A Trip to Ethiopia

Presentation of Kombolcha, Ethiopia Mission Trip

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Sunday, May 20, 2012

(1)        LEAD UP TO THE TRIP

In December 2009 my wife Candy Tennant and a dozen others traveled to Ethiopia and visited “care points” run by Children’s Hope Chest.  One of those sites was Grace Baptist Church in the city of Kombolcha. 

In March 2010, Peter Abera, an Ethiopian man from Kombolcha visited here and told his story to HillSong Church. He was born Ethiopian Orthodox, a form of Christianity and the most prominent faith in Ethiopia.  During the famine, he worked at a World Vision feeding center run out of Grace Baptist Church in Kombolcha.  There, he accepted Jesus as his Savior.  I am not suggesting the Orthodox Church does not preach the Gospel.  But Peter did not learn to be a Jesus follower in the Orthodox Church.  He didn’t come to Christ until he was mentored by a World Vision worker who shared both food and the Gospel. 

Word traveled to Peter’s father who came to the Grace Baptist Church with a gun, intent on killing his son for leaving Ethiopian Orthodoxy.  Peter was terrified, but the man who had discipled told him to go into the building.  That man brought out a table and poured some coffee. 

Peter’s father set his gun on the table. The man who himself had grown up Muslim and then turned to Jesus at Grace Baptist Church, explained the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Peter’s Father listened.  His heart softened.  They called Peter.  His father put the gun away and embraced his son.

These events took place in the 1990’s.  Peter toured the United States in 2010.  One of his stops was here, HillSong Church.  He shared his story, which I just told.  That day, we invited people to support Grace Baptist Church by supporting the Children’s Hope Chest Care Point there. 

Support is rendered by sponsoring a child.  You send $34/month and you begin a relationship with a child who is educated at the school run by Grace Baptist.  The child gets a uniform, school supplies, and a meal every day.  Some of these kids live with their parents who are extremely sick.  Some have lost one parent and live with the surviving parent; these kids are called single orphans.  Some children lost both parents and live with a relative or guardian.  These are double orphans.  Whether the child is a single orphan, a double orphan, or a kid whose parents are alive but very poor, their needs are tremendous.  We have poverty in America, but in most cases, even our poor would be relatively well off compared to the poor in Kombolcha.

When Peter spoke at HillSong, people signed up to be sponsors.  Today, there are over 160 children in the program at Grace Baptist Church and about 90 are sponsored.  Over 40% of those sponsors come from HillSong church. 

What if we went to visit these kids?  What if we did that every year?

(2) WHAT WE DID

       In 2011, Candy and I went to Ethiopia to adopt our daughter M__.  While there, we went to Kombolcha, an 8-hour bus ride from the capital city, Addis Ababa.  We saw children who have great potential but are shackled by poverty.  The kids embraced us and loved us.  All we did was pass out care packages and take pictures.  And give hugs.  Lots of hugs. 

       I met with the leaders because I wanted HillSong to visit but only if that would be a good thing for them.  Maybe hosting a bunch of Americans would put an unneeded burden on them.  They assured me that a visit would be most welcome. 

      

When Candy and I returned to the United States, we began planning.  There was enthusiasm for the trip here at HillSong.  I imagined us as a church visiting Kombolcha every year.  That’s still my vision, but now that we have been on the firs trip, the vision is expanding. 

       Last year, May to November, many at HillSong attended the initial meetings.  Then, the interest waned.  Conflicting schedules, health, family obligations and other things got in the way.  For various reasons, autumn was passing and we had me and Sara Timmons and Laura Driggers.  Candy has also advertised the trip to sponsors outside our church, and they began signing up.  Soon, we had a team of 15, people from Michigan, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Virginia, and North Carolina.

We began preparing through conference calls.  I asked team members to share their Christian testimonies, on the calls.  In addition to that time of sharing, we planned our Bible camp.  Essentially what we would do in Ethiopia is go to the Grace Baptist Church every day and put on a 3-hour Bible camp for some of the kids in the morning.   The camp consisted of Bible lesson, arts/crafts, recreation/parachute games, and the distribution of care packages.  We also had several donations to pass out – balls, backpacks, water bottles, etc.  And, each day, we fed the kids a snack.  We’d take one group through in the morning and the other in the afternoon.

