Travel "Miracles"

Of the four suitcases we planned to check onto the aircraft, who would have expected my husband's bag to be the heaviest? I guess men's jeans weigh more than suitcases filled with ministry supplies like school books, craft supplies and gifts. Plus it didn't help that we had assigned him the bag which was likely the heaviest even when empty. We transferred some items out, but even with that, a second weighing showed he was still hovering around the 50 lb. limit.

At the Calgary airport our group of five travellers lined up at the "economy" counter to check in. My husband and I were last in line, and I watched with some nervousness as each suitcase was carefully weighed before being tagged and returned to be carried through US customs. When it was our turn, the agent in "priority check-in" called us over because there was no one in her line at the moment. She processed my two bags, weighing each one. When it was hubby's turn, she noticed that there was now a line-up waiting for her services, and so when he offered to put them on the scale, she shook her head, put the tags on and waved us through. As we caught up to the rest of our group in the next line-up, they inquired if our big bag had been over the weight limit. When I said that she didn't weigh it, they were amazed! I told them to remember this as God's first little miracle and be prepared to see lots of similar things over the next three weeks.

Once through US customs, we had to relinquish our bags into the care of the airline for the next 32 hours of travelling. We've all heard the horror stories of  lost luggage, and our bags were going to be transferred at Minneapolis, and again at Amsterdam. It was certainly our prayer that all ten pieces would arrive at the Addis Ababa airport with us. I made everyone tie a matching strip of bright red fabric on their handles in the hope that the baggage handlers might notice and say, "Hey, this one goes with those others!"

This is us in Minneapolis, only 3 hours into our journey.

7 hours later, at our 5 hour lay-over in Amsterdam, we're a little less ambitious, and not relishing the prospect of another 9 hours in the air before arriving at our destination.

When foreigners arrive in Addis, they must stand in line to obtain a visitor's visa for their passport. This is a SLOW process done by four people writing everything by hand with carbon papers. I might add that there are no public washrooms until after the Visa line-up and the Customs line-up. Thank goodness no one was in dire need of a pit stop, as I'm sure we were in these lines for close to an hour. I had read more than once to be ready to answer detailed questions about the money we were bringing into the country. This was no small amount, as we had cash to pay for the tour we were taking at the end of the ministry, personal spending money, and travellers cheques covering the funds needed for our land travel, accommodations, and the church construction. But not one question was asked of any of us about money as we went through all the check points. 

You can imagine our delight and relief when the five weary travellers found all our luggage on the carousel in Addis once we cleared Customs. But before we could exit into the lobby where our hosts were anxiously waiting for us, we saw that we had one more luggage check to go through. We groaned as we realized people ahead of us were being asked to open their suitcases for visual checks, in addition to the xray machine. As we started to make our way to one of the lines, an official approached my husband and asked to see the claim tags for the luggage. Thank goodness no one had discarded the paper folders which these had been affixed to. He carefully checked the numbers against each piece and asked what we were bringing into the country. "Any commercial products?" "No." "What about cameras?" "Well, just our digitals," I said, as I started to pull mine out for inspection. "Any professional camera?" "No." "Okay, you can go. Have a nice visit." And he waved us all through to the exit doors! 

Against our Ethiopian hosts advice, we had over a hundred little stuffed animals distributed amongst our bags, as well as school supplies, craft supplies and other gifts. We were warned that we could face high fees to bring them into the country. But we brought them anyway, with a prayer that they would not be a problem. God certainly worked everything out so that our flights and arrival at our destination went very smoothly.

Why Ethiopia?

Every Sunday afternoon a growing church of Ethiopian believers meets in our church building for services in the Amharic language.

Three years ago, Z. asked me about the possibility of taking a short term mission team to Ethiopia someday. He agreed to help co-lead this venture. In the following year, our church began a "sister church" relationship with the Debre Zeit Kale Heywet Church, a fellowship that both Z. and E., an Ethiopian lady from our church, had association with when they lived in that country. Through e-mail, letters, and photos, we started to communicate with the leaders of this church and began to get acquainted with their thriving church and their vision to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people in the surrounding villages.

From the outset, our new sister church extended a "heartfelt invitation" that we come and visit. In praying about the idea of taking a team, both Z. and myself felt God's confirmation that the time was right. One year ago in October, we approached the church board for approval. We also communicated our desire to our friends in Ethiopia, who immediately became excited about the possibility of hosting us. Each person from our church who indicated a desire to be part of the team had a unique story testifying about God's call on their heart to participate.

Thus began our year-long preparation: team building, watching recommended training videos and reading books, fundraising, communicating our progress and prayer requests to our local church family, arranging flights, ground transportation and accommodations, immunizations, and lots of discussion with the hosting committee in Debre Zeit. There was much work involved in trying to make this trip as successful as possible - aside from the obvious priority of praying diligently!

In late August, after many faith-testing delays, I was finally able to book our flights. Excitement, with a good measure of fear and trembling, would describe my feelings that day. Remember - I like the comfort of the familiar. Africa was so FAR from the familiar it wasn't funny!

Perhaps this excerpt from my prayer journal will illustrate the emotions that were on my heart: "Lord, hold me. I'm feeling like a blind man being led by Your hand. Please don't let me stumble or bump into things, and protect us from the dangers which I can't see. I'm going to have to trust You completely in order to avoid getting my insides tied into knots. Please give me grace and strength for that much trust." 

A Little Background Information

If you had asked me five years ago if I thought I would ever be a leader of short term mission trips to far-away places like Ethiopia, I would have laughed out loud. Now today I stand amazed and humbled that God would allow me this amazing privilege. 

In the summer of 2003, I travelled with our youth pastor and 12 teens to help on their Mexico Mission trip. Those two weeks were a life-changing experience as I saw third-world poverty for the first time in my life. I was impressed with how incredibly blessed we are in Canada, and how easily we can bring encouragement, hope and help to those who live with much less. 

As I pondered how this trip had impacted and changed my perspective on life, thoughts kept running through my mind about how I might be able to offer this experience to other adults in our church. Six months later I sat in a church service and listened as that same youth pastor preached on the story about Peter walking on water (Matthew 14:30-32). The main challenge in his sermon was to have courage to "step out of the boat" - we won't sink as long as we keep our eyes on Jesus, but as soon as we look at the waves and have fear, we are in danger of going down. That day I was convinced that God wanted me to step out of my safe boat, and trust Him to hold my hand as I organized a mission trip to Mexico. 

One year and three months later, our first team of five adults were ministering in Nogales, Mexico, and the fruit of this trip in the lives of those who participated continues to astound me.

In 2006, another team, this time eleven of us, returned to Nogales for another week of construction and children's ministry. I was content to continue on this course, leading adult teams to Mexico. Organizing for the "familiar" was comfortable.

But God had other plans for me. Have you ever noticed that He seems to be in the business of stretching and testing our faith?!