Thief

"Laba at Meskel Square"! Laba is the Amharic word for "thief". Towards the end of September there is a huge celebration by the Orthodox church called "Meskel". The origin of it is shrouded in legend and superstition. It goes back to the time of Constantine when his wife is said to have discovered the true cross of Christ by following smoke from a burning fire. For the Ethiopian it also signifies the end of rainy season sort of like the arrival of spring (they can now visit relatives that were cut off due to swollen rivers). At any rate as I was observing these celebrations, I had my pocket picked. I think I was distracted by one policeman who started beating indiscriminately on the crowd with his billy club. In the ensuing chaos and flight for my own safety I ended up without a wallet. I lost my Ethiopian drivers license and Canadian Citizenship Card. I started having flashbacks to my time in Brazil where I had my wallet picked with all my id and then had my passport destroyed on one of my river trips. At that time I ended up in jail for two months.
It took me trips to 5 police stations, most of them twice and one of them three times, 11 1/2 hrs. and 2 days of waiting in lines and chasing signatures before I was able to replace my Ethiopian drivers license. I still haven't replaced my citizenship card.
Sue has started her Amharic language classes. She is finding it brutal but is persevering. She is also getting exposure to different types of urban ministries that will be useful for when we start things in Bahir Dar. She has visited a women's shelter as well as some self help projects. One project involved taking people who lived on the street and organizing them into a little Co-op where they were trained on using a brick making machine. A whole community of homeless people that used to live against walls and under plastic sheets now have houses they made from the bricks and are getting income from the sale of bricks.
We are making plans with the SIM director for the North of Ethiopia to visit Bahir Dar around the third week of November. We will meet with various officials and people working in the area at that time as we start things rolling on getting an urban ministries program started there.
This weekend is mid-term break at school and we took a trip about an hour and a half north of Addis to an Orthodox monastery called "Debra Lebanos". The monastery was started by a monk named Tekle Hynot who is said to have stood on one leg in a cave for 29 years in meditation. As the legend goes his one leg eventually fell off. We climbed up to the cave where this event supposedly occurred and were met by a monk in a cave. Apparently a lot of monks still live in caves.
The Orthodox church in Ethiopia has a lot of history. The area we are going to, God willing, in northern Ethiopia is the heart of the Orthodox history in Ethiopia including many legends of the Ark of the Covenant as well as many ancient island monasteries on Lake Tana.
Not far from the Debra Lebanos monastery is "the Portuguese Bridge". This bridge is more than 400 years old and is located along the "Nile Gorge". Sue and the girls are standing on the brink of the gorge with a sheer drop off of thousands of feet to the Nile river below. The Grand Canyon has nothing on the "Nile Gorge".
The girls were fascinated by bands of monkeys and baboons that could scale sheer rock cliffs without falling (as far we knew).
School continues to go well. Both girls are now healthy after a couple of weeks of sickness. They are both enjoying school and have made lots of friends. Sarah and Rachel recently competed in a school "House Competition". The school has divided students into what they call "Houses" named after famous missionaries (Carey, Scott, and Taylor). Sarah and Rachel are members of Carey and their team came in first place. Rachel didn't compete much, she was the smallest on the field and she said she "didn't want to get sweaty".
In my Grade 9 Bible class I am having a good opportunity to discuss many important issues of life. We recently completed studies related to "Why does God allow so much suffering" and "Why are there so many injustices that seem to go unchecked". I am discovering that many of my students are struggling with deep issues of their own including thoughts of suicide, abusive home situations, caught in the middle of messy divorces involving their parents etc. Pray that I will have God's wisdom in helping them at this important time of their life.