       As our team took shape, I thought, “This is not what I had in mind.”  I envisioned a HillSong team.  This team was a collection from all over with only three HillSong members.  But God was in it.  I was affirmed in the calling that yes, we were to go to Ethiopia.  At the same time, God showed me it wouldn’t look exactly as I thought. 

The time for the trip was getting closer, and I got a phone call.  “Rob, I need to come and talk to you.”  That usually means something is wrong, which is OK.  Christians walk with each other in life when something is wrong.   “Rob, I need to come and talk.”  Heidi Soden called and said those words, but it was because deep inside her, something was very right.  Even though all the deadlines had passed, she felt compelled by God to go on this trip. So, she came to see if there was any way.  I called the organization handling the logistics of our trip, the One Child Campaign.  Thy made it happen.  Our team of 15 was now 16, four from HillSong. 

Then March 21^st came – the day of our departure.  I learned that Sara Timmons can sleep anywhere – plane, floor of the airport, uncomfortable, crowded van.  Because she can do this, she is rested.  When the team is groggy and tired, she is awake, smiling.  We were working with 160 kids who speak Amharic.  A bright smile goes a long way.

I learned that nothing seems to faze Heidi.  She handles it all – the travel, the jetlag, the moments of scheduling uncertainty – she handles it with grace.  And she steps right in to any situation.

I learned that it is important to have a physician like Laura on the trip.  I also learned if you sit next to her for 13 hours on a plane, you won’t get bored.  She is extremely committed to Jesus and she is a conversationalist. 

We all learned that the Ethiopian airlines feeds a lot of meals and when it is meal time, they wake you up no matter how much your seatmate urges them to let you sleep.  Every time poor Laura would talk herself tired and drift off to sleep, they’d come with more food.  I would say, “Just let her sleep.”  Ignoring me, the flight attendant would shake her and say, “Chicken or fish.”  Half the time, I think she was so tired she wasn’t sure what she ordered even after she ate it.

I learned (again) what a fantastic my wife is.  With M__ only being with us 10 months, it wasn’t right for Candy to leave for 9 days.  But the entire time we were in Ethiopia, her fingerprints were all over the trip.  She was the conference calls in on all the planning. 

Here’s an example.  At the guest house, when we checked in, I was given a cell-phone.  Then I looked at the rather detailed notes Candy had put in a folder for me.  It said, “When you get to the guest house, a woman named Mercy will give you a cell phone.”  I looked at the woman and said, “Um, is your name, Mercy?”  She smiled and said, “Uh huh.”  I thought to myself, “I better read this folder carefully, every day.”  And, by the way, four members of the team used that phone to call back home throughout the week.

Our team was truly brought together by God.  We had a teenager, a nurse, a waitress, two pastors, a physician assistant, a school principle, a special ed teacher, a university professor, an office manager, a groundskeeper, and five stay-at-home moms.  There are super-Christians or sophisticated world-class travelers.  Some are over 50 years old, and one is 14.  Some are have a lot of formal education.  Some do blue-collar work.  One team member is a diabetic and she did fine.  One is a vegetarian, a vegan in fact, and she had some food challenges, but also did fine.  Look at these people.  YOU can sponsor a child and you can go on one of these trips.  You can be spectacularly used by God just by making yourself available. 

       At the Bible camp, the kids loved the games and the care packages.  They threw themselves into the crafts time.  They listened and participated when I taught the Bible lesson.  As we did our camp, in the distance, over a loud speaker, we would hear the Muslim call to prayer.  Many Muslims live in Kombolcha.  Among the children and within the Grace Baptist Church Family, some come to Jesus from a Muslim background.

      

(3) WHY

       This trip is about telling Jesus’ salvation, sharing basic needs of food and education and love with extremely poor children, and establishing relationships with those kids and the adults who care for them daily.  With the sounds of Islam filling the air, we told these kids that Jesus is God come in the flesh to take the sins of the world.  We went to Ethiopia to share this, to meet material needs, and to love the children in person.

