Sleepless in Soddo

                 After an all day excursion driving from Addis Ababa to Wolaita Soddo in the southern region of the country on Friday, I am tired. Riding in a van is surprisingly exhausting, not to mention the 10 hour time difference that has my body thinking it should be sleeping all day and awake all night. Even after a few days in Soddo I am not adjusting well because of the noise at night. Oh the noise! Our hotel, while a very nice place to stay, is right next to the discotech, which ironically blasts “Don’t Wake Me Up” by Chris Brown late into the night. I guess they can’t wake me up if I am not asleep… The only relief is the blessing of a power-outage, a phrase I never thought I would say during summer in Africa.  However, even when the whole city of Soddo is without power, the Orthodox church is “miraculously” still able to keep its morning sermons going over the citywide loudspeaker which begin around three or four in the morning depending on the day.  Somehow the Muslims have worked around the power grid as well, as their early morning call to prayer is still going in full force. While we cannot take a hot shower, use any lights, or charge our cameras, the Orthodox and the Muslims still vie for volume victory while those not from either religion, including myself, fight for a few fleeting seconds of shuteye before giving in and listening to the drone of elderly Ethiopian men singing to the sky. At least the evangelical Kale Heywet Church across the street doesn’t start singing and service until eight.

                This public religious proclamations are very representative of the religious culture of Ethiopia as a whole.  The Orthodox have been around forever, tracing their lineage back to King Solomon. In fact, it was only recently during the surge of communism that the kingly lineage was broken when Haile Selassie was removed from office during the rise of the Derg (the Ethiopian communist government that ruled from 1974-1987). Even during the Derg, the Orthodox Church retained some power and now that communism has fallen the Orthodox are once again in control of most of the government.  Islam too has a vast history starting in the Sixth Century and it has a foothold in Ethiopia as well.  Islam is on the rise though as it has a plan to Islamize Ethiopia by 2020. Once again, the late one to the religious culture party is the Evangelical Church. 

                Despite its tardiness, the Evangelical Church is on the rise in Ethiopia.  Pastor Yosef, one of the men we worked with in our evangelizing excursion in 2012, is a leader in the Kale Heywet Church which partners with the Sudan Interior Mission Church.  While behind the times in some ways, there are other ways that the Evangelical Churches of Ethiopia show great maturity.  “We do not care about denomination,” says Yosef, “Only Jesus!”  During our stay in Soddo we had the opportunity to visit many different churches including Kale Heywet, Faith Bible Institute, and Mekane Yesus, a church currently in dialogue about opening fellowship with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  These and many others all partnered together for the evangelism of Mount Damot in 2012 and over 80 people came to Christ and six or seven home churches that were planted then are still meeting to this day! During our efforts this time, another 26 came to Christ and joined home churches that were planted in 2012 and we were able to distribute over 30 Amharic Bibles (the national language) and Wolaitenya New Testaments (in the local language). The Evangelical Churches even tried to band together to purchase some property for campus ministry at Wolaita Soddo University. Even though they could not afford it, they still plan to let all of the Christian students use the property if Mekane Yesus can afford the new land before the Muslims find out about it and purchase it for twice its worth with oil money. Just imagine what could be accomplished for Christ if churches in America set aside their differences to reach out to non-Christians rather than allowing their “theological superiority” get in the way of partnering with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. I have a lot to learn from Christians in Ethiopia, that’s for sure.

                Now I am not trying to say that we should ignore doctrinal differences in the Church. Doctrine is a very important part of Christianity and it can and should be discussed in the right times and settings.  The point I am trying to make clear is that none of us have it all figured out theologically and it is arrogant to believe that you do.  I know that I can fall into this trap myself quite often.  What is most important though is sharing Christ with those who do not yet know him as their Lord and Savior. Doctrine can be sorted out later, as I believe that anyone who professes Christ as their only Righteousness will be saved, regardless of their denomination. Our mission is not to make sure that everyone we know is Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, or whatever denomination we hold. Our mission is share the Good News of Jesus sacrificial death and resurrection with those who do not know about it yet, just as the Evangelical Churches in Ethiopia have a united front against Islam and Orthodoxy. What will non-Christians think if the only exposure to Christianity they have is bickering between denominational groups? We are all parts of the Body of Christ with different abilities and strengths and I believe it is time for the Church to stop poking itself in the eye and use that hand to help someone in need and share Christ with them. I know that I will be trying to improve on this thanks to the many sleepless nights I have had wrestling with these issues.

