Wrapped in Prayer

Three days before we left for Ethiopia we attended a pancake supper at Tuscarora Church.  I had met a few of the Elders through various ways of working together in the Presbytery, but this was my first opportunity to be with the people of Tuscarora and to catch something of the spiritof that faith community. 

I was surprised at the end of the evening when they presented me with the gift of a prayer shawl and then prayed for God’s presence and for safe travel for our Ethiopia team.  The shawl was prayerfully made at Tuscarora in a group called “Knit one, Pray Too,” where the knitters pray as they are making the shawl for the person who will receive it.  The note that came with it told me that the shawl was blessed for me in worship at Tuscarora on February 12, 2012, and then it was placed at the door of the church where every worshipper could touch it with an additional word of prayer as they left the sanctuary.

I have that prayer shawl with me here in Ethiopia.  I have had it draped over my shoulders as I finished preparations for teaching the newly ordained pastors in Mettu, and for training the representatives gathered by the Department of Mission and Theology of the Mekane Yesus Church in Addis Ababa.  (The training classes from 9 to 5 every day this week and evenings with our hosts have left no time for new blogs until now.)  It has been very helpful for me to remember throughout this trip that our team and the people we are in relationship with here have been “wrapped in prayer” by people of God in Shenandoah.

We also have remembered and prayed for committees and mission communities that were meeting, as well as for the two work trips from Shenandoah mission communities that were going on during these three weeks.

This morning we were invited to join in the devotions of the national church staff at the headquarters office, and to bring greetings from Shenandoah.  I wore the prayer shawl over my shoulders as a visible illustration of being wrapped in prayer by churches and people in Shenandoah.  Our partners here have always affirmed that praying for each other is our most important connection and one of the greatest blessings of our relationship.

Because of the witness of more than 130 faithful people from Shenandoah who have contributed their time, energy and resources traveling to Ethiopia through the years of our partnership, the name of Shenandoah Presbytery is known and respected here.  You should know that Ethiopian Christians whom you may never meet are also wrapping you and your church in prayer as they pray for our congregations and for our Presbytery.

This too is a way that God is at work in Shenandoah.  Thank you Tuscarora for the gift of this shawl.  Thank you Shenandoah for your faithful prayer support.  And thank you God for binding us together through the gift and mystery of prayer that outdistances the miles and stretches over the time that we are apart. 

Learnings at the Mettu Community Library

This blog is supposed to be about God at work in Shenandoah Presbytery.  So why am I writing stories about Ethiopia?  Today’s visit to the Mettu library offers a good illustration for the answer to that question.

In 2005, Opequon Presbyterian Church in Winchester built the Mettu Community Library.  It is a beautiful building, clean and well lit with lots of natural light.  Since our last visit 15 months ago, they have doubled the number of tables and chairs that are available for reading and study.  (The tables and chairs are made in the wood shop at the Gore Home.)  There are still a number of empty shelves, but from what we saw the books they do have are excellent and on a wide variety of subjects.

We wondered how often books from the religious section were used.  On a table between two young men was a book titled “The Christian Faith.”  We asked the librarian if those two were part of the Bible school and he said no, they were two exceptional young men from the town.

Shortly before noon we went outside to the front of the building to take another picture and we were addressed by four teenage boys.  We later learned their names were:  Abil (Abel from the Bible), Gru, Sura and Mesh.  The conversation went something like this.

Abil

Abil:  “Why you take picture of this building?”

Randy:  “It is a wonderful library.”

Abil:  “Yes, we know it is a library.”

Doug:  “Do you use the library?”

Abil:  “Yes, it is very good for us.  We are blessed to have this library.” 

Gru:  “But why you take pictures of it?”

Randy:  “We helped build the library and we are trying to fill it with books.”

Gru:  “So you are sponsors of this building?”

Randy:  “Yes, we are from Shenandoah Presbytery and…..”

Abil: (interrupting)  “Oh, Shenandoah!”  There was not only recognition in Abil’s voice but excitement.  The conversation had just been raised to a whole new level.

Doug:  “How do you know Shenandoah Presbytery?”

Abil:  “We are Christians!  Mekane Yesus church.”

Gru

Gru:  “Yes, and next year we will go to University.”

