Careful Dad, It Might Be Poisonous

It’s amazing how fast signals travel through these bodies God made for us. Although I didn’t start my stopwatch, I can assure you it was less than a quarter second between the time my foot pressed into the soft, unidentified mass curled up in the toe of my large rubber boots until the time my brain interpreted that touch and sent out code-red panic signals in every direction. Hearing the neurological siren, my eyes widened with fright, my heart beat suddenly broke into a full sprint, tiny beads of sweat sputtered from my pores, and most importantly, my leg involuntarily shot out of my boot faster than my mouth could spit out its first meaningless utterance, “Ah!” Like an overgrown flamingo, I stood on one foot, paralyzed for a second or two. I looked down at the boot, which stood upright, waiting to see what might crawl, slither or waddle out. As my mind’s adrenalin alarms subsided, rational thinking returned and, glancing over my shoulder, I informed Andrea and Micah in the calmest voice I could muster, “There’s something in my shoe.”

 

Our trip to lock up the chicken house this evening would necessarily be delayed while this varmint was properly disposed of. Andrea and Micah retrieved a flashlight which I poked into the top of the boot, hopeful of seeing a foot or a tail or something so as to have the advantage of first sight. Unfortunately, the little bugger must have gotten mighty cozy up in the toe, and no doubt squeezed in tighter when startled by my invading appendage, not to mention its mildly offensive fragrance on what would soon be “shower night.” So, with my unwillingness to stick any other valuable body parts into the boot, I knew we would have to play by his rules. Grabbing a long stick, which I intended to become the murder weapon, I let the boot fall down onto its side and waited…and waited. Nothing ran out. So, I carefully grabbed the sole of the boot and lifted it to create a gentle ramp down to the ground, tightening my grip on my trusty bludgeon. Finally, tipping the boot over completely and pressing its mouth into the sand, I banged on its sole to inform the little fellow that he had been discovered and that presence was no longer welcome. I felt no movement, heard no squeaks, hisses, or claws scrapping against the rubber in an effort to resist gravity’s pull down to earth. After a moment to collect my thoughts, I raised the mouth of the boot just enough to… “AHA! There it was” I said as I slammed the boot back down to the ground. I had, in fact, seen it, a tight, fuzzy ball, huddled in the shadows, no doubt scared half to death. Well, fully intending to help with the other half of that journey, I widened my stance, raised my blood-thirsty club and slowly lifted the boot again. There it was, still in the same place, still motionless, yet no doubt planning its mad dash for freedom. I continued to raise the boot…amazed at the little guy’s patience. But wait, as more and more light crept into the varmint’s hideout, something strange caught my eye – the color RED. Pausing for a split second, the tension in my lips melted into an uninhibited smile. “Oh brother,” I said to the audience looking intently over my shoulder, “Micah, I think you are to blame for this.” I lifted the boot completely to reveal a foam red ball with a slit down the middle – commonly indentified as a “dollar store clown nose.”

 

But in a world with mambas, cobras, scorpions, and rabies carrying rodents, I suppose one can’t be too careful. So I guess in the end, Micah got the last laugh. Maybe we can chalk it up to his first successful practical joke, and he was quite good at it too, watching the whole drama without cracking a smile.

 

Unfraid to Lead

“New lord prayer debut” was Larry’s text message that vibrated my phone during church. A smile stretched across my face as my imagination closed the 600 kilometer gap between Addis Ababa’s International Evangelical Church, where I sat, and the Gmz church at Gesas where believers had gathered for this morning’s service. I checked out of the English sermon for a bit and shot back a response – “That’s great” My attempts at tuning back into the message on Psalm 40 were soon interrupted by a second vibration of an incoming text message - “They were so excited and six stood up front to recite and teach everyone sorry you missed it”

 

Well, with these few details to feed my imagination and thought processes, I knew I would never be able return to Psalm 40 that morning. How exciting to think of what had taken place these past few days, or rather, these past few months. We began translation four months ago and by divine providence April was also the month that the Gesas church leadership was being handed over to the Gmz believers. You see, up until then, the general church leadership (including the teaching/preaching) had always been done by non-Gmz, non-local people (mostly the highland Ethiopians who worked with the education project on our station). Until then, the Scripture reading had always been in Amharic with the sermon consisting of a free, on-the-spot translation of the passage. But all that was changing last April as Bible translation began as well as young Gmz started being trained and given opportunities to preach.

 

Apart from the normal hesitation before stepping out into something new, the young Gmz believers are eager to take the reins of church leadership. Week after week, a group of 6-10 Gmz would meet with me on Tuesday afternoons to study the Scripture passage for that week’s sermon and then talk through its applications. Every Friday, this same group of young leaders attends a “review committee” where we check the accuracy and communicability of the newly translated Scripture. This exposure to Scripture is a great teaching opportunity through which they grow in their Biblical literacy. Then, week after week on Sundays, one Gmz man leads a time of singing, another then stands to read the selected passage out loud, a third delivers a message (often in Q&A style), while a fourth leads the children in a time not unlike what we call Sunday School. So, by the time we left for Addis in early August, we were quite pleased with the leadership we saw developing in the Gesas church and their ability to direct every aspect of the Sunday service.

