6/30/10 “The first day of walking the streets of Surupa is now complete. That was intense. I am amazed at how something can be so easy and yet so complex and difficult at the same time. It seems so easy to tell them the story and have them say yes, they want to believe. But then they walk away from us and if it’s real their lives change. We don’t often see the harsher sides of that change. In the past we have connected them with local believers and gone on with the work we had to do. Today however I saw a glimpse of the harshness of that change. Today I witnessed persecution first hand and it broke a part of me. Persecution, a term we in the American church talk about but hardly ever see. A thing that is a daily reality for many of our brothers and sisters.”
For the first few days we were in Surupa our team split into 3 groups and basically went house-to-house evangelizing. On day one in the center of town my group encountered an older man. He said he wanted to hear what we had to say and as we shared Christ with him, his whole demeanor changed. By the time we were finished sharing he had decided this was something he wanted and he told us as much. We prayed with him and after we said amen he asked us to come to his home and share this good news with his family. As soon as we approached his house and the man and our translators began talking to his family two of the women began shouting and pulling at him. It did not take a common language to understand what was happening, these women were angry. You know what they say about the furry of a woman’s scorn… Our translator told us that these women were persecuting this man because they were Orthodox and were not happy about his decision. He told us it would be better for us to leave. In that moment I didn’t like the idea of leaving this man to be yelled out, but we have been taught to listen to our local partners. After all they know what the angry people are saying and we don’t. As we walked a way I felt a strange mixture of joy, knowing he was now a brother, and sadness, knowing that this fact meant he was now a sort of outcast….
“They said they did not want us there and our translator told us we should leave. I felt so helpless and I also felt like we were abandoning our new brother. It made me feel like all we did was pray with him and then send him to the wolves alone. It was overwhelmingly sad. We left with a promise to pray for him and find him later in the week so he could receive discipleship.”
We did find the man later for discipleship and looking back I knew that what we did was all we could do. In this instance and in several other similar instances on this trip God made what we were doing more real in a way than I think I’ve ever experienced. I’ve intellectually known for a while that when we show up with this message, this truth, it changes people. It changes families. I’ve heard from many people that their choice of faith has caused them to be outcast in their societies and families. However, like many things in this life seeing it first hand made it real to me. It became more than a nameless story. It became a brother I stood along side being yelled at and pulled on. Persecution has a tangible face in my mind now. It became scenes in my mind that will never be erased. I wish I could say this was the only scene of its kind, but there were several more that occurred in these weeks. I’ll share more at another time.
As I sit back now. Here in comfortable American life these scenes still as real as ever in my mind seem so far removed. Countries apart. Thinking on them now my heart still aches. It makes me wonder how that man, and the other of our brothers and sisters in the midst of persecution, is faring. It makes me realize the importance of community and having others to stand beside, others to help you be strong. While my heart aches thinking of this man, my heart is also encouraged. Encouraged because I know that we did not leave him alone. Because even though we are here half a world away God is still alive and well in Ethiopia and God’s church is now alive and well in Surupa. Because I know that by God’s power there is now a fellowship there that this man and the other believers of Surupa can go to in order to grow and be strengthen. Looking back I see that a promise of prayer and a growing body of believers is the best thing we could have left these people with. I no longer feel like we left them surrounded by wolves waiting to attack. Instead I know we left them with a God who is strong, who will see them through the hardest days. And in my heart I never left them at all, I am standing along side them as their sister, praying that they will overcome the harshness of this world. They are overcomers and heaven only knows what they will accomplish.
First church service ever in Surupa
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