A Warm Ethiopian Welcome

Seulam from Ethiopia! I am writing this early Sunday morning before It has been an eventful few days so far. We arrived in Addis Ababa in the wee hours of Thursday morning and were warmly greeted by Teddy, Grace and her husband, and Thomas (the nephew of Pastor Yosef whom we worked with last time).  Despite the late timing of our arrival, they all stayed up with us to visit, drink tea, and eat pizza! We are so blessed to have such wonderful contacts here!

After sleeping in very late (partially due to our late night and partially due to jet lag [we are 10 hours ahead of CA time]) we decided to delay our journey to Soddo a day and do some things in Addis while we had the time.  We were able to visit Thomas’s church and also the Mekane Yesus Seminary.  The campus of the seminary was beautiful and was much larger than I expected.  It turns out that the seminary was around the corner from Grace Place, where we stayed last time and where we are staying currently!  We walked by it countless times in 2012 and did not even know it was there. I believe I even took a picture of the sign in front of it!

The seminary is more than just a theological school.  While it does train pastors and theological educators, there is also a school of Leadership and Management and even a Jazz Music school! We were able to tour all of these and some of the jazz students played us a song that they composed themselves.  Those in the Jazz Music program will eventually lead worship in their churches. I saw many parallels between this campus and Concordia, as both train up leaders for the church. It was great to see the place where the late Concordia theology professor Dr. Eshetu Abate was once the president. His photo still hangs on the wall with all of the other former presidents.  We get to learn about the TEE (Theological Education by Extension) program from the director.  This is an amazing program where many are trained to be theological leaders in their home congregations in the countryside.  These leaders are not paid for their service to the church but they voluntarily pay the tuition anyway so that they can learn more to be of service to their brothers and sisters in Christ.  I have a lot to learn from such selfless theologians!

The next day we began our delayed journey to Soddo, a six hour van ride south of the capital city of Addis Ababa.  Leaving at 6 AM is no problem since we are up early due to jet lag anyway! Teddy, Thomas, and Grace’s husband accompany us, though we drop Grace’s husband off along the way.  He voluntarily teaches one or two week intensive theological courses in the countryside to help educate those who cannot come to Addis. We arrive in Soddo at about noon, just in time to meet up with Pastor Yosef for lunch.  We were joined by his wife Ribka when we went to visit the students worship night where we were able to reconnect with many of the medical students whom we worked and stayed with last time.  After some time of catching up, we headed to Sudi for dinner, the familiar restaurant where we ate every meal while in Soddo last time.  The restaurant had changed some, adding more landscaping and decorations to the inside, but the neon green and red walls with the photo of the ancient tribal man were still there to greet us.

I will have much more to say about the amazing work that God is doing another day, but this will have to do until then! There is so much good news to report but the internet is limited so more on that later.

On the Road Again

Sitting here in the terminal of the Oakland Airport using my travel netbook that has sat idly for much too long, it comes to my attention that I have failed you all. After India, my blog went dry. This is when I could make various excuses about lack of internet or time but those are both pretty lame considering that I just uncovered Word documents with unposted blog material.  However, this is an auspicious discovery, for this flight departing Oakland is the first leg of my next excursion to Ethiopia, the precise country I left off on last time! It seems appropriate that we take a look through the archives at this time to enlighten you as to the many reasons why I have decided to go back to the land of Haile Selassie and the Arc of the Covenant.

