Sunday, June 27, 2010....Day 4 - Rescue

I woke up this morning at 4 AM, which is really crazy. Usually I don’t have this much trouble adjusting to the sleep schedule, but I’m usually not trying to juggle so much. Having the whole family over here is great, but it definitely requires more of my attention. Journaling and reading time are scarce trying to keep four kids comfortable in a foreign country. I am proud of each of our kids. They have been troopers in this new experience.

Everyone else woke up early and waited around for a while to go to church. I can’t remember the last time I left for church at 10:45. We went to the International Evangelical Church, which is an English speaking church and I have heard has been quite good recently (usually it is pretty dry and boring for my taste).

The message was good. It was about how the church is being bullied in 1 Peter and Peter is reminding the church about who it really is. The only thing I didn’t like was the message set the world up as the big bully who sooner or later “will get what they deserve.” And while that may be true in God’s timing, I don’t find that thinking very helpful in evoking the compassion required to love and serve a broken world with mercy and grace.

After the service we headed to lunch with Trent and Carmen Post and their family. We went to a restaurant where I knew our kids could get a meal they would love. They needed it and it worked. Great meal topped off with ice cream at Kaldi’s.

We called Nicco who went to Zway to pick up the twins birth mother so that she could be in Addis for court on tomorrow. When we spoke to him he said that their mother wanted to come and see us tonight when they arrived in Addis. I knew this time was probably coming, but I had not put much thought into what I would say, feel or do. They said they would be at the guest house around 6. That gave us about 2 hours to collect our thoughts and think about this meeting.

We headed to the Sheraton to figure out if I could load the videos for church and give the kids some time on the internet. I think the videos loaded on the flip sight and I hope this will provide a view into our world each Sunday during the service. I then tried to load the video I couldn’t load yesterday on to YouTube. It worked and may provide a way to get video back home regularly during this trip.

We headed back to the guest house and Nicco, Chase Abraham and the birth mother were waiting for us. Mendy and the birth mom hugged for a while outside in the rain and then they came inside and we all greeted her warmly. She did not speak any English and was mostly quiet. We had a good 45 minute visit with her – asked many questions and expressed our deep desire to take good care of her children. She is very confident in her decision to allow her children to be adopted. She has 5 other kids and no husband in one of the poorest areas of Ethiopia. We found out there are about 1500 people who live on the island and I look forward to making a big impact in the lives of those people as we seek out partnerships to help with their needs.

We took some pictures and said our goodbyes. It was a great first visit. We will see her in court tomorrow. After this visit, I feel more confident that tomorrow will go well. The June 27th entry in “Jesus Calling” devotion couldn’t be more perfect for us today.

Good night playing some games. Ready to get some sleep before court tomorrow. I am not taking anything for granted because this whole process has not gone as planned. However, I have had a quiet confidence that God is covering this process. I asked him today, “God would you bring us all the way out here on this trip only to have us rejected in court tomorrow?” While that is a possibility, the answer I received was simply this, “David you are doing what you are supposed to do, stepping through each door that opens, so keep walking.” I will do just that – keeping walking, trying to keep in step with His Spirit.