Doug:  “You have very good English.  Were you in the classes this summer?”

Abil:  “Yes, we were in the classes”

Gru:  “Amy Gwaltney and Jeremy and Theresa, and Renee were the teachers.”

Randy:  “Yes.  That team was sent from Shenandoah Presbytery.”

Abil:  “Yes, we know.”

Doug:  “Amy and Jeremy are getting married this year.”

Gru:  “Yes, we know, we follow their plans on Facebook.”

It did not take much to see that God was at work in Abil and Gru’s lives as they quickly and stongly confessed “We are Christians.”  It also did not take much to see that God had blessed them and worked on their lives through the mission efforts of people and churches in Shenandoah Presbytery.  Their excellent English that opens the doors to higher education, and the library of resources available to help their study and growth, were there for them because of the witness of Shenandoah Presbytery people giving of their time and resources to make these things happen.

The evidence of God at work in Shenandoah Presbytery extends far beyond our geographical boundaries, and it includes God working with us, God working through us, and God working on us.

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The Pastor's "Living Room"

The open door on the old mud house called to us.  Perhaps it caught our attention because the theme scripture for this Convention of our partner synod is Rev. 3:8.  “I know your works.  Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.  I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.”

We turned aside from the path we were on and as we approached the old building, I recognized it as the first building constructed on what is now the IBS compound.  The land had been given but the municipality would not allow them to build a church.  Instead they built a pastor’s house and the believers gathered there for worship.  (About 1970)  As the size of the congregation grew the pastor expanded the “living room” of his house twice, finally ending up with a “living room” that was bigger than the original house.

To serve the worshiping needs of the growing congregation a concrete platform was later added which partly obscures the door to the rest of the pastor’s house.  The congregation continued to grow and in 1994 with a membership of 2,000 and with help from their partners at First Presbyterian Church in Winchester, they built a beautiful new sanctuary.

The membership at the Mettu Church is now 800, but not for the reasons we might think.  As the church continued its amazing growth they decided that they should start more churches and they sent groups of their members to help those new churches.  The Mettu church started the Kata congregation (now 1,200) and the Kolo Korma church (now 800).  Kata congregation in turn began the Botto church (now 600) and a new church at Mettu University that now has 200 members.  All together the Illubabor Bethel Synod membership has grown from 30,000 members to 363,257 members during the 22 years of our partnership.

We followed the noise of children’s voices around the old house to where the “living room” had been enlarged and we saw happy children running up the steps to be part of the Saturday morning Bible classes.  The adults were happy to see them and welcomed each one warmly.  They begin with worship together in the old living room and then divide into classes according to their age.  After worship the children quickly and noisily moved out to line up outside a different building for their classes.

I took a closer look at the condition of the old living room where so many had defied the authorities to gather for Christian worship for so many years.  The walls had crumbled in one corner of the room.  The roof leaked and was open to the sky in another place.  Yet in this place the people had gathered, the word had been preached, the sacraments celebrated, faith had been nurtured and lives had been changed.  All because God had “set before them an open door, which no one [not even the militant communist authorities] were able to shut.”

Through the lively children’s Bible school in this old living room, lives are still being touched and formed by the love of Jesus Christ, even as the roof lets in the sunlight and the walls now provide additional unplanned “ventilation”.  Not even the many needs for repair could dampen the spirit that is still felt in the place.  Jesus said that “God is Spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”   By every indication that is exactly what happened here, and what is still happening here.  And by the way the door is still open.

Visit to Gore

The Bethel Home for Children in Gore where the Ethiopian Pentecost took place is still an important ministry of the Illubabor Bethel Synod that is supported by our partnership. The iCARE program of Shenandoah Presbytery seeks the needed sponsors for 50 of the 71 children who are there, most of whom are orphans.  We took a day away from Mettu to visit the Home and the 32 hectare coffee plantation nearby which has been donated to the Home, and which they hope will be able to help them move toward self sufficiency.

The only way to get into the coffee plantation is to drive through a sprawling 850 hectare tea plantation.  The operation is run by the Synod through its Development and Social Services Commission (DASSC).  IBS’ Director for DASSC, a man named Terfassa traveled with us and was able to explain many things about this and other social projects of the Synod.

