Story #3

(the following is taken directly from my journal 3-8-09)

"This morning we woke up, got ready, and had some coffee with Walde (the hotel manager).  The coffee is very strong and is served in a very small cup.  Anyway, then we got ready and went to church.  Beza was amazing.  I loved worshipping with them.  We sang 'Holy is the Lord' and the line:

It's rising up all around,

It's the anthem of the Lord's renown

made me think about the millions of people all over the world singing praise to God.

After church we went to lunch with people from Beza and got to know them better.  It's really interesting how the restaurants are so diverse here.  They don't serve just one kind of food.  For example, mexican/italian/american. 

One thing I really liked about the message this morning was he said:

'If you're doing something for free and you're loving it then you're probably on the right track! Go for it, just try! God will intervene if it's not right--he's that powerful and we really can't mess it up.'

We also went swimming today--actually we laid in the sun at this public pool.  It was pretty great! Most of us actually fell asleep in the sun and didn't even go in the water.  Our team split up for dinner...no more meals with 40 people. So I went with a group to get what we thought was going to be German/American Cuisine.  It was interesting.  We had to get on the omni-bus which is like the metro only above ground.  It is basically a taxi van that picks up tons of people and piles them inside.  Anyway, the food was really random and most of us didn't even get anything close to what we actually ordered.  On the way home we got a taxi for 4 people and fit 8 inside--true Addis style apparently.  What a day...just getting to know the culture and hanging out with wonderful people that are becoming family!

After we got back I went to to desk to ask Walde for a wake up call and he asked me to sit down and talk for a little while so I did.  He eventually told me that I should marry him and that he would move to America for me.  I sort of laughed and changed subjects! He is a great guy--he is studying hotel business management and he goes to church down the street. Someone complained about our group being too loud during our meetings so he switched our room and said 'now you can worship and pray as loud as you want'.  Everyone jokes about him being my boyfriend now!  He is teaching me Amharic though and I'm trying to teach him English."