TUESDAY - my last full day in Ethiopia

Our pastor / church leader conference took a turn today.  Whereas yesterday we talked with our NGO and governmental friends about leadership principles in general while referencing Jesus and the Bible, today, the Bible was our textbook and Jesus our instructor on leadership principles expressed in the church.  We took a deliberate and passionate look at how our leadership is a direct result of our views of Christ and his leadership in our lives.  We looked at Nehemiah, one of the most famous and passionate leaders in Scripture.  We tied Jesus and Nehemiah together in parallel to express commonalities and to give us aid in leading our people.  Most of all, we took express care to indicate Jesus is a SERVANT leader.  I was surprised how that was reflected in the eyes of our friends here.  While they acknowledge Jesus as the servant leader, they struggled to come to terms with how to express that in a very top-down culture such as theirs.  With great love and care, we walked through more than 45 minutes of questions on that topic alone.  Perhaps if they had a better teacher (at least the taller one of the bunch). . . . . My friend Mike again did an awesome job teaching.  That him with our host and translator Wodineh.  We call him WO-di for short. 


After a fine lunch, we met again to begin a new phase - motivation.  Pastor Bill Foster from Cornerstone Fellowship in Midland arrived this morning at 7:15 in Addis Ababa.  He and Tuesday Jacobs, part of the Watch and Pray Ministries Operational staff, delayed their arrival to allow them to serve in Midland last weekend.  We put Bill right to work after lunch.  He's a firecracker and we knew it would be a great time for that.  Bless them - they got EXCITED!  You know it's good when you can get the "warble" from them - a high pitch roll of the tongue that sounds like "loo loo loo loo."  Do it in your best high voice and you'll get the idea.  Great talk and great expression of the passion of these beautiful people. 

The most interesting thing of the day was the last thing of the day.  We had been told there were some friends who had been through some severe persecution present at the meeting.  Our leader Getaneh had invited them.  His ministry - Watch and Pray - is the sponsoring organization for the event.  He personally had helped several of them and had led us a ministry to serve them.  He asked if they would be willing to let me do a brief interview with them on camera and let them tell their stories.  They agreed.  So after the meeting broke up, I set up my Canon 77D and had a talk.  Two of them were missing hands.  One of them a portion of his right arm.  One of them survived a burning attack on their thatched church.  I was focused on getting the stories properly recorded.  When I ended, I looked around me and there was a small crowd of Ethiopians to hear their story - each of them with tears in their eyes.  Then I looked at our American group and found the same.  I look forward to sharing the video of their stories when we return. 

On Wednesday, our conference will end.  It's been a wonderful and rich time - far too brief in some respects.  But my journey continues.  When I finish my teaching time - around midnight Texas time - I'll leave to go back to the airport.  I'm catching a flight to Nairobi, Kenya to meet with three more of our mission partners here in Africa.  It's only a two hour flight so it made sense to do this.  Two of the three I'll visit reflect a significant investment of time, energy and resources for FBC.  I'm excited to see them and they are OVER THE MOON that I'm coming.  As an added bonus, Nairobi is south of the equator.  I've never been south of the equator!  I'll come to you next time from the bottom half of the earth! 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SBC Meeting #2 - June 14 2023

 Beloved friends, yesterday's optimism evaporated in the New Orleans heat today.  I had hoped for a few things today and, sadly for me, most of them broke the wrong way in my view.  The lone bright spot was Dr Bart Barber who did a masterful job handling the tough duties and managing the clock.  In spite of that,  it was a deeply saddening day for me.  Consider with me why. An amendment - known loosely as the "Mike Law Amendment" - had been given to the SBC Ex Committee months ago declaring the role of pastor to be limited to men.  That's already in the Baptist Faith and Message so I didn't think much of it.  Surely we won't take it as a litmus test for fidelity to the SBC - that's a creed and last I checked we Baptists are non-creedal people.  Or were.  I had hoped cooler heads would prevail and the "Mike Law" amendment would fail.  After all, the Exec Committee put it forward but did NOT recommend it for approval.  This motion declares there sh
Read more

SBC meeting - June 13 2023

 Friends, today was not the day I expected and I mean that in the best possible way.  I came into this meeting believing much of what I had read online to be an accurate portrayal of where Baptist life really was.  I was wrong.  We aren't nearly as angry or narrow as I feared.   Our friend Dr Bart Barber was re-elected in a resounding vote - 67.5% to 31.5%.  I didn't see that coming. The spirit of the meeting was pleasant, even jovial at times.  I didn't see that coming. The people who came seemed genuinely happy to be here.  I didn't see that coming.   There's still work left to do and there are questions left to be answered tomorrow, but this was a really good start.  And I'm glad it came, even if I didn't see it coming.  
Read more

Home

I'm home and it's Saturday morning.  I woke up - no surprises here - at 4 AM.  Jet lag takes a couple of days to dissipate.   So this is where I'll end my travelogue.  Already I'm back to regular pastor life.  I'd been in the house about 20 minutes when I got a call that one of our deacons had lost his father-in-law.  I left for the hospital immediately.  I knew my associate pastor could handle it, but that's not a job I wanted to give away.  Later today (I hope), I'll post some pictures from our adventure.  Thanks for reading this nonsense and for walking with me along this path.  The good news is our adventures don't end just because we're home.  My prayer for this moment in time is that I'll recognize the power of THIS moment as I did while I was traveling. 
Read more