 

Millie, Randy and Terfassa at the Coffee Plantation

 Terfassa told us that they have just hired a new agronomist who is helping them to make the plantation more productive.  In addition to growing the coffee, they also harvest honey and cardamom and they have a few banana trees.  They are hoping to cultivate ginger and avocado and possibly other fruit trees as well.  They hope for the first time to have a small profit at the end of this year that can help to support the ministry of the Home.

Because Ethiopians traditionally eat with their fingers,
handwashing is an important cultural ritual.

 After visiting the plantation we went to the Home where Kes Amana, the director welcomed us to lunch at his house.  After lunch he showed us around the compound visiting the dining room, classrooms, wood working shop and the library.  All the children attend school in Gore but the home provides additional tutoring to help them succeed, and vocational training such as woodworking, sewing, and computer skills. 

Endalkachew Kidanewald (Endy for short) was another of the Ethiopian high school students who was at the Gore Home when the revival took place.  He remembers the Home as providing a sanctuary for the homeless, the destitute, and the orphans.  It was a place for children who had no future, who had no place to go.  It was a place where they were accepted and cared for, a place that offered hope to many people. 

Endy now lives in the States but visited Gore eight years ago.  He was remembering how twenty years before that, during a time of great famine when many people were starving in Ethiopia, he and other students from Gore were helping out at the relief site.  At that time he said they found many babies left to die by the roadside.  Either their parents were dead or their starving mothers could not stand to watch them die, so they were just left at the side of the road.  Endy and the other Christian youth would pick up these babies and take them to the Gore Home to be cared for.

As he was telling this story of their rescue efforts to a group at the Gore church, the man who was pastor of the Gore Church at that time sat down and started to cry.  “Why are you crying?” Endy asked him.  “Because I am one of those kids that you and your group found who was left to die by the side of the road.” was his reply. 

Young people at the Gore Home

The pastor had been born into a Muslim family, and during the great famine was one of those small children who was left to die at the roadside.  Saved from starvation by committed Christian young people, he was raised in the caring environment to the Gore Home, and in gratitude is living his life as a leader of the Christian church.

 There are still children and young people who need the caring environment and the new hope that is offered by the Gore Home.  It is one of the blessings of our partnership that people in Shenandoah Presbytery, through our iCARE program, can be a part of this important life-giving ministry.

A Ministry of Reconciliation

Kes Iteffa is one of the most highly respected of all the Ethiopian church leaders.  He retired in 2010 after serving eight years as the President of the five million member  Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY).  He remembers working as an evangelist at the Bethel Home for Children in Gore back in 1973 when an event occurred which has since been referred to as the “Ethiopian Pentecost.”

The Old Chapel at the Gore Home

Iteffa and several high school students felt that they wanted to pray and went into the chapel at the Gore Home.  There they said that they felt the strong presence of the Holy Spirit.  They began speaking prayers in words that they could not understand.  Others on the compound heard a lot of noise and wondered what was happening.  They remembered that they had been studying the book of Acts and they had asked the missionary if those kinds of things still happened in their day.  Does the Holy Spirit still come?  Are people still given gifts to proclaim the Gospel in other tongues?  As they look back on it they felt that their Bible study had prepared them for what they experienced.

Those high school students spent the next several days going from door to door in Gore proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.  They said they could not help themselves.  They just had to tell the good news.  That was the beginning of the young indigenous church that took off and grew like wildfire.  But then other things happened that would both test and multiply the young church. 

A communist government came to power in 1975 which expelled all the foreign missionaries and began severe persecution of religious people in Ethiopia.  For the next 17 years, the Marxist government imprisoned, tortured and killed both Christians and Muslims alike.

Iteffa was one of several Christian church leaders who was imprisoned and tortured for his faith.  Fortunately he was not one of the many who were killed.  He still carries on his wrists the marks of where he was chained and hung from the ceiling while he was beaten for hours at a time.

Through this experience of violent persecution, these young Ethiopian Christians remained steadfast in their faith, and miraculously during that dark time the young church grew strong.  When the communist regime was finally overthrown, Iteffa and other leaders who had survived provided strong spiritual leadership to the church and it continued to grow rapidly.

