Deplorable Blog Etiquette

What can I say? At best I am a half-hearted writer who struggles for inspiration...although the fact that I am slightly lazy and a major procrastinator is probably closer to the truth.

But forgive me! I will sit here until I fully update you on the last month--(Month! where has the time gone!?).

So in no particular chronological order, I will write as these things come to mind.

The most momentous occurrence in the past month: Ezra walks. He is a full-fledged, will-not-crawl, fall-72-times-a-day, slightly-off-balance walker. I cannot believe I now have two of them. He took his first steps for Grandma. Grandma and Papa returned from being stateside for the birth of Isla Brooks (a beautiful Daddy mini-me born to Leah and Tim on March 25th) and they arrived back just in time to be the first to witness Ezra's venture into kid-hood. As rough as it was on Grandma to leave little Isla, I think it helped a lot to be there for Ezzie's first steps.

I wasn't sure how I would feel about Ezra starting to walk. On one hand, I now have two who can go in opposite directions at considerable speeds. But despite the new parenting challenge, I love it. I love the look on his face when he falls for the 12th time in 20 minutes and he puts his head down on the ground, looking at me as if to say 'ow. should I cry?'. But of course he gets back up. And I love how he has suddenly gone from not realizing what he is actually capable of to not realizing what he is NOT capable of--hence the puffy lip and scraped chin compliements of a tumble off the sidewalk ledge. I love it. My baby is now a boy.

We spent the end of April and the first few days of May in Kenya. We attended an All-Africa Gathering of our mission, the Reformed Church in America. The conference was great, we had a really good time. It was a little jolting for Caleb to suddenly be a colleague of multiple long-term missionary couples whom he had grown up calling 'Aunt' and 'Uncle'. Although probably more so for those aunts and uncles!

We also spent a couple of days in Nairobi, staying with an old teacher and soccer coach of ours from our RVA days. Trish (Furman) Hughett has been a long-time friend of ours and we had a great time catching up with her. I had a chance to ride out to RVA with her and see the school and all the changes since the last time I saw it (over 7 years ago). What a beautiful, beautiful place.

After staying at Trish's, we went to the Kenyan coast for a few nights with some friends of ours from Addis. We loved our week there...all we did was play in the pool and enjoy each other and our kids. It was wonderful.

(Oh, that reminds me--I have updated our picture site again, so if you want to see pictures of Ezra starting to walk, his first birthday, and our trip to Kenya, check out www.elsamorrell.shutterfly.com).

We had a really interesting experience on a field trip with our language school last week. We went as a group to a place about 2 hours north of Addis Ababa called Debre Libanos. Debre Libanos is considered one of the most holy sites in Ethiopia because it is home to a monastery started by Tekle Hayminot, one of the Ethiopian Orthodox faith's most revered saints. The legend surrounding Tekle Hayminot is that for 29 years he stood praying in a cave. On one leg. And that one leg fell off. So he's kind of a big deal.

Anyways, we were going to see this Orthodox church and the cave where T.H. prayed and lost his leg, and then we were going to an old 14th century Portugese bridge to have a picnic. Our group consisted of both students and teachers from the language school. While most of our group was in the church, two of our language teachers went out in the church compound with the intention of witnessing to some of the Orthodox believers there. The rest of us continued with our tour and then hiked up to the cave, and as we were getting back on our bus, the language school director was told that the two language teachers had been arrested and were being detained by the police. What we all didn't know going into this day was one, this was the week of T.H.'s 'feast day' (therefore one of the most holy days of the year), and two, it is incredibly, incredibly offensive to 'preach' or 'witness' in any way, shape, or form at an Orthodox site. Technically, Ethiopia is a country of religious freedom, and legally, you are able to share your faith. But apparently at the most holy site, on one of the most holy days, in Ethiopia, the offensiveness of trying to "scatter the Orthodox people" (the police and priest's words) takes precedence over any law.

The police and priests were not inclined to let the two teachers go until after Tuesday, which was the official feast day (this was Friday). Our language school director, was also disinclined to leave her teachers behind, and so we stayed at Debre Libanos, on our bus, for over two hours while the situation was trying to be resolved. The real problem was not with the police or the charges that would possibly be brought against these two men, but was actually with the crowd. There was a real danger of a riot breaking out if it appeared like the police were going to let these two men go. The police were attempting to find a way to get our teachers out safely without them or our bus being stoned.

Finally, after Ramonda (our language school director) pleaded for forgiveness on behalf of the teachers, we were able to leave with a police escort under the pretense of taking the teachers to the next town to be held at that police station. This allowed us to leave the grounds of Debre Libanos without further inciting the crowd and possibly igniting an already tense situation.

It was definitely a cultural eye-opener for us. I don't think either Caleb or I had realized before this the sensitivity and intensity of the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition. It was a witness-damaging and unfortunate incident, apparently it will be a long time before a busload of Christians will be welcomed back at Debre Libanos. It definitely raises the discussion of what being an effective witness looks like and the power of contextualization and relationship-building vs. a confrontational presentation of the Gospel. Thanks be to God that our whole group was safely delivered from a potentially dangerous situation.

So I've now not only waited an obscene amount of time to update this blog that I've probably lost all of my readers, I've also created a post that is so long most likely only my mother will read all of it.

If you've persevered through all of this...amesegenalehoo (THANK YOU in Amharic)!

That is our month in a nutshell, though. We are now in our last two weeks of language school and cannot believe we are this close to finishing and making the final move down to Omo. These last two weeks will be busy with finishing up our classes, packing our things, and doing a lot of shopping for supplies.

I'm stopping now.

Oh wait. I've been meaning to say that I cannot access our blog from Ethiopia. For some reason, 'blogspot' is blocked by Ethiopia. So while we were in Kenya, I was able to open the blog and see all of the comments for the first time that people have written! Thank you to all who read and comment on this blog, it was a real encouragement to me to read all of the comments. I'm sorry I cannot regularly respond to anything written in a comment because of my lack of access to the blog. So if you want me to respond to you, email me at caleb.swart@yimesgin.org.

I'm really stopping now.