Now my reasons for returning could be dull as my reasons for not blogging (i.e. this is one of the few places Concordia decided to send a team this summer, they needed more people to make the trip viable, I had to go somewhere this summer, etc.)  While there is validity to all of these reasons, these are by no means my only motivations for returning to Ethiopia.  Many of my reasons for returning were recorded by this great blogger by the name of Wesley Gong back in 2012. Here are some excerpts from his archives:

"Travel necessitates leaving the comforts of one’s home.  This is the appeal of travel, exploring new places and experiencing new things.  However, travelling for a long time can leave the explorer yearning for basic familial interactions and normal day to day activities.  One factor that helps alleviate this desire is hospitable locals who welcome the traveler into their homes and lives.  Along our journey, Ethiopia was the country most characterized by hospitality.  This is not to discount the love that we have been shown by all of the other friends we have met along the way; the fact is just that one cannot talk about Ethiopia without discussing the hospitality we were shown there."

A year and a half later, I still stand by my statement that Ethiopian hospitality is world-class.  We were shown so much love from people who were complete strangers the day before. Whether it was from Pastor Yosef, who made sure our groups arrangements were cared for and that we had the best that Ethiopia had to offer, from Teddy, who helped our group get our out of many a sticky situation, from the medical students, who joyfully greeted us when we arrived in the wee hours of the morning, asking us how God was working in our lives, and then gave up their beds and mosquito nets so our group could be comfortable, from the people we were ministering to, who stopped their daily work to welcome us into their homes and bring us fresh produce from their fields as they listened to our message, or from Grace who slept on her kitchen floor so that our leadership could have a room with a bed, Ethiopian hospitality was above and beyond any of our expectations.

These various contributors to our experience truly exemplified the Good Samaritan, going our of their way to demonstrate Christ-like care to a group of weary travelers far from home.  This hospitality was the carrying out of Christ's call to love our neighbors.  I can only pray that someday I too will learn to love and care for others as deeply and genuinely as my friends in Ethiopia. This is why I am going back. The people. The people here have a passion I have not seen anywhere else. They love God and they love their neighbor.  I hope in the next three weeks I can learn more from them as we go to support them in their ministries.

P.S. A very special thank you to those friends and family members who have supported me financially on this journey, especially from Our Savior Lutheran Livermore and Light of Christ Lutheran Irvine! I wouldn't be able to do this without all of your support! Stay tuned for presentation dates when I return!

A Presentation of the Journey

If anyone is interested in hearing me give a first hand account of this incredible trip, you are invited to come do just that!  I will be speaking at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Livermore, CA this next weekend (7/13-7/14).  Anyone and everyone is welcome! Refreshments will be provided. There will be a short photo presentation and a Q/A time at the end where I will do my best to answer whatever questions you have for me (though I may not know all the answers!).

Details:

There will be two opportunities to hear about the trip:
Saturday 7/13 @ 7 PM, and Sunday 7/14 @ 10:30 AM

Our Savior Lutheran Ministries (presentation will be in the Fireside Room)
1385 S Livermore Ave
Livermore, CA 94550

Look forward to seeing you all there!

Home Again

Sorry to everyone who has been following my blog.  The end of the trip got busy with school and service and blogging fell to the way side.  I just wanted to let you all know that I am home safe and back at school in Irvine.  I am still working on more posts reflecting on the latter half of the trip and those will be up eventually.  Stay tuned if you are still interested in more travel stories from Ethiopia, Europe, and South America!

Those Hardest To Love

Preparation for India had me concerned.  Everyone said that it would be extremely difficult and I would be pushed to my limits there both physically and emotionally.  I wondered if all of the preparation was necessary and I thought that excessive concern had the potential to make people more susceptible to emotional trauma.  I thought that everyone was blowing things out of proportion and setting up the team for an explosion of mental breakdowns.  While in many cases my predictions were right, I did find myself tried more than I anticipated.

Rather than the typical tugging on the heart strings that one might expect, I found myself often feeling in the way and frustrated with the fact that I did not have anything useful to do.  Surprisingly, large portion of this uselessness was placed on me by one of the staff at the home, a hired staff member that instills fear into the hearts of any who volunteer at Nirmal Hriday, Mother Teresa’s home for the destitute and dying at Kalighat.  A woman whose petite stature and slight features deceive many into thinking her harmless before she strikes with barrage of berating broken English.