After serving the maximum of two terms (eight years) as president of the national church.EECMY, Iteffa was not really ready to fully retire.  Consistent with his lifetime of service to God as a leader in the church, Iteffa began another project which may be even more inspiring than the other features of his amazing life.  He got together with the Roman Catholic Archbishop and approached the Prime Minister of Ethiopia with a request that they be allowed to begin a Reconciliation Project to heal relationships with the now imprisoned communist leaders who had beaten and tortured them, and who had done the killing of their fellow Christians.  The Reconciliation Project as they envisioned it would also include, if possible, the release from prison of their former tormentors.  Many of them were still in prison having received either the death penalty or life imprisonment for their crimes.

Kes Iteffa

Iteffa told me that Reconciliation Project has grown and gathered religious leaders from other churches and from the Muslim community as well, and that they are beginning to see results from their efforts.  He said that beginning in September 2011, seventeen of the top communist leaders, who had been among those who tortured and beat him, have been pardoned.

The ones who have been pardoned know the reason why those whom they tortured now seek their release.  It is because of their faith in Jesus Christ.  They take literally Jesus’ teaching to pray for your enemies and for those who persecute you.  And they are living out the words of 2 Corinthians 5:19  “…in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,…and trusting the message of reconciliation to us.” 

Because of their witness to the power of Christ in this particular way, those former communist oppressors who have been pardoned, are now also followers of Jesus.  In a truly profound way, they have received more than their lives back, they have received a whole new life in Jesus Christ.  I cannot imagine a more dramatic way to apply the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ to the horrible specifics of people’s real life sins and situations. 

Once after he had been tortured Iteffa was taken to the office of a guard who had witnessed the torture.  The guard told him that when he started at the prison there was an inmate who had been imprisoned because of his role in a failed attempt to overthrow Emperor Haile Salassie.  That prisoner had prayed for this guard, quoting Jesus’ words from the cross “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

“What do you have to say about that?” the official asked Iteffa.  “I say the same thing.” was his reply.  The guard spat on him and walked out of the room.

On a visit last fall to the prison, Iteffa was looking for that particular guard among the prisoners but had not been able to find him.  Then, he said, just as he was leaving, that prisoner came up to him from a group of prisoners, fell at his feet and said “Forgive me, I was ignorant.  I didn’t know what I was doing.”

A Spirituality of Travel

Throughout the Bible the people of God are always on the move.  Even when they came to settle down in the promised land, they were to affirm every year as part of their identity that “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…”  Deuteronomy 26:5 

When God chose a people to help carry out the plan of salvation, God’s first word to Abram was Go.  “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’…So Abram went,…”  Genesis 12:1, 4a 

I guess you could call that the first mission trip of all time, and it was God’s idea.  Perhaps God wanted Abram to leave everything familiar behind and go to an unknown place, so that he would have to listen more carefully to God for direction.  The reason he was to go was to serve God’s purpose, regardless of whether he fully understood the plan.   Apparently, part of God’s purpose was also to test and strengthen the faith of Abram. 

Traveling to unknown places, away from usual routines, familiar surroundings and our comfort zones opens us up to see and hear things differently.  It is like living in an ever-changing equation where the only constants are God and you.  I believe that is a major reason why mission trips can be such spiritually rich life-changing experiences.

Apparently God thought Abram would be a better servant to God’s purpose if he was away from home and relatives and familiar ways of doing things.  Jesus seems to have had the same idea when he called Peter, Andrew, James and John to leave their fishing boats, Matthew to leave his tax office, and Nathaniel to give up sitting around under a fig tree.  Even after he called them, Jesus didn’t settle down in one place to teach his disciples.  He was constantly traveling around all over Judea.

Maybe it’s because the surroundings, the people and the expectations are unfamiliar that people on mission trips are a little more open to new things happening.  Maybe they rely more on God to get them through uncertain situations.  Maybe it is easier for God to get our attention and to work on changing things in us when everything else is unfamiliar. 

Whatever the reasons, there is much biblical evidence pointing to a kind of  “spirituality of travel.”  Many times in the Bible significant revelations from God take place after people have been called away from their usual surroundings and routines, as when Moses turned aside to see the burning bush more closely. 

Responding to the call to serve God’s purpose is what matters most.  It is important to put ourselves and our gifts at the service of God’s mission.  After that, it doesn’t much matter whether we are sent across the globe or across the street.  Both local and global mission efforts serve God’s purpose.