       The most emotional portion of the trip for most of us came when we got to visit the homes of the children we sponsor.   We got to see 3^rd world poverty up close.  This wasn’t a CNN report.  With our bags of gifts –fruit, coffee, sugar – we went and visited the children.  The child Candy and I sponsor lives with 5 others in a home that’s not bigger than my office here at the church. 

       There is a reality about who Jesus is and some of us cannot see that reality until we step out of our familiar surroundings and into another world.  We go to help the kids yes, but also because we need to.  In order for us to become who Jesus is calling us to be, we need to go.

(4) WHAT’S NEXT

       Next year’s trip is March 9-18.  That corresponds with UNC’s spring break.  MY hope is that we double or triple the number of HillSong people who go.  I’d love to see five from the Encounter small group on next year’s trip.  Already, 17 people have signed up.  I now know this trip is God’s, not Hillsong’s.   The people in Ethiopia were so enthused with our time with them, they are eager for us to come back.  They cried when we left, and we did too – a lot.  Many have already signed up to go back. 

I am convinced God is calling Hillsong to be part of this. I urge you to pray and ask God if you are being called to sponsor or to go. 

(5) LONG-TERM

       I see this as the beginning of a long-term relationship:  HillSong Church, Children’s Hope Chest, Once Child (the organization handling logistics), and Grace Baptist Church in Kombolcha.  In 2013, our Bible camp there will be during UNC’s spring break March 9-18. 

       We might plan other 2013 trips to Kombolcha.  I am exploring the possibility of a medical team going in the Fall. 

(6) WHY IT MATTERS (TO YOU) (ON MAY 20, 2012 IN CHAPEL HILL)

       What does this mean here, now?  We invite you to be part it.  Sign up now, so we can begin preparing.  See Candy or me if you’d like to go.  All you need to is be available.  Teachers, waitresses, maintenance workers, nurses have all gone – these aren’t extraordinarily wealthy folks.  They are folks who hear God’s call, trust in his help, and sacrifice things so they can go where He is at work.  Teens, people over 50, diabetics – all are happy they went and plan to go back.  You can do this too. 

       Or, maybe you’re called somewhere else.  Laura Shrewsbury goes to Ukraine nearly every year where she is a part of a Bible camp for Gypsy children.  Uganda, South Africa, Haiti – we have people who have been or are going to these places.  There is the potential for a future trip to the Dominican Republic. 

       Maybe you are called locally.  Jonathan has the youth on mission every summer.  It’s home repair work and has been done in downtown Roanoke and on an Indian reservation.  We have numerous ministries right here in Carrboro-Chapel Hill and right in our own church.  Personally, I want everyone to go to Ethiopia.  But more than that, for the sake of your growth in Christ, I want you – every one of us – to answer God’s call to step out of comfortable places and into uncertain places where trusting Him is essential.  We don’t live in Faith until we truly give up control. 

INVITATION

       As we move into a time of prayer, singing, and invitation, let this also be a time of considering.  God is calling you, maybe to Ethiopia.  Maybe to something else.  As we sing during this time, I invite to come to the front and pray, asking God where He is calling you.  Or come and ask God, if you already have an idea, to clarify the call on your life.  This isn’t only for young people.  This isn’t only for travelers or people with a certain skill set.  God has a call on every life here.  I am asking today that all of us come and kneel and pray and ask God to reveal the call, clarify the call, and solidify the call.  Maybe coming to the front to pray is not what you usually do.  Maybe that’s the first step in being willing to say to God, “I’ll do as you command.  As the worship team leads, come and pray and ask God to show you the way to the live of service in Jesus’ name he is preparing for you.  Come.

First Sermon of the Year - 2010

Sunday, January 3, 2010

You come to church where you hear a video about work being done somewhere else – a country you’ve only barely heard of on a continent you’ve never visited. You are wholly unaware of that country, what it is like to live there, what language they speak, what food they eat, what the whether is like, what daily life is like. But, you come to church and the pastor and elders and other church leaders – people you typically trust - implore you to dig deep and give your money because the people in this country you don’t know are materially poor and/or they don’t know anything about Christianity. So, you’re supposed to give your money to meet their needs and help them meet Jesus.

