Addis like a Vagabond

Outside the city of Injibara, a town in the crisp mountain air of northern Ethiopia, Mark and Debbie Maclachlan live in a little cultivated garden of Eden surround by thousand-foot granite pillars protruding the green countryside. In their agriculture project, dozens of species of plums, pears, apples, and plants I can’t pronounce are flourishing in the mountain climate. The plums and pears have gone to market and exploded in popularity, created an insatiable demand. It’s part of their vision to create livelihoods in their community while representing Jesus to their neighbors, most of whom are nominal Coptics.

I spent a couple days with them, refreshed after 2 days alone in a hotel room in bustling Addis Ababa and then a full day on the bus. My pastor flew out from the States to join us and as we walked together along the dirt road he helped me process some of the frustration and exhaustion I had been feeling. Truthfully he was a life-saver. That night, I shared a devotion with the Injibara team (2 couples plus the team from our church) about experiencing God’s presence and was pretty vulnerable about the things I was wrestling with what God had been teaching me. It was cathartic to share and encouraging to them.

I wish I could have stayed in Injibara, but I was expected to teach on Tuesday, so on Monday, I woke up at 4:30. Mark and Debbie took me to the big patch of dirt where local buses (all looking as though they’d been through the wars) were about to depart. They told me to play the “white card” and I would be fine. They said goodbye and drove off. A little stunned, I wandered into the compound looking lost. “Addis?” I inquired helplessly to the throng of Amharic speakers. “Addis Ababa?”

“No!” replied the an official looking man. “Addis for tomorrow okay. Today, no. Tickets no.” I’ve learned not to walk away immediately when someone says “no” in Ethiopia, so I shuffled my feet and looked helplessly at the man while he gathered the other passenger’s tickets. After a long time, he shouted some things to the driver and some people standing nearby, grabbed my bag, looked at me, and said “okay.” I paid the man and got on board, relieved. I had played the “white card”.

The bus creaked and veered slowly across mountain plains and through a winding gorge as deep as the Grand Canyon. The man on my left was drunk or hung-over. The one on the right held a small baby. The old woman behind me lay there moaning as though she were sick, one breast dangling haphazardly out of her shawl. I folded my long legs into the tiny seat and tried to entertain myself for the next ten hours. During lunch, two Israeli para-gliders approached me, eager to talk with another English-speaker. At long last we reached Addis, butt-sore but alive. I was dropped on a side street and immediately mobbed by taxi drivers.

A phone call to my Dawit confirmed my fear: lodging at NOT been arranged for that night. Homeless in Africa. Great. I had one more trick up my sleeve. I told the driver to take me to the SIM guesthouse (the mission Mark and Debbie served in). Pulling into the deserted compound, I was told the office was closed for Adwa (or “Expel the Italians Day”). But the guy on duty managed to find me a room just for the night. It was a simple, clean, quiet little room on the second floor. I collapsed onto the bed exhausted and relieved. I was running on fumes, burned out from all the travel and bustle and ambiguity and then a horrible thought struck me: I have to teach tomorrow. And I have no idea who, where, or how many.

I imagined myself standing behind a podium in front of dozens of sharp-faced Ethiopians and trying to conjure up something wise and insightful to say about discipleship. My mind went blank. I panicked. I have nothing to say! I don’t want to teach! I just want to go home and watch movies and drink a cold beer and eat comfort food. The whole weight of the trip hit me in that moment. I wondered, is this burnout? Or am I just tired? There was nothing to do, though I secretly hoped for a catastrophe to strike and cancel the seminar.

I walked into the guesthouse’s dining hall where a middle-aged American was listening eagerly to a Nigerian Muslim-background believer tell his story. Eventually I joined the conversation, intrigued, and listened as the Nigerian spoke passionately about his work discipling other “MBBs” in Nigeria. There was something genuine about him that I really liked and I wanted to know more. So I invited him to join me for dinner. I talked for a long time with my new friend. I learned about his family, his dissertation, and the training center he has for Jesus-followers coming from Islam. I learned that we know some of the same people. I also learned that some of the people he works with are Fulani, those beautiful wraith-like cattle nomads I work with in northern Ghana. We exchanged contact info and discipleship resources before he went home today. I think what attracted me most about him was that everything he’s doing so perfectly embodies the style of intensive, hands-on discipleship that Jesus modeled. I teach all about that model of discipleship throughout Africa, but I know of precious few who are actually DOING that model. It made me want to quit teaching this stuff and just spend the next few years DOING it.

Yesterday morning, I gave a little talk on Exodus 33 to a dozen Nigerians working at an international school. Then my host, Dawit informed me that my “seminar” that afternoon would consist of 7 people who had already done the conference before. I had expected to train the 7 in the context of leading a bigger seminar with them. NOW I had to come up with a new plan, a NEW seminar just for them.... in 2 hours.

Well, I did some fast typing and came up with a plan. So when we arrived at the tiny office where we were meeting, we spent time getting to know each other and having some pretty honest dialogue about what was happening in their lives. Over the next 2 days the teaching became a great round-table discussion. By the end of today the conversation reached a fevered pitch. Okay, I thought. We have buy-in. Tomorrow we’ll finish with some practical work which I hope they’ll be able to apply in their context.

One of the strongest contributors was a pastor named Million. Kid you not. When he was young, his mother didn’t let the other kids call him “Milli” because she wanted her son to get the “full Million.” He grew into a giant hulk of an Ethiopian gangster/street fighter before being introduced to Jesus by a frail old lady at a restaurant. Now he’s a hulk of a pastor (who I STILL wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley) with a growing passion for discipleship.

Another guy chimed in during our discussion on forgiveness. He was frustrated that the Muslims he works with view the forgiveness of Christians as a sign of weakness and God humiliating the Christians. He wondered if Christians should really forgive them or fight back to earn their respect. He concluded he would have to follow of the cross, even if he was misunderstood or ridiculed.

Tomorrow should be interesting. I’m having my two organizers, Dawit and Mekonnen do the teaching while I sit back and watch. This is my favorite part! We’ll have discussions on “what’s next” and then wrap it up for the week.

Stay tuned for what’s next! Babysitting missionary kids at a volcanic crater lake, preaching on Sunday, getting offered raw meat before my long flight home Monday. Hmmmmm.....