Fellowship
Thursday
Oh, I’m
tired! I think we all are. It’s been a busy, exhilarating,
heart-breaking, exhausting week.
We were at
CFI this morning for Family Day. The
mothers of the elementary kids came for a meal, some fellowship, and to see
their children receive their new CFI t-shirts and a small gift from Hope for
His Children. I had to leave for a short
while to go to the airport, but was told later that the women enjoyed a good
time of fellowship together while they waited for the activities to start.
The donation
bag I brought with me never arrived in Addis.
Ephrim has been faithfully pursuing that bag all week. He was finally told that I needed to come to
the airport and go through the tagless bags.
This would be my adventure for the day.
Whenever you
arrive in Addis, there is an area at the end of baggage claim that is a large
glass cage divided into two separate sections.
You can easily see through the glass that the room is nothing but
shelves from floor to ceiling filled to bursting with bags that have never been
claimed. The rooms are jammed full, and
bags even sit on the floor outside the locked doors. Having seen that area every time I’ve arrived
in Addis, it has always intrigued me in a fascinating, disturbing kind of
way. This area was my destination.
I arrived at
the airport to be told that the airport representative had checked each of the
stations I had flown through to track my bag.
The report I got was surprising:
Frankfurt reported that they had never received my bag from
Chicago. Either my bag never left
Chicago for some reason, or my bag was sitting in some glass enclosure
somewhere in the Frankfurt airport with its identifying tag blowing around the
grounds of O’Hare.
Ephrim drove
me to the airport, and I was invited into the two glass rooms. Remember, I was carrying a large black duffel
bag. Guess how many black pieces of
luggage were in those rooms? All except
5. Guess how many were large black
duffel bags? At least a third. A very nice young Ethiopian woman who worked
for the airport did her best to help me.
She showed me that each tagless bag had been given a tag by the Bole’
airport showing its date of arrival in Ethiopia. As I pointed out the bags I thought might be
mine, she would look at the tag and tell me the date. None of them were close to the date I had
arrived. In one room, a large ladder
rested against the shelves and reached all the way to the top of the glass
enclosure. Neither of us opted to climb
that ladder and check the bags at the top.
I finally found one bag that I thought might really be it. It happened to be on a shelf at eye level. It had zippered end pockets, just like the
bag I’d carried, so I just zipped open one end to see if the contents were
familiar. As I did, a thick yellow gooey
substance with small black oval shaped objects in it began to ooze out. Before I could react, the end of one
fingertip was covered, and two or three flying bugs of some sort escaped the
pocket. I dropped the end of the bag I
was holding, and my young Ethiopian friend ran out of the room as fast as she
could. I then began trying to open my
backpack one-handed without letting it touch anything, including the floor, so
I could retrieve the disinfecting hand wipes I always keep handy here. It was a struggle. Before I succeeded, my friend came back in
the room and offered me a Kleenex. That
felt something like being offered a toddler’s float toy in the middle of a
hurricane on the ocean, but I gratefully accepted it and rid myself of yellow
stuff, and then dug out both disinfecting wipes and hand sanitizer and spent
the next 15 minutes trying to remove all the skin from the end of that
finger. The young woman from the airport
dragged the bag off the shelf and dropped it to the floor, which prompted a
whole swarm of insects to fly up into the air.
She and I both were darting for cover that time. We had our own odd bond of fellowship this
morning.
Anyway, I
never found my bag. I’m guessing the tag
fell off in Chicago, and it lives in some scary unclaimed baggage room in
Frankfurt, where some poor soul will open it one day to find the milk cartons I
packed turned into some green form of yuck and will be horrified when they
stick their finger in it.
My
conversation with Ephrim on the way back to CFI was good. God has given us amazing people to work with
in Ethiopia, and we have truly grown to love them. These friends really, really love Jesus. They inspire us, take care of us, and amaze
us with their sacrifice, wisdom, and faithfulness. It is a blessing to know them and to spend
time with them.
The rest of
the morning at CFI was good, although lunch was hard. In Ethiopia, you eat with your hands, and I
was still certain my hand belonged in a hazmat facility, so I really didn’t eat
much.
After lunch,
we went to a ministry called fashionABLE.
fashionABLE is a ministry that helps women rescued from prostitution
learn weaving so that they can earn a living wage and support their
families. An American man named Ian runs
that ministry with his wife. Ian gave us
a great rundown of their work. They are
another family who has given everything to love the oppressed, the poor, and
the suffering. (Just since we’d seen him
in October, Ian and his wife had adopted another Ethiopian child, giving them 4
children, two biological and two adopted from Ethiopia.) I’d been to fashionABLE in the fall, but was
particularly blessed this time to see how Ian interacted with the women. They talked and laughed and gave each other a
hard time, and it was a blessing to see their fellowship with him – a healthy,
loving relationship between former prostitutes and a man who loves the
Lord. It was good also to talk and visit
with Ian, to hear his vision and his mission and his struggles. Although we are short term workers, and he is
full-time on the field, there was a shared fellowship of love for Jesus and for
those He has called us all to serve.
Our day
ended with a trip to Island Breeze for dinner.
This spot is a favorite on HfHC’s mission trips. It offers real wood-fired pizzas, and a
number of menu items that look like they come from any restaurant in your
town. For digestive systems that have all
at some point been rumbling or squeamish or shut down or overactive and for
American palates that have been challenged by different, exotic food, Island
Breeze is a welcome respite. (Note,
however, that everything Yeshi makes for us at the guest house is incredibly good
and wonderfully healthy. Although some
of us aren’t used to that either!) The
power was out, so our menu options were limited – no French fries! As the sun set, we ate by candlelight. It was somehow comforting to see other
firenjis (the Ethiopian word for “foreigner”) pouring into the restaurant and
also interesting to think about where they might have come from and what they
might be doing in this country. Sitting
around pizzas and sodas with our team and our Ethiopian friends, there was good
conversation and a lot of laughter.
Today was a
day of blessed fellowship all the way around.
Fellowship between women who share the struggles of motherhood and
womanhood and poverty and rejection. Fellowship
with women I love, but can’t really speak to and that I see only once a
year. Fellowship with a young Ethiopian
woman sharing an adventure both of us would have preferred not to have. Fellowship between the rescuer and the rescued. Fellowship between workers for the
kingdom. Fellowship between team members. And fellowship with Ethiopian friends that
have come to feel like family.
Thank You,
God, for friends, for kindred spirits, for those who share our passions and our
hearts. Thank you for those who share
our adventures and who share our life experiences even when those experiences
look so very different. Fellowship is so sweet, such a blessing, a wonderful
gift.
I'm sure you are nearing home by now but I have been so blessed to read about your journey to Ethiopia. Sweet rest my friend, let's talk soon! Miss you and love you!
ReplyDeleteDear Sister, how I wish you had shared these experiences with me! The joys and tears would have been more precious with you! Loved your family! But missed you so much!!! I love you!
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