My first interactions with this woman happened on the first day I volunteered.  I had no idea what I was doing and I was looking for ways to make myself useful.  As I was making my way over to the multistage dish washing station to see if I could be any help there, suddenly she grabbed me by the arm and dragged me over to another part of the building where she attempted to instruct me in some task that she apparently wanted me to do.  Unable to understand anything she was saying, I simply nodded and when she was gone, I found another place to make myself useful.  Little did I know this was just the start to a long struggle to please this woman who I dubbed Kim Jong Nun.

The next day I found myself actually doing dishes in the aforesaid dish line.  At Nirmal Hriday, dishes were done progressively in many stages.  A few people scraped excess food and bones into a colander that strains into a bucket and then passes the dishes on to the scrubbers.  When the dishes were scrubbed they went through two phases of rinsing in tile sinks that drain on to the polished concrete floors, plugged only with a rag stuffed in the drainage hole.  After the shiny steel dishes have gone through all these stages, they ended up with me and two German girls who were volunteering for the first time.  We were minding our own business, drying and stacking the newly washed dishes in the designated area, when Kim Jong Nun pounced.  “Just a moment! Just a moment!” she yelled frantically, running at us waving her hands in a gesture indicating we should stop immediately, lest we unintentionally throw off the entire balance of the home and send all of the patients into a frenzy.  At least that is what I imagined would have happened based on how hysteric she was.  When we attempt to continue with our given task, she exasperatedly says “I speaking English! You no understand?!”  Obviously we did not.  We never did find out why we had to wait to dry those dishes.

She did not only preside over dishes though.  Her reign extended over the vast kingdom of laundry as well.  Almost every article of clothing, sheet, and rag is washed every day at Kalighat.  This means that every day there is a strict regimen of tasks that are to be followed to get all of the laundry done which includes a four stage washing process before the sopping garments get hung to dry on the roof.  I decided to use my physicality to haul loads of freshly washed laundry up the many flights of stairs to be sorted and hung and then bring the dried clothes back down to be folded collectively by the patients and volunteers.  I was in a steady routine of making trips up and down the stairs with the baskets and feeling very productive until Kim Jong Nun intervened once again. 

Kristine and Zach were helping me bring some laundry back down to the patients so they could begin folding when we ran into Kim Jong Nun at the bottom of the stairs.  There she is yelling at another volunteer who has just come down with another bundle of clean clothes.  Kim Jong Nun quickly snatched the bundle out of the volunteer’s hands and brusquely came back up the stairs toward the three of us who were frozen in terror of this tyrant.  When she saw us, she scowled, shooed us back upstairs, and gruffly barked some command at us.  We did not even hear what she said since we were so far up the stairs already that the clomping of our running feet drowned out whatever she was trying to convey.  When we reached the roof, we dropped the clothes on the ground in a pile and hid in the jungle of emerald green sheets, cowering in fear of what the repercussions of our actions would be.  Luckily our actions did not anger her as much as the other volunteers and we escaped unscathed.

Kim Jong Nun had very strong views on the volunteers that came through Kalighat.  We were able to see this when a group of unwell volunteers were instructed to fold gauze for bandages, a seemingly simple task that turned out to be quite difficult, at least when supervised by Kim Jong Nun.  Many of the members who were feeling under the weather went to fold gauze in the break room because they were not feeling well enough for other work but they still wanted to be helpful.  Large pieces of gauze were folded over a piece of cardboard that was cut to make perfectly sized bandages.  And when I say perfectly sized, I mean perfectly sized.

  Kim Jong Nun came to check on the progress of the bandage folders and was appalled by the quality of the work.  She quickly pushed aside Christina, one of the German girls, and began dismembering her pile of completed bandages.  Christina and the rest of us looked on helplessly as Kim Jong Nun proceeded to move the fold in the bandage a millimeter over before replacing the bandage in the “good” pile.  Obviously, these bandages would all have to be redone because it would have been catastrophic if the gauze was a millimeter too long.  There was no way the insufficiently large pieces would have gotten the job done.  After the disappointment of failure in such a simple task, many of the volunteers moved on to other jobs at which they will be more likely to succeed.  When all the offenders had left, Kim Jong Nun apparently confided in Kristine that she only likes certain kinds of volunteers.  Chinese, Korean, and Japanese volunteers were the only good ones, though there were some Americans that were not so bad.  She must have added that caveat because she was speaking to an American.