You flip on the TV in the evening and happen across a story about rising unemployment and the working poor – it seems a segment of the population in our mostly wealthy country suffer are languishing in poverty. There truly are people in America who cannot afford any kind of health insurance, are undereducated or completely illiterate, live in unsanitary conditions that perpetuate poor health, lack opportunities for advancement or improvement, and sometimes don’t have enough food - yes, here in America. You’re a hard-working accomplished person and part of you thinks “in America, those people can work their way out. I’ve worked for what I have – they should too.” But, you’re an informed person too. You know there are situations in which no amount of hard work is going to help because the individual lacks opportunity. Furthermore, you’re a Christian, called to live in compassion. The compassionate side of you wants to help.

You drive to work on Monday morning, and at the traffic light, in the median, is a guy with a sign. “Homeless. Desperate. Anything will help.” And you drive past and come to another major intersection and there’s another guy with a sign. “Will work for food.” Now come on! It’s one thing to be locked in a community or a situation where there is no way out. But there has to be a better way for the hungry individual to fight his problems and work toward a better life than to stand at a corner and beg for the spare change of willing donors, people who work for their money.

Around the world, around our country, and right here in our community, less than a mile from this spot and from the homes in which we live, people are struggling to make it. Poverty is real. There are children who go to bed not knowing if they will eat tomorrow. There are families who have had their very humanity stripped away because they have absolutely no way of knowing whether things will ever improve. But the reality of the world and of those who suffer is not an intractable situation. It is not hopeless because we aren’t just an assembly of hardworking Americans. We are the church, the body of Christ, the gathering of his followers. We live in the tradition of the very first believers who received the Holy Spirit. And we too have received the Holy Spirit. So we know God’s word in the Bible is God’s word for us – to show us what God is all about; to encourage us; and, to drive us to put our complete trust in God and to live as Jesus and the first disciples lived.

You and I – we come to church and hear the Bible we trust read, in it the very words of Jesus. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” That good news was not a hope for relief from pain in some far off future, or hope for better things in the next life. Jesus began demonstrating the good news and began establishing His kingdom before he was crucified. When he said God “sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” he meant right now. That “right now” continues in the age of the church, which includes the age in which we live. So, the work Jesus started, the work of bringing good news to the poor, is work to be carried out in the church. This is to be the life of Jesus followers.

HillSong Church will dedicate 2010 to understanding Jesus’ message of good news and carrying that good news to the people of Chapel Hill-Carrboro (and surrounding towns), to the people of North Carolina, to the people of the United States, and to the people of the world. Haven’t we already been doing this? Yes, but it will be of a particular emphasis this year with the intention of moving our entire body to great missions involvement through prayer, participation, and giving throughout the future life of this church. Compassionate living and a concern for justice will under gird everything we do.

Will every single sermon of 2010 and every Bible study be about poverty alleviation? No! We will deal with a number of themes as our church has many people with varied spiritual concerns. The compassion life of Jesus will though always be in the background and frequently as it is every year in the foreground. To open the year we are asking all small groups to study the Sunday morning texts which all come from the Gospel of Luke. The sermons and small groups discussions will align to bring awareness to all of us; and the awareness, which I believe is a gift of the Holy Spirit, will prod us to action – to live compassionate lives. This is no bleeding heart, guilt-inspired campaign, no initiative intended to salve the conscience of the opulent middle class American; this a gathering of disciples attempting to respond to God’s word in faith and deed.

We want what break’s God’s heart to break ours. We want to value what God values. We want to go where He leads. We want to become who He is leading us to become. With that in mind we will move into 2010 with a closer look at what Jesus is doing in Luke 4. But first, a note about poverty.

Consider what you think of when you hear the word “poor” or some group of people described as “the poor.” Ask yourself, what comes to mind? Are “the poor” a group of people who are “out there” in some unknown, seldom visited somewhere? Are “the poor” a group of people described as “they,” or “those people?” I suggest that the poor are in here. Now, don’t hear and then gaze around the room to see if you can figure out whom I mean. Every person suffers from spiritual poverty because of sin. My sins may be related to lust or rage; hers maybe related to sloth or gluttony; his may be related to lack of faith; someone on the other side of the room may deal with prejudice; someone on the other side of the room may commit sins of omission – not doing what he knows God wants him to do. Or, sins of greed. In myriad ways, we sin and thus are afflicted with spiritual poverty.

