are in Addis for another quick trip.  We came in this morning to meet the Jacksons, take them and Russell shopping, drop Russell off for his flight home, and pick up the rest of The Woodlands team from the airport.  We head back out early tomorrow morning so that we can be back at church in Bantu for Sunday morning worship.  Today has been very busy as we’ve had to fit in a two hour car trip, shopping for souvenirs, grocery shopping for us and the 15 person team, laundry, exchanging water bottles and propane tanks, and enough internet and Skype time to last for another week. 

Grocery shopping here is very different from how I shop in the states.  First I head down the street to the roadside produce stand.  I have found a very good one where the men are kind and speak a pretty good amount of English.  Today I bought 3 papayas, 2 bunches of bananas, 6 apples, 1 kilo potatoes, 10 tomatoes, and 10 avocadoes for the equivalent of $12.  Next I head to my favorite grocery store, Abadir, where I can buy most everything else I need.  Then I double back to a second store to fill in what the first lacked.  I’m limited on what I can refrigerate in the guest house overnight, so I buy items I need to freeze the night before and pick up the rest the next morning on the way out of town.  You can’t buy ice for a cooler, so I freeze ground beef and buy frozen chickens to keep everything cool on our two our ride out to our home.  It’s been a learning experience.

As you can probably tell from the title, the theme of this week has been “broken.”  Since our last blog post a week ago, we’ve had a car that won’t start twice, two flat tires, the circuit breaker on our generator break in the ‘off’ position, a brand new faucet snap at the attachment while Larry was putting it on, a sink begin leaking, an inverter burn up, a massive window leak, and a septic pipe that had to be dug up, cleaned out, and replaced.   We’re pretty sure there’s something else that we just can’t remember now.  It’s been a little exhausting on the repair side of things this week.  One thing we’re learning is that maintaining a home here is a constant job.

House repairs weren’t the only broken things we dealt with this week.  Last Sunday as we drove back into the village before church, we witnessed a large crowd of people attending a ceremony just up the road from our home.  We discovered that it was a Waqqefachuu gathering, an animistic worship service.  We’ve never seen one before, and it was a powerful reminder for how broken this world is that we all live in.  It is heartbreaking to see people trust in lies, seek that which can never satisfy, and look for answers where there are none.  Daily living is hard here, but it is worth it if God will use us to help repair just a little of the brokenness. 

We are really excited about the ministry coming up this week.  The Woodlands team will lead VBS in a new little village called Bili Malima outside our sister village of Abebee.  There is currently one believing family in this village, and they are eager to plant a church in their home village.  We’ll also host a Ladies’ ministry program, work on finishing a water well, and help with the construction of the new church building in Abebee.  This past week we held a four day session of the Rural Pastors’ Bible Institute.  How awesome to see 43 men and women gathered faithfully for study, prayer, and instruction in God’s word.  We are honored to have been able to teach there again.  We have also been so grateful to have Larry’s brother-in-law, Russell, here this week.  What a tremendous help, support, blessing, and encouragement he has been to us and the boys. 

Thank you so much for your love and prayers.  We need them!  We will be back in town next Thursday, so look for another blog post then!

Pics From Our First Week in Bantu

 Logan and Josh's first horse cart ride with Daddy and Pastor Berhanu.

 Don't you have livestock in your backyard?

 Taking a work break in Chuck's hammock.

 Do you see the four monkeys in this picture?  Hint...two are in blue shirts.

 Enjoying the park and monkey reserve.

 Handmade ladder and water tank tower from eucalyptus trees...Superman Chuck.

Not Easy, But Good

We’ve made it through our first eight days in Bantu.  As you may have guessed from the title, these days have been full of challenges as well as the opportunities to overcome.  We’ll share some of the hard times, but first we want to share with you the many blessings we’ve experienced this week.

