This is a homecoming for Yonatan who hasn’t been in his home city for 25 years. He doesn’t recognize 75% of it. Addis Abbaba (new flower) is a 9M person, sprawling, flourishing city that has something of everything and for everyone! Far more developed than Khartoum. Its high elevation (7700 ft) makes it cool at night and variable sunny or rainy during the day. It was hard to imagine rain while we were in Sudan!
We are staying in a very nice condominium that belongs to relatives of Yonatan. We are alone here except for a woman in her fifties who worked for Yonatan’s family as a domestic helper when he was about 12. He hadn’t seen her for 30 years or more. She talks with him constantly in Tigrigna, doesn’t know a word of English.
On Thursday we met with four Eritrean refugee pastors. They support a group of 24 Eritrean refugee churches in Addis. They are well organized and are carrying on effective ministry. All of them are illegals from Eritrea and as such have no rights as citizens in Ethiopia. Nevertheless, they can work informally for Ethiopians, arrange business partnerships “under them” in a variety of ways. They were impressive! They wanted us to see a group of 60 of their evangelists who were receiving a 3 day evangelism training course by an Ethiopian trainer from Russia. Apparently the Ethiopians have an enormous church there. We met them and Yonatan and I spoke to them briefly.
On Friday we visited Pastor Girmu, a key leader among the brethren churches here. He told us a remarkable story of the first missionaries who came to Ethiopia from Ireland. When they arrived here, one of them met Emperor Hailie Selassie at a birthday party. Selassie asked him where they were going to be working, they said they were still discerning that. He arranged for them to go to the north of Ethiopia to a very difficult place, the hottest area in the country and totally Islamic. Nevertheless, they began a clinic there which eventually became well known and people from all over the country came to it. One of them moved to Addis, it was Stephen McQuoid’s father. I have met Stephen of GLO mission in Scotland several times. He began a church on the South side of Addis which eventually became the mother church to all other churches of that network in Ethiopia. There are now 284 churches. The story was much longer, so interesting I hate not to tell it! Another time!
There are so many beggars on the streets. The most troubling, is seeing young girls, mothers, carrying young children along side of a busy road where the traffic often slows down, begging. I wanted to see their faces and on one occasion I caught the eye of this young woman. She immediately came up to our car and began to beg. I didn't know what to do. Nobody else was responding. I didn't have local money. Even the child who was probably 14 months began to smile pleadingly and began to beg with her hand. The image of that young girl and her baby stayed with me all night. Disturbing. I was told today that this problem had tripled since the horrible two-year Ethiopian civil war which concluded in December.
We’ve done quite a bit of sight-seeing here. Looking forward to preaching at a church tomorrow and visiting another in the afternoon. Thank you for praying!
Photo of Eritrean leaders
Photo of 60 evangelists
Photo of children and young mothers begging
