Goodbye Ethiopia!

January 13 – 16, 2012 (Day 19 to Day 22)

On Friday (Day 19), we started by praying for the day and reading some Agpia slides. We then went to the U.N. building in Addis Ababa. Girum had a friend in the building who was able to give us a tour around the new and old buildings. We went to the old building and saw the glass-stained windows that explained the history of Africa and the symbolism involved. Then we went to the room that all of the African leaders used to meet in. It was built in the 60's, but they have now built a newer conference room that we weren't allowed to go in to. After he showed us the room, we had intercession for the African leaders and the coming up meeting at the end of January. Afterwards, we moved to the new building and walked around the main lobby. There were pictures of different traditions still held by countries all over the world. After lunch, when Girum went to go pay for the hall that we're using on Sunday, Bianca, Peter and Franzi went with him to hand out more invitations. The others were waiting for the other translators to come so they could start walking the streets as well, but they never came. When the group came back, we went to the market and shopped quickly for souvenirs and gifts for back home.

On Saturday (Day 20), we went to the YWAM Ethiopia Christmas party for their King's Kids. We performed our 'Ethiopia Arise' song and did our drama, 'The Wall'. We were able to see the American DTS outreach team again and give them the sheets of paper that had our intercession notes on. We had lunch with the kids and then left at 3pm for our 'Spiritual Discussion' meeting that was starting at 4. When we got to the hall, we started with worship. One guy arrived right at 4, and we were all so excited that someone had showed up. Two more showed up half past but we waited until 5 (African time, remember) for more people to show up. We started with the drama, 'The Chair' and Franzi's testimony. We had a long discussion afterwards of different things that the skit had brought to our guests minds and our own questions. The event was to end at 6pm, so although it was time for them to go, they said that they wanted to see the second drama we had, which was 'The Wall'. Peter then did a short, to-the-point message from Acts. Peter made plans with one of the guests to meet him the next day for coffee to talk more.

On Sunday (Day 21), we went to Klaus and Ruth's church. It was called 'Beza International Church', although they always called it a movement, not a church. It was vision week so the pastor of the church went through how the church was started and the vision it had to restore Ethiopia to righteousness. There were ambassadors from Zambia, Angola, and Libya and they had short messages of their time at Beza so far. The worship was amazing! Their dancing made everyone on the team start to dance and it was very lively. They had a time set apart for all of the international visitors to stand by their flag at the front while the church prayed for their country. The only flags of the team that wasn't there was India and Rwanda. They were both hanging outside though. After church, we went for a final lunch with Klaus and Ruth at a pizza restaurant. They then invited us to have tea with them back at their house as sort of a farewell meeting. Peter, Taryn, Kaitlin and Laura had to take the taxi back because of room and invited Rebecca to join in on the cultural experience. While the others got off at the house, Peter continued on to Arat Kilo (a university area) to meet his friend from the day before. Allum brought a friend with him and Peter ended up giving Allum's friend his Bible to read all the way through. Because he was from an Orthodox church, he had never actually read through the entire Bible. Back at the house, we were able to share with Klaus and Ruth what we had been feeling God was saying about Ethiopia Arise and themselves. We had tea and cake and Ruth put on a T.V. channel to watch Joshua ministries in Nigeria.

On Monday (Day 22), we had our rest day again. Most of us spent the day packing as we were leaving for Rwanda the next day. We went to Bama (our favourite restaurant) for lunch. When the manager found out that we were leaving, she brought us dried beans and a free round of drinks for us. We also met Yosef, who was at Harpenden last year for his DTS. After our late lunch, we went to the internet café but there was no connection. So we hung around the building for a while until Immaculee and Richard caught up with us. At night, we had the number of the pizza restaurant that we went to the day before so we tried to order pizza… but there was a minimum 5 pizza order rule. In the container, all of the girls spent at least three hours talking of good baby names. Keziah (Job's daughter) became very popular when Immaculee suggested it. It was the last night in the container… but I don't think that anyone shall miss it. Even though it was very cute inside.

Cheerio, Immaculee's Babies