Spiritual poverty leads to relational brokenness. A man may suffer in that he is oblivious toward his neighbor; or he may openly hostile toward his neighbor. But all men and all women are locked in relational brokenness because of sin.

There is nothing to be done – we cannot by our will power stop sinning, but praise the Lord! We don’t have to. We need to stop sinning, but that much true. But, we have help. Jesus came to “bring good news to the poor” and “to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” Jesus is our hope and in the body of Christ, empowering through the constant presence of the Spirit, responding to our prayers from Heaven, Jesus is helping us live in His kingdom.

Our journey to awareness and compassionate living includes our admission, almost like a participant in a twelve step group. Every one stands, says his or her name, and admits the truth. “Hi. I am Rob. I admit that due to sin, I am spiritually impoverished and thus relationally broken.” It’s true of the millionaire and the pauper. Conversely because of God’s grace the Spirit empowers both the materially rich and the materially poor. Our journey to awareness and compassionate living is one in which we give and receive help. The woman with a sixth grade education who works 60 hours a week doing laundry and still needs food stamps to get buy has much to offer to a tenured university professor even as she has much to receive from that professor. On the road to relational wholeness and spiritual riches both make contributions and both need gifts of grace. Our commitment to live compassionate lives in which we champion the needs of the neediest in society includes us seeking tangible blessing those will are helping will give. We are recipients because we are poor and we are helpers because we are Jesus’ disciples and compassionate living is clearly what he leads us to do.

With that understanding of shared poverty and the commitment that we will give our attention to compassionate living, again we set our hearts and minds on the Bible and what we see in Luke 4.

Luke tells us that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit when he returned to Galilee. We believe Jesus was God in human form, the incarnation, so that’s two members of the trinity at work, and actually all three when we consider that this comes on the heels of God blessing Jesus at his baptism. Clearly doing the work of God, Jesus goes home and goes to church – his home church. He returns to the region of his childhood, Nazareth, and to the synagogue of his parents. For Jesus, being “on mission” didn’t mean doing anything more than what he had done his entire life. It was how he did it. The same is true for us. As we consider ways we can pray, give to, and participate in ministries of compassion, remembering that God is at work in us leading us to relational wholeness and spiritual riches, we realize we begin by doing the very things we have always done but in a humble, love-inspired, compassionate way.

Jesus went home, to his synagogue, but he was a man and his hometown neighbors had no idea what he had become. He returns as a local boy made good. Already Luke writes, “A report about him spread through all the surrounding country.” Jesus had performed miracles, and the people who watched him grow up wondered if he wouldn’t show them some of his magic. The problem with miracles is they create impressions but rarely do they inspire transforming faith. The people heard Jesus was in the synagogue. They came hoping to witness a miracle. They got a sermon instead.

He was given the book of Isaiah and he chose a prophecy that many understood to be messianic. The assumption was when the messiah comes, we will see the release of the captives and the recovery of sight of the blind, and we the oppressed will go free.” Jesus’ statement that today the scripture has been fulfilled was tantamount to announcing the beginning of the Messianic age.

The synagogue crowd responded in three ways. First there was great admiration. “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son”’ (v.22)? They immediately became admirers. But Jesus did not want or need admirers. He had no interest in people telling him how great he was. Admiration is fleeting quickly. Before December 2009, Tiger Woods had countless admirers. However, because like me, Tiger Woods sins, he is, for all his millions, poor and his spiritual poverty has yielded relational brokenness. This brokenness is where live. It won’t be fixed unless we realize that Jesus doesn’t want our admiration. He wants more from us.

The admiration Luke describes vanished when the crowd realized they weren’t going to be seeing any miracles. They knew Jesus’ family. They knew he was as broken and poor and insignificant as any other Jew. They wanted the Messiah to come an elevate Israel above other nations, but Jesus aggressively retorts that he will do no tricks for them but instead share truth. Then, by referring to their Bible, the Old Testament, and instances in which the great prophets Elijah and Elisha blessed non-Jews, Jesus tells the gathered synagogue crowd that God’s reign is defined by compassion, not miracles, and is for all people, not just the Jews. His implication is that they do not understand what God is doing among them and they will not, unless they change their expectations.