So today, as we sat in the Mettu Church in Ethiopia, eight time zones and two continents away from Shenandoah, enjoying a three and a half hour ordination service, we prayed for two other mission teams from our Presbytery that are beginning their travel and service this weekend to help rebuild storm damaged homes.  Winchester First and churches of the Mountain Valley Mission Community are headed for New Orleans, and Mossy Creek and churches of the Central Valley Mission Community are headed for North Carolina. 

We are including some pictures from Ethiopia.  We know that even at this great distance we are still united in the mission that we share, because Jesus chose to use God’s first word to Abram as the first word of his Great Commission:  “Go… and make disciples of all nations,…”  Matthew 28:19a:

Fireside Conversations

After our visit to the Woodstock Church and a break for coffee at the café, Tariku and I traveled to Front Royal for a soup supper and conversation with the people at Nineveh.  The threads of earlier conversations throughout the day came together in unexpected ways during this evening visit.

I explained to Tariku that Shenandoah Presbytery has many small churches, and that Nineveh is one of them.  The membership (at 50) is much smaller than either of the churches we had visited earlier in the day.  Still, we are growing in our sense of mission and in our openness to what God may have in mind for us. 

We arrived early and began our visit in the sanctuary.  Kes Tariku recognized that our pulpit and communion table are covered with linens that were embroidered by the Lydia Center for women’s work on the IBS campus in Mettu, Ethiopia.  There is also a wooden Ethiopian cross on the wall of the sanctuary.  But it was when I told him that Nineveh prays for him by name and for our partners in IBS every Sunday, that he turned to me and said, “Randy, THIS IS a partner church.”

Tariku’s answer earlier in the day to David Howard’s question about the best thing we could do as a partner presbytery, was “More church-to-church partnerships.”  Several of our congregations, like Opequon, Shepherdstown, Smyrna, Massanutten and others have been very involved in this partnership over the years.  But only three congregations have become official church-to-church partners with congregations in Ethiopia: First Harrisonburg, First Winchester, and Covenant in Staunton.  Each of these congregations has dedicated major resources and has sent and received delegates to build and maintain relationships with their partner church over the years.

To hear Kes Tariku affirm that a small church like Nineveh which cannot commit major mission funds, IS a partner church because of our commitment to pray for our partners every Sunday, opened up a whole new area for discussion of the meaning and expectations associated with church to church partnerships.  It is an ongoing conversation that may open doors for many of our smaller churches to new kinds of relationships with our Ethiopian partners.

Nineveh is blessed to have a large stone fireplace in our basement fellowship hall, which lends itself to fellowship and to conversation as the warm glow of the fire took the chill out of that November evening.

During the supper conversation Tariku heard about Nineveh’s efforts to balance local and global mission outreach, and how we have begun a weekly prayer support relationship with a church that shares our name:  Ninewah Presbyterian Church in Iraq.  Their pastors have been driven off, and elders who were leading the church have been ambushed and killed.  We pray weekly for those who are left and for those who now live in refugee camps for the safety of their families.  I also shared with those present, the story of the Shoe Box Time Capsule, and how it brought a needed word at the right time to Woodstock church.

When it was Tariku’s time to talk, he spoke about how the visits to each of the churches that day had touched his heart in a different way, and how moved he was to see the different ways that God is working in the congregations of Shenandoah Presbytery.  (Again, I invite you to share with the rest of our presbytery and our partners, the things that God is doing in your congregation.)   Tariku also spoke about the ways that God was working in Illubabor Bethel Synod, about the tremendous growth they have experienced and about the new ways they are seeking to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is good to hear each other’s stories about what God is doing because it reminds us that God is bigger than any one understanding of God.  Often when we share, we hear each other say “God is at work in what you have just told me.” even though what we have shared may seem to us to be just part of the routine of the way we do things.

Every church in every place shares the great commission that Jesus gave to “Go and make disciples of all nations.”  Jesus also promised to go with us, and so every different expression of each particular congregation’s mission can reveal to us a different way that God is at work with us and through us.  To share those stories strengthens our faith and broadens our awareness of the loving God who though hidden, is right there with us; cheering us on and leading us on.