Oh, But I Love Luxury

November 11th, 2007
Yesterday was another sick day. I hate my stomach right now. But partway through our drive to Addis I felt better. Even though we got up early to drive, Kate was a happy chatterbox. It was really funny because she isn’t usually a morning person. She said it was because she didn’t get much sleep last night.
Our driver was Abraham and he was so funny pointing at people and honking at them when they were on the road. We found out that he is Muslim and Kate brought up a good point. We had sung worship songs and talked about Jesus around him and that is how it should always be. We should be ourselves around people of other religions. Too often we try to hide who we are in order not to offend people. I also think it’s good that FH employs drivers no matter what religion they are. Drivers are usually only temporary workers. He is a sweet man who kept asking me how I felt.
I can’t help but be so happy to be in the city. So nice! All the things I like are at my fingertips. Should I feel guilty about that? I don’t think it’s wrong because it’s what I’m used to. It felt so nice to have a warm shower and to have my feet clean again instead of caked with red dirt. I was so grungy! My hair turned into a huge knot on the way here.
We ordered dinner into our rooms, which was really nice. We didn’t have to go anywhere. We had tea, chicken, steak and rice. The chicken and rice were awesome, but the steak wasn’t very good to me. We watched TV before we went to bed and during dinner, which was nice. I hadn’t watched TV in English the whole time I’ve been in Africa! The only TV I had watched was in Amharic on our compound in Sasiga. But the only thing that was ever on was some sort of conference with the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s face shown over and over again. He always looked so serious. He was our constant dinner companion. We watched BBC world last night and I had never watched it before since I didn’t grow up with very many channels. I decided I like it and I’ll ask my parents if they have it at their house. We saw an interview with the Dalai Lama and he seems like a really funny person. I would love to meet him. He doesn’t take himself too seriously which is amazing for someone of his status. Kate said that he was in her town and talked to some university students, but she wasn’t there at the time.
This morning I woke up to the sounds of the call to prayer, which I am very used to now. It will be strange not hearing it anymore, although it will be really nice. I lay in bed and thought about Japan. I really want to go there again. Actually, coming here has made me realize that I used to think that being a missionary in Japan would be taking the easy way out. Africa has Christ and his gospel can be spread by other African people more easily than westerners can do it. But Japan is so spiritually poor. They have material things, but they don’t have hope. It is much more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a poor one, according to scripture, and I can see it there. They don’t have physical needs you can meet in Japan that will let them know how much you care and how much God cares. Some day I would like to return.
During the meals it was good to talk to Bruce and vent all our frustrations out to him. We felt bad that he had to take the brunt of it, but we had to tell someone. He appreciates our feedback. For dinner we went out to Chinese food, which was amazing! We had sweet and sour chicken, kung pao chicken, and ginger beef. I was so happy. Tekle joined us for dinner because he actually likes Chinese food. Earlier we had really good gelato at Kaldi’s Coffee.
We went to church at Beza International, which was where we went to before. He spoke on having faith that God can use you and having confidence in yourself. I learned a lot from that message because I have had huge confidence and inferiority complex issues since being here. Part of it’s my fault and part of it’s not. I need to believe that I can do things and do them well. I don’t know why I have such a hard time with that. I think I try to be overly humble about things, which just turns into being self-derogatory. During the service I was prayed for the people in Angar; especially the school. I now have this burden and passion for them because they deserve so much better.
At church a man from India named Benny Prasad played an instrument that he invented called a bongo guitar. He was amazing! It was beautiful music. He plays in front of presidents and other world leaders and he played for the 2004 Olympics. I’m going to look him up online. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a new CD out. He has a lung disease and so he was expected to die 16 years ago according to the doctors. But he’s still kicking and he’s really successful. His voice is really high because of his lung problem. He works for YWAM. Anyway, he has a really good testimony and he’s really funny too. He said that many churches start praying for him when he enters because they think he’s a drug addict. Probably just because he has long hair. Ha ha!