It did not matter what nation a volunteer came from though, they still had trouble communicating with her.  Another regular task at Kalighat is helping distribute pills to the patients.  There is a detailed log book of each patient’s medical needs that Kim Jong Nun flipped through every day to remind herself what pills to pass out to each patient.  After retrieving the medications from the bank of nondescript white bottles with the drug names written on the side, she unloads the handful of pills and says the name of one of the patients who is supposed to receive that dose.  A large majority of the volunteers are only there for the short term so they are not able to build as strong of relationships with the patients.  I was one of those short term volunteers.  When Kim Jong Nun told me the name of the patient I was meant to deliver the dosage too, I obviously had no idea who she was talking about.  When I asked her who that was, she simply repeated the name multiple times until she called over one of the able bodied patients and with great frustration told him to direct me to the patient. 

Looking back, Kim Jong Nun greatly affected my time at Kalighat for better or worse. I now realize the motivation behind her strictness and intensity.  The tight adherence to the rules was for the benefit of the patients.  The patients needed stability in their ever chaotic lives and Kim Jong Nun provided just that.  At times she may have taken her strictness to an extreme level but it was all in love for the patients.  She wanted to make sure that they were cared for in the best way possible.   The volunteers are not the ones who need to be cared for, the patients are.

The Koh Tao Farewell Parade

As we drive on the left side of the one road that runs the length of Koh Tao, it feels as if we are in a going-away parade of sorts.  Piled atop all of our possessions in the back of the pickup-taxi floats, we wave goodbye to all of the friends we have made on this even further escape from our now “normal” lives of travelling the world.  We have just left our scenic, postcard of a beach called Freedom that has been our home for the last week.  We look longingly at the clear blue water that has been corralled by the pincers of palm covered peninsulas to enclose our bay, knowing that soon we will be snapped back into “reality” when we touch down in Kolkata, India.  Freedom Beach is not the only freedom we leave behind, we also leave the freedom from schedules, service, and supervision that we had for this short stint of self- sovereignty.

As we begin our ride to the docks, we drive past Jack, an Irishman who works for Buddha View Travel.  He sits waving at the desk outside his rental shop next to his wife’s restaurant Yin Yang where our group has spent countless sums of baht on Thai dinners, motor bike rentals, and motorbike repair fees.  Jack says he has never seen a group as unlucky as ours. Four out of seven rentals from our group result in crashes that incurred repair fees and medical bills.  He is not mad about dealing with the repairs, only sorry that we had so many injuries and that we were no longer allowed to rent bikes from him after all the crashes.

Just past Buddha View Rentals, we drive past our good friend Adnan, the Turkish scuba instructor who we spent so many mornings with over the course of the week.  He was the only one who could get us to do some semblance of homework during this week of relaxation.  We read our scuba manuals every night in preparation of his class the next morning.  While he was very much our teacher, introducing us to the risks and rewards of diving, he also became our great friend, inviting me to visit him wherever he is in the world in the future to finish my certification and take some free fun dives with him. 

As we pass New Heaven Dive School, we call out to him.  He walks out of the beachfront, open-air shop in his sea foam green fisherman pants that he wore every day, shirtless and barefoot as usual.  He waves to us as we speed off down the bumpy road to the dock.  We wave goodbye to him and the new underwater world he introduced us too.

Our trucks come to the fork in the road and I am happy to see that we will be taking the path to the left.  I know that another one of our friends lives in the leather shop just past the Golden Barbeque Buffet we ate at and I hope to say farewell to him as well.  We were first drawn into his shop by the plethora of leather products we saw hanging outside of his storefront window.

 Always a fan of leather, the Alexs and I went to check out the pricing on his handmade products.  When we took off our shoes and entered his shop, we felt like we had just entered a Rastafarian den of rawhide products.  Leather and denim jackets and pants adorned the wall across from the counter and bar stools where a man in a black tank top with a large turquoise pendant around his neck, a long black pony tail, and scraggly facial hair sat grinning behind the counter.  Little did we know that this man had so many fascinating stories that he made the Dos Equis man look as interesting as Ben Stein.

