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!
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