Journey to Asgori (April 2006)

by Patrick Beard
About midmorning I walked the half mile from the guesthouse to the main road with Negash and Fekadu, we were on our way to Asgori which is 66km outside of Addis Abeba. The distance is not too great, but it is still far enough from the city that a white face draws a crowd.
We were finally successful in hailing a bus headed Southwest, that had an unusually light load due to the national Victory Day holiday. I was shocked to get a whole seat to myself. As the bus made its way down the highway we would swerve to the left and right dodging people, animals and the occasional broken-down vehicle.
The scenery outside of Addis is beautiful. After passing a series of mountains the road breaks out onto a wide savanna that has mile after mile of farmland. Typically this time of the year the land would be dry and farmers would be weeding their cropland, but this year the rains have come early and heavy. It is just as harmful to have too much rain as to have a drought. The potential harvest of tomatoes laid low to the ground in a rotting wet mess. Just two days earlier a downpour with hail had devastated the region.
After about an hour we arrived at our first destination for the day. Teji is the equivalent to a wild west town. A collection of mud houses and stores spring out of the fields and crowd the highway.
We visited with the first convert in the village. He is an elderly man who has recently suffered from a severe TB infection. Tuberculosis is a serious problem in Ethiopia and many die each year from this disease. As we visited his small two-room mud house, chickens ran in and out of the doorway and a young girl sorted through dried beans that would become tonight’s meal. The girl’s eyes were bright and wide as Negash pulled a used sweater from a bag of donated clothing. She immediately took off her rags and put the new garment on. Then he gave the girl a small stuffed animal, the first toy she had ever owned. She smiled twice as big when Negash pressed the toy and it began to play a song.
A visit with the sick means praying with the sick. The average church member considers prayer for the sick to be part of the typical Christian daily life. The thing that impressed me is that these brothers and sisters actually visit the sick to pray for them. As Fekadu prayed for the sick church member I thought about the words of Jesus, “I was sick and you visited me…”
We walked on into the countryside a bit further across a stream that was forded by a stick bridge that was partially submerged. I was indeed thankful that my boots were waterproof as the dark brown water flowed over the toes. In the distance people were running and calling the church members to come to the church because, “Negash is coming.”
When we arrived at the church a small crowd had gathered to greet us at a moment’s notice at midmorning on a holiday. After proper greetings Negash pulled his Bible from his shoulder bag and said, “OK, brother, let us say a few words.” I have learned to be prepared with a sermon, as this is the meaning of “a few words.” The Ethiopian believers had just celebrated Easter, or “Fasica” the Sunday before and my sermon was concerning the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I know the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons will discover this enclave of the Gospel soon enough and the Gospel must be proclaimed again and again to the Church, lest we be deceived.
After the service the growing crowd took me to inspect the new well that had been dug and the new toilet that had been constructed on church property. “You know,” said Negash, “This is the first sanitary toilet ever constructed in this village.” I was amazed at the joy and gratitude that was expressed over such a simple thing. The cost of such a project had only been a few dollars, but it made the church property a destination for the locals who come and get clean water. I imagine life before the well when locals would collect the dark brown water from the stream that animals bathe in, and I can see why this simple inexpensive project is so huge in this rural area.
After our tour, the eldest member of the church invited us to her home. Negash again pulled toys and clothing from his bag much to the delight of the family. Laughter and praises to God mixed into a beautiful chorus and ended in a prayer of thanksgiving. When the family learned that we planned to continue on to Asgori they insisted that we save some of the items for the congregation there.
As we departed, the sister’s eldest son appeared from the hedgerow. He had come to greet the foreigner that was in his mother’s house. “Please pray for him,” she asked. “He is my only child who does not believe.” I was shocked when this gentleman took off his hat, agreed that I should pray for him and immediately bowed his head. This man knew the Gospel; he simply had no faith. Might this be the day that God breaks his heart of stone and gives him faith? How can a man believe unless God gives him faith? “Father, only you through the power of the Holy Spirit can overcome this man’s unbelief and create a new heart in him. Please, give him faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.” At the conclusion of the prayer he kissed my hand and blessed me.
I find myself amazed that I am walking these country lanes, stumbling, as it were, across divine appointments. I wonder that it could be possible for a man like me to speak the Gospel, with an interpreter, although I am not an evangelist. Thinking about my sinfulness and list of failures makes me all the more confounded that today I find myself in the presence of God and His work of redemption on the Earth.
The morning was completed and another village was just down the road where more brothers and sisters awaited our visit. They would be shocked to learn that the money for their church building’s roof would soon be in hand and the answer to their prayers was coming Negash’s hand through donations from brothers and sisters in Christ who live over 7,000 miles away. This gift added to the sacrificial giving of the church members would mean that they could gather and worship under one roof as the rainy season begins.
A late lunch was to be found in the back of a butcher shop where you can pick your cut of meat from the carcass hanging on the rack and the staff will cook it or leave it raw, according to your desire. Our lunch was lightly cooked in a round grass roof hut over an open fire in large flat skillet. The only seasoning was a piece of fat and some salt. We gathered around a small table and a common platter to consume our meal which was eaten in the traditional way by hand with injera (an Ethiopian flat bread). At the conclusion of the meal, I divided a candy bar among us and gorshaed (fed) my brothers. This custom was shocking to me when I first saw it, but now I know of no other eating practice that is as intimate and as much a display of brotherly love than to feed someone like you would a small child.
The return to Addis was much as it had begun, although the bus was now crowded with people and livestock. Chickens bound together at the feet were scattered throughout the bus in a half-dozen clusters of three or four awaiting their preparation as a holiday meal. A heavy rain began to fall and the rotten wiper blades provided little assistance against the torrent of rain. I began to doze between impromptu stops where people would get on and off the bus, and the occasional Customs checkpoint were police search for contraband. “Just another day in Ethiopia,” I thought as I reflected on the day’s events. Soon this land will be flooded with monsoon rains. Might it also be flooded with the Gospel. The fields are certainly ripe unto harvest in the rural areas of the Oromo region of Ethiopia. I can only hope and pray that God will continue to raise up laborers and that we can have the joy of helping to send them to preach the Gospel to the poor and bind up the brokenhearted.