We have been surrounded by a tremendous group of people that God placed in our lives for this first week in the village.  Jim and Viola Palmer are incredible mentors and guides as we begin this experience.  From mission practices to spiritual guidance to how to survive with no running water, they have been invaluable to us.  We have also been incredibly blessed by a man who was a complete stranger one week ago and is now a dear, dear friend.  Chuck Miller, a contractor and apparently Superman, gave up a week of his time to fly halfway around the world and literally make us a home.  He built us a kitchen (from scratch), installed a 1000 liter water tank and all its connections and pump, fixed the bathroom, built shelves, and did so many more things I can’t even list.  Plus, he’s just a great guy to have around.  Dr. Elijah Brown from ETBU was here this week investigating future mission possibilities.  I can’t tell you how many rounds of animals and superheroes he played with the boys and how many books he read to them.  We have been so thankful for all these wonderful friends who have loved our boys and cared for them during this busy week. 

We also have been very blessed by Ethiopian friends this week.  Pastor Berhanu has given up so much of his time this week to help us get settled, find people to work around the house, translate for us, and just make sure we have everything we need.  We’ve hired two guards for the house and found a wonderful helper for the house.  Her name is Waarkeenesh, and she has helped make my days tremendously easier.  She has such a servant’s heart; she comes early, stays late, and looks for extra things she can do to help us out.  I am so thankful for her help each day.  The Ethiopian people have been very welcoming to us and go out of their way to show us kindness.

We did face quite a few challenges this week.  We arrived in Bantu late Friday afternoon to no running water.  The well pump for the school facility has broken.  We brought the electrical component into Addis today and will hopefully have it fixed and working at the end of this week.  In the meantime, we have learned other ways of getting the water we need.  We have filled a lot of outdoor buckets with water from the church well and have hauled a lot of water indoors for washing dishes and bathing.  When the electricity went off in the village mid-week and there was no power for the city wells, we resorted to water hauled from the river.  Though we bleached it to make it safe, it was of course still river water.  I know this sounds challenging, and it was, but we also had an adequate supply of bottled water for drinking and cooking.  500 yards away from us live about 5000 people who have no access to bottled water.  River water is all they had for three days.  It was hard for us, but there was much we could be thankful for. 

One of Chuck’s biggest projects this week was helping us remedy this situation.  He installed a gravity based water tank for us on the roof of the house and a pump that draws water from 55 gallon drums to fill the tank.  For now it holds and supplies our water until the well is working.  Once we have fully running water, it will be a holding tank for when the electricity is out and the well does not run.  We have a generator, and we had to use it quite a bit this week when power was off.  It is an adjustment, but we are definitely thankful to have it. 

Communications systems have been really unreliable this week.  The phone services are just overloaded and it is very tough to communicate.  Other than a two minute conversation with each of our moms and two text messages, we were not able to talk with our family at all this week.  The lines are just so busy and we can’t get through.  That has been one of the toughest aspects for all of us, so please pray that communications improves.  This has also been an exhausting week.  We fall into bed so tired at the end of each day.  Please pray that things will settle down a little now that most of the house stuff is finished and that we can get good rest.  We are so thankful tonight for hot showers, the chance to do laundry, internet, and the ability to talk with our family.

Ministry takes time, and we know that, but we have been able to do a couple of things this week as we’ve worked to make a home.  Larry was able to go out to one of our sister villages of Abebee and help begin construction on the congregation’s new church building.  The Abebee church has identified a new village for a potential church plant, and we are eager to help reach out to them.  Last Sunday we worshiped with the Bantu church and got to lead two worship songs.  Mostly we’ve shaken a lot of hands, smiled a lot, and just started to build relationships that we hope will have future impact.

Finally, we are so thankful to have survived!  It was a challenge, but we made it through.  Nobody got sick, everybody is sleeping well, and the boys are enjoying climbing trees and playing outside.  They seem to be adjusting really well, though of course they do miss some aspects of home.  On our way back to Addis today, we stopped at a beautiful park and monkey reserve.  It was awesome, and such a great gift of relaxation after this week.  Thank you so much for your prayers.  We are so grateful for them.  We head out again early in the morning to make it back for worship, so this is just a brief trip into the city.  I’ll post pics next if I can get them to load before we leave!