This man sat framed by the shrine built to the Thai king and Che Guevara poster on the slanted cave-like concrete wall on his left and a doorway shrouded by a green turtle-patterned sarong that led to the back room.  I began to discuss the possibility of a custom belt being made but quickly dismissed the idea when the only long enough piece he had left was dyed black and white in a pattern akin to the animal it once came from.  With that option gone, we began looking at the other offerings he had already made. 

As we looked we engaged in small talk with this spaced-out leather worker.  We discovered that his name is Teek and that he had been on the island for quite a few years.  He offered us some peanuts that he had on a dish on the counter and invited us to sit and talk a while.  Reaching into a hidden compartment, he pulled out a bag of marijuana and proceeded to roll a joint and offer it to us.  Politely declining, he explained that he does “only herbal man, no chemical $&*#.  If people bring chemical in here I tell them ‘Go away!’”  He invited us to have a beer with him so we walked down the street, grabbed a few bottles of Chang and headed back to talk some more.  We talked about our trip for a bit and his life on the island.  When it got late we prepared to head out and he invited us to come back and hang out another time.  We would definitely return.

As the week went on, we made it our routine to go to see Teek in the evenings after dinner.  We would have a beer and talk about all sorts of things.  Teek told us about how the people of Thailand love their king very much.  He told us about his son who lives in France with his mother, his family whom he has not seen in many years, the influence of the mafia on Koh Tao, and many outlandish tales of his past.  He told us that he would take us to his favorite restaurant on the island, which turned out to be one of the most memorable meals of the trip.

We agreed to meet at 7-11, a place he said sold “$%^&*# plastic food,” where he would shuttle us to the restaurant on his motorbike.  While we were waiting outside of the plastic food vendor, lightning flashing in the dark night sky, Teek drove up on his Che-emblazoned MTX and told Bagheera to hop on.  He proceeded to shuttle each of us individually up the steep bumpy hill to the restaurant.  While I was on it he nearly swerved into the ditch on the side of the road but we eventually all made it there.

Teek ordered us some of his favorite Thai dishes and a round of Changs.  He insisted that we eat all of the food, serving us from the platters and his own dish even though he later told us that he had only consumed four Changs and eight joints that day.  Thai hospitality at its finest. 

Even when the food supply began to run low, conversation topics did not.  We sat around the table on our tan, patterned pillows and talked for hours.  Teek told us about his history in Bangkok before he came to Koh Tao.  When he was younger he got into trouble with the law just because he was a nice guy he told us.  “I in jail for two year and no tell anyone,” he recalled.  This jail time was sentenced because he was in possession of a home-made hand gun and two kilograms of marijuana that he was holding for a friend.  Rather than rat his friend out though, he took the jail time for him.  He had not informed any of his family when he went to jail, even his twin brother named Tok (named after the grating sound of the clock their mother heard when giving birth to them: “teek-tok, teek-tok, teek-tok”).  It was during this period of incarceration Teek learned much about freedom.

Teek always talked about freedom and how that was the most important thing in life.  He did not worry about finances or plans for the future, only about being free and living life how he wanted too.  He summed up his philosophy in one short phrase: “You have lot of money but no freedom, #$%&! You have nothing!” 

In the future Teek plans on opening his own self-sustaining camp in the jungle where people can come live off of the land with him for however long they like.  When we asked if he had an email so we could get in contact with him to come visit again he laughed and replied, “#$%& internet!  You have spirit and want to see me, you will find me!”

As we drive past Teek’s shop on the way to the dock, we shout his name hoping that he might hear us.  In a matter of seconds, he comes sprinting out to the road and begins jumping up and down waving his hands in the air.  With this last goodbye, we drive on toward the dock.  Teek was the last friend we are able to see on our departure drive. 

We leave this island more regulated but also more mature, more united, and with more friends.  Autonomy is left behind in favor of organization, order, and over-bearing nuns as we head to Kolkata.  This change of pace will be taken in stride as simply another chapter in the life of a Rounder.  In the words of our friend Teek, “#$%& man, freedom!”