THE.ETHIOPIANS.HAVE.LANDED :)They made their way to Tamale by bus and Yvonne took Dawit, Eshetu and their daughter, Abigiya and I took Mesfin, Asafansh, and their two kids Barnabas and Naomi to our house. They have been in Accra for about a month and were ready to move out and get up here.They stayed with each of us for a few days and then on Friday they moved into Dooshik and Gaeok's home (they are on home assignment). While Mesfin and his family stayed with us, they served us authentic, legit Ethiopian coffee. Now, it is too bad I do not like coffee but I do love how it smells. I can tell their coffee is one of their pride and joys! Maybe one day I will enjoy it :) We started them with shopping and cultural do's and don'ts, and figuring out transportation. Greet people, don't use your left hand, wear shirts with sleeves, take this yellow-yellow here, etc, etc... The rains have come and in the mornings things were so nice and cool but by 11 am things were not so nice and cool. ughhh...what a nice welcome for them (along with some random power outages, of course). It takes a lot out of you to show people around. I am always checking to make sure they understand or asking questions to see if they got everything they needed or how to respond to people.
It is always interesting to hear from new people. Their perspective is very much of their home culture and "how we do it" and "in my country...". We all were like that. During my first time in Ghana, I remember a missionary asking me where home is. I replied, "Medford" as if she was supposed to know where that is! She was like, "Where is that?" Then it dawned on me, she does not know my tiny little world of Medford in Wisconsin in America! How is that possible??! That was my first brief insight into letting my eyes be opened to the bigger world. I had to tell her it was in Wisconsin. (She was American so she knew that much). I remember feeling small.Thank goodness we have God's promises that he knows how many hairs we have on our head. He knows where I am from. He loves Wisconsin :) That means he also loves Indians, and Brits, and Ethiopians. I can't believe I get to work alongside them all. I know it is not going to be easy to hear someone's point of view or take on things but so far this team has been very humble to one another. We have listened. We have stayed silent on some issues. We have confronted. We have built one another up. I never would have thought this would be my life. When I started raising support to be a missionary I only considered working with Ghanaians. I never thought about the other people on the team I would be working with. It is a privilege.This next week??? I know we have to help the new families find some housing but I hope to get out to do some serious language learning too. Let's see. Thanks for praying! Love you.