Do we need to change our expectations of God? Of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ? Do we need to rethink the Christian life before we have any hope of actually hearing the Spirit speak and receiving the blessings God wants to heap on us? The synagogue crowd asked for a miracle, they got a sermon. They expressed amazement at the sermon; Jesus told them they didn’t understand. At that point the crowd turned ugly and forced Jesus to the edge of the cliff on the outskirts of town.

Why did they get mad enough to kill him by mob action? Jesus told them the Messianic age had begun but they would never get it or be part of it, and they thought it belonged to them. Even in their poverty, the rural Galileans believed God was theirs instead rejoicing that they were God’s. The first two reactions to Jesus that day was (1) amazement, and (2) rage-filled rejection. There was a third that Luke unfolds throughout the rest of the Gospel and throughout the book of Acts. We see it in the final reading of the passage, verse 30.

The mob had dragged him to cliff’s edge with malevolent intentions and Luke writes, “He passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” Jesus always went on his way which was God’s way. In his life, he was opposed or at least his progress was blocked by the temptations of Satan, misplaced Messianic hopes of the crowd in Nazareth, the familial pressures placed on him by his siblings and mothers, the misunderstanding, doubt, and fear of his own disciples, the religious and theological challenges of the religious experts, the Pharisees, the political opposition of the temple leadership, the Sadducees and chief priest, and the imperial pressure to conform applied by Rome. Jesus would not be cowed by this attempt on his life. He would not shrink from the terror of demons. He showed no fear of Herod despite the corrupt king’s unpredictable nature. The crucifixion fell into God’s time table that is the only timeline Jesus paid any attention to.

It’s a short verse but it is not an afterthought. In carrying out his mission of bringing good news to the poor, Jesus went on his way, God’s way. We read the Gospel, we pray, and then we have choices before. We can hear Jesus and be amazed. Oh he’s such a good moral teacher. Oh he’s such an important figure in history. Jesus does not want admirers and admiring him does get one any closer to his kingdom.

We can hear Jesus and become enraged because we are broken, spiritually starving because of sin. To yield to Him as Lord, we submit everything – our possessions, our dreams, our aspirations, our grudges, our attitudes, our relationships with others – everything to Him. And we don’t want to do that, so many consciously or unconsciously rebel against God and against the Gospel and try to throw the parts we don’t like off of some cliff. Jesus is not impeded by those who react to him in angry rage and his kingdom is not hindered by the sins of humanity. Jesus does not need admirers and is not intimidated by rage-filled haters.

A third way that we can respond to the Gospel is to see that Jesus is going on his way and we can follow. We give up control of our destiny. We surrender the need to have the final say-so in our own lives. We look to Jesus and we follow the way He is going. We become followers walking the Jesus way.

This means two things: first, we acknowledge that when he says he’s bringing good news to the poor, that means us. We are spiritually poor and relationally broken and on our knees through grateful tears we receive the grace of God and we know that it will come in His Spirit speaking to our hearts; it will come in the way we love on another and function as a community; and it will come when we receive all the grace the economically poor have to give to us.

Second, we acknowledge that just as we receive the good news, we are to share the good news. We have surrendered everything we have, so our time, our words, our hearts, our money, our talents, our energy are things we give to God to use in the bringing the good news of salvation and the rescue from poverty to the world around us.

The observant listener will note that I have not provided specific answers to the problems I introduced that the outset – the world mission offering called for at church; the alleviation of painful economic poverty that exists right here in our country; and, the proper response to the guy at the intersection with the sign begging for a hand-out. The truth is I don’t have all the answers because I am still spiritually poor. I am still in the process of receiving relationship healing. Throughout 2010, we will seek answers for the best ways for us as a church to be involved in compassionate ministry.

I know this. The starting point is to forget all preconceptions we have and to walk in the way of Jesus, following him. That’s the beginning of the good news. We are poor. Jesus has come for us. Why don’t we release all of the trappings of materialistic life, all the seductions of the world around us, all the temptations to be in control of our own lives? Why don’t we hand it all to Him? I invite you this morning. Come and walk the Jesus way, the beginning of the compassionate life, the beginning of the good news.

AMEN