 

As the arrival of my visiting parents was approaching, I began to think about how the work might continue in my absence. I had been preparing my three co-translators for some time by giving them computer training and practice translation experience, but I was curious about what should be done with the Friday review committee. The review committee really cannot function without me there, so should I just cancel it during my absence? Or, is there something else they can do? My answer came when we got to Luke 11 as Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray. “Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come…” Now, I had heard the Lord’s Prayer recited in the Gmz church service many times, but I was always disturbed by some down-right errors and how all the difficult terms (holy, kingdom, temptation, etc.) were just borrowed from Amharic. An earlier blog lamented the disadvantages of borrowed words, as they rarely develop the correct meaning, if they develop any meaning at all. And so, on the final review committee before our departure for Addis Ababa, I asked the group two questions. First, “Are you happy with the text of the Lord’s Prayer that you recite most Sundays or do you want a retranslation of it?” As expected, their response was in favor of a retranslation. So my second question, “Do you want to take off next week in my absence, or do you want to meet and do the retranslation yourselves?” The response was unanimous and their immediate excitement was contagious. Oh, how I wished I could be a fly on that wall.

 

A phone call from our co-worker (Larry) that next Friday described the scene when he stopped by to encourage the team. “They had writing all over the table-top (which is made of white board material), and had made several copies of their new translation on papers and even on the computer. Oh and they were all really excited about it!” Enough said, I couldn’t wait to get back.

 

Now, here I was, I was physically present at the English-speaking church with Andrea, Micah and my parents, but for a good 20 minutes or so, my mind was 600 kilometers down the road. Imagining six of my co-workers in translation standing in front of the congregation and sharing their new and improved translation of the Lord’s Prayer, it brought tears to my eyes. How I would have loved to be there, but then again… After some reflection and praise to God for all that He is doing, I texted Larry back: “maybe it’s better that i’m not there, the gmz are leading their church!”

Nature's Euthanasia

I was just commenting to Andrea the other day that we were getting ourselves quite the number of chickens: 5 foreign hens (Hot Wings, Cory, Sunny, Eggnog, and Terry), 6 local chickens (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack, Welcome, and Moe), 2 roosters (John and Shambel) and 4 baby chicks (unnamed) – that’s 17 total. Well, I think I spoke too soon as this past week was a week of horror when it comes to the Gesas chicken project.

 

It started immediately upon our arrival back at Gesas. I got out of the truck, stretched my sore body and started counting chicks…1…2… that was it. As I looked into their house I saw chick number 3…dead. And number 4 was never found. When I asked the guy taking care of my chickens, he said “K’aasa-mata” – the Gmz word for “Mites,” which upon close examination, I saw had taken over my entire chicken coup. Armed with bug killer, I got “spray happy” and doused all the chickens, sticks, and every patch of ground around the coup. Down to 15.

 

The next morning, I took a closer look at the two remaining chicks and noticed one of them with black dirt caked all around its nose and eyes. My dad took it over to Larry (who is a veterinarian) who then gave the dismal prognosis – “well, when I was scrapping the crusted matter off of its face, the baby chick’s beak all but fell off! It looks like the mites had set up camp in its nasal cavities and pretty much ate from the inside out. We can give it medicine, but it would take an act of God for it to survive.” Hmmm…not the kind of report you want to hear from the doctor, but we never want to rule out the “act of God.” After all, Luke 12 says that God does not forget even one sparrow, so maybe He will intervene to help our little chick. And that He did, just not how we were expecting. You see, to keep the chickens out of the mite infested coup, I set up temporary housing on our front porch. Well, in the middle of the night, we heard the chickens go absolutely bizzerk, for about 10 seconds. Then it was silent. Tired and sleepy I went back to sleep only to awaken sometime later to a second ruckus outside our front window. This time I heard louder struggling and light footsteps run past my window. I grabbed a light and opened our front door, and immediately saw our welcome mat covered with feathers. Upon further investigation, I learned that one chick was taken as well as “Breakfast,” the hen who had hatched the chicks. It turns out the chick that was eaten was the sick one whose beak was falling off. When Larry heard the news, he commented “Well, I guess that’s just nature’s euthanasia.”

 

Dropping from 17 to 13 chickens in 3 days was not fun, but it didn’t end there. “Welcome” was supposed to be a special dinner for my parents 36^th wedding anniversary on August 23, however, when we came back from Addis, it was obvious that “Welcome” was not at all well. She was thin, missing a lot of feathers, had a massive growth completely covering her left eye, and a rattling cough like an asthmatic chain smoker. Over the next 3-4 days I watched her decline, until I finally ended her journey by the edge of my knife.

 

Down to 12, well not for long. It was that very next morning that Andrea and Micah returned from opening chicken coups with bad news – “your rooster was killed.” Apparently, something had gotten into our “fattening for feasting” coup and chose the fattest feast it could find – the nice big rooster I called “Shambel” (named after the guy I bought it from). Now, Shambel was on slate to take Welcome’s place at the anniversary meal, but apparently, this little varmint beat us to the kill. However, after eating its fill, the little bugger kindly left the head and lower half of the body for us if we so wanted. Needless to say, we passed on the leftovers. What type of animal has been terrorizing our chickens? Well, a cat-like animal called a Civet has been spotted in the area so we suspect that, but we can’t be for sure.

 

With 11 chickens at my disposal, I still had a chicken dinner to serve. So, on August 23, I unsheathed my knife and slaughtered Terry, the foreign chicken who had all but stopped laying eggs about a month prior. She was never a good egg layer, kind of a feisty brat toward the others and after eating a whole month’s worth of chicken food without more than 5 eggs to show for it, her rent came due and the next thing we knew, our population was down to 10. So after 8 months with only one chicken death (sickness-related), we grieved the loss of 7 in one week of terror. Well, I can’t say that we grieved over all of them, Terry was delicious.