A New Church

When you are new in town, it’s hard to get to know people, especially if there is a language barrier. Churches are good places to make friends. There are a number of churches who conduct services in English or have good translators. The big one in town is the International Evangelical Church (IEC) which many folks go to. I’m sure there are many great people there but we felt a bit out of place. So we managed to find another church, International Lutheran Church. A friend of a friend who goes there gave us directions and we went off on a bright sunny Sunday morning (don’t underestimate the power of a sunny day in the middle of rainy season, optimism in finding our way there was heightened even though it was undeserved).
We may have gone the wrong way down a divided street, it’s possible we might have almost caused an accident by our indecision amongst innumerable city buses, large passenger vans, taxis, donkeys, sheep and people. It’s certain that my girls can’t help but play back seat drivers, to my consternation (“if you don’t like the way I drive, close your eyes and you’ll be fine”). But we made it, thanks be to God (we said that in the service as well).
The Lutheran church is a bit more liturgical than we are used to, lots more litanies. The hymn books look like a modern day Ausbund, the Amish songbook; all words and no scores. We looked at our bulletin and saw familiar hymns and nodded assuredly to each other, this looks good. But to our dismay they used different tunes and we struggled.
Yet, the church was small and friendly. Best of all, on that Sunday there were lots of young “western” girls who were more or less the same age as our daughters. A huge drawing card. At the IEC we were lost in the crowd. But the ILC was a bit like the Cheers line, a place where people know your name. Afterwards folks came up and introduced themselves, including a family from Denmark with 3 young daughters. It turned out that their middle daughter is the same age as our twins and their youngest and Sophia are the same age. The Knudsens are sending their daughters to Bingham Academy this fall too so the girls found someone they knew before school started.
That might have been the end of it but as we got into our 1987 white Toyota station wagon some little Ethiopian girls ran up to my window chattering excitedly about a “goma”. They pointed to a tire but I wasn’t sure this wasn’t some trick (some boy gangs do this to scam drivers, lining up and pointing out a defect on the vehicle then producing a part they claim they saw fall off, whereupon they helpfully direct the poor driver to their friend’s garage and proceed to charge an outrageous price for nothing). But wait, I reasoned, this is in the walled compound of a church and these are young girls. I got out and found, yep, a flat tire. Front passenger side. So I started getting out the equipment, found the spare under the back of the car and started to jack up the car. Helping hands appeared from everywhere and soon a small crowd gathered around to see the spectacle. Better here than on the road somewhere. The guest preacher, a kind Pentecostal man from Nigeria, insisted on helping in spite of the fact that he had an absolutely beautiful suit on. I couldn’t dissuade him. Lars Knudsen, the father of the family of girls, was helpful in getting the whole business going. When the spare tire was on the crowd dispersed. And what had been a “Why me, Lord?” moment became a “Thank you, Lord” moment. The Knudsens and a few others invited us to go with them to a Korean restaurant for lunch. The food was good (if you like Korean), the company was good and the girls got to know each other. After the lunch the Knudsens invited us to Kaldi Coffee for ice cream and coffee. There the girls tasted the first ice cream that is fairly close to North American ice cream (don’t worry, Avondale, Dairy Queen Dalton Dariette needn’t worry about competition). There we agreed to exchange daughters for the day on Monday (twins to their house, their Sille to our house to play with Sophia). So we had to see where each other lives. The Danish Mission has a large compound and they have a nice house in a large compound. So perhaps this is a beginning of a friendship.
That was last Sunday. We went back to the ILC this morning. This Sunday the hymns were familiar, the sermon was too (Wanda and I can’t help but critique, occupational hazard). The communion was unfamiliar, Wanda and I joined a number of others going to the front and kneeling on long cushions of the first step. There, kneeling, we held out our hands and received the bread and the wine/grape juice (the familiar little cups were either one or the other). Afterwards we all stood, held hands while the pastor pronounced a blessing on us. Then we went back to our seats.
Will we go there again? Probably, but we still wish to visit other churches. Attending an Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) would be great, but out of the question because of our girls and the language barrier. The services run 2-4 hours long and our Amharic is not good enough yet (if ever). So we need to attend English services that run less than 2 hours. It is tempting at this stage to stay comfortably in our compound and not venture out on Sunday mornings but if we had stayed at home we wouldn’t have made new acquaintances and we would have missed corporate worship (we did worship one Sunday at home as a family). Continue to remember us in prayer as we find our way through the city to new places and destinations.