Some of the background to help set the stage for what’s been swimming in our heads.
Christy and I have always seemed to default towards the poor. It's an odd default since our backgrounds and even our church situations (in very well-to-do church situations) would not have directed us this way. Everywhere we have lived ever since we have been married, we have been committed to the poor. Luke 4 has been emblazoned into my heart and mind.
Two years ago Christy and I heard the clear directive - “Go to the city” through someone who had a “word” for us. We automatically thought Philly - but could it be Addis Ababa (city of 4 million) instead?
Almost 2 years ago while Jerry was in Bolivia he had an encounter with a nun who had moved from Philadelphia to Cochobamba 42 years prior to work in an orphanage. While talking with her, she said to me - “There are only 3 things which you must focus on - “Compassion, Pardon (forgiveness) and Love. Be about and speak on those 3 things.” She then proceeded to extend her hand to my forehead and proclaim a blessing over me - “Make Jerry an instrument of your peace, your joy, your justice, your compassion, your love…” I was blown away and felt “commissioned” to be about the poor to a great extent.
As we started to walk through our adoption journey, we saw Jesus start to put Ethiopia in our hearts - we studied hard and tried to learn as much of the culture as possible in a short period of time. We fell in love with Ethiopia long before we ever landed there.
This past summer Christy began to have a recurring nightly occurrence where she could hear the voices of women wailing and groaning at the loss of their children, and was faced with "what must the sound be that reaches God's ears from the mothers in Ethiopia?". This began to shake her as she considered a country full of mothers who have lost children.
In September 2008 we traveled to Ethiopia and fell in love with the country. After returning to the US, we both had a very difficult time with re-entry. We have been in the 3rd world before and have experienced re-entry, but this time was different. This was a deposit in our hearts that we could not get rid of. For about 2 months, I felt somewhat “haunted” (not the negative form of the word, but rather the only word that adequately describes the feeling in my heart and mind). I could not shake Ethiopia from my mind. We were full of joy that Hanna was home and our transition with her was going amazingly well, but there were “whole chunks” of us back in Ethiopia.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas the topic started to come up in our conversations about possibly considering something in Ethiopia. I was still thinking: let's move to Philly and plant and maybe someday we’ll join the Ethiopian partnership. Christy’s heart continued to grow in breaking for the people there. The idea of Ethiopia was something we kicked around in our minds but didn’t talk about much. We were not on the same page at this point.
We started talking with friends of ours who also have a heart for Ethiopia and whenever we started to talk about it, there was a quickening in us.
The first week of January, Christy went away on a Silent Retreat to Skaneateles, NY. While there Christy met with a spiritual director (a great Baptist guy from upstate NY) who reminded Christy that she cannot ignore what God has been doing in putting His heart in her through the wailing of last summer.
The third week in January, I (Jerry) went away for an overnight silent retreat. My first night there, I had a bit of time so I started reading about Maria de Matthias, the one who started the order of sisters who run the retreat center. Maria de Matthias was a champion for the poor who, because she was very young, a woman, and inexperienced, faced great opposition, but persevered in giving of her life to minister to the poor. This information helped set the stage for my walk the next morning.
The next morning I walked the Stations of the Cross. At one point there is a statue of Maria de Matthias praying. I felt prompted by The Lord to stop and pray in this grove. Now, it was snowing that morning, so there were a few flakes of snow that had hit the statue and were starting to melt. As I looked at the statue I noticed that there were 2 droplets of water on the statue’s forehead and 1 under her eye. In this moment I felt like God as saying to me, “I want you to be about the poor. The first drop on the forehead is a drop of sweat - Work hard on behalf of the poor. The second drop on the forehead is a drop of blood - Pray fervently for the poor - pray like Jesus in the Garden. The drop in under the eye is a tear - Cry for the poor - let Me give you My heart for the poor and let the things that break My heart break Yours.” I was a bit shaken by this encounter.
Over this time everything I read seemed to hit on the need for me to die to myself. To die to my surroundings. Die to my security. Die to my possessions. In everything, die. And to live for Christ fully.
This brought it a bit more to the surface for us. However, we still were not sure of our next steps. I began to think that I would be fine to live in Ethiopia so long as a couple of things were true. The one would be that we heard The Lord’s call. His call would be the only thing to keep us there if things got tough. The second would be a task to be about. I could not see just moving in among the poor, but without any idea of how to minister. Language was also a major concern.
In mid-February we decided that we simply needed to make a decision. We were in limbo as to what our next steps should be. We decided that we would seek The Lord and ask Him to make it clear by March 1st whether our next steps were in Philadelphia or in Ethiopia.
The middle of February I started to have a vision. This is probably the most vivid vision I have ever had. It started playing in front of my eyes like a movie. It is hard to describe, but it was almost as if I had to look through the movie to look at other people - that’s how vivid it was as it played out. I had it for well over a week. I can still see it today. In the vision I am walking a stretch of road in Addis Ababa which I walked a couple of times while we were there. The wind is blowing, it is dusty and I can smell the pollution in the air. The vision was odd as I started having it because the stretch of road was deserted. There was no one else around. Just me, walking. I would walk about 1 block and then the vision would start over with me back at the beginning of the block. In the vision there were 2 things that stood out. One was the shirt I was wearing was something that I would never wear. It was a blue checked short sleeve button down. A few days later I realized that it was a shirt that I’ve seen Vineyard Missions Coordinator (Mark Fields) wear on a few occasions. It was his shirt, but I was wearing it. The other thing that stood out to me in the picture was an iphone or blackberry that was in a holster at my side. The impression I got about it as I prayed was that it signified managing or leading some folks in country to some capacity.
A few days later as I continued to have this vision, there were a few more details that came. I continued to walk the same block, but eventually children started to come into the vision - these children were broken - crutches. being carried. malnourished. sick. diseased. As I walked this block, the children started to gather to me. As I neared the end of the block I noticed that the children were getting well and then they started pealing off - seemingly to go tell others. When I would start walking the block again in the vision, there were different broken children that were coming and huddling around me.
On February 25th we left for a church planting meeting in Miami with great uncertainty about what our future would hold. By this point in time for me, Ethiopia and Philadelphia were on the same level. I had peace that The Lord could lead us either way and that He would. We had 2 connections that we wanted to make in Miami. One was with Jim who is the coordinator for the Vineyard Ethiopian Partnership. The second was with our mentor, John Elmer from Syracuse.
On arriving in Miami we met with Jim from the partnership. We told him a bit of our story and how we were at this place of wondering if The Lord might have something for us in Ethiopia. Jim was stunned. An Ethiopian national had asked Jim about the possibility of having an American Vineyard pastor come live in Ethiopia and work on developing leaders as well as planting an English speaking church. It also would be helpful to have a Vineyard pastor on the ground there who could help with training and development of a very fast growing movement of churches that is forming in Ethiopia. He said he shelved the idea until he came across someone who was passionate about church planting AND wanted to move their family to Ethiopia. Jim was stoked at the possibility.
On Thursday night of the conference the speaker was speaking on evangelism and he encouraged us to ask The Lord for a number of how many folks He would want to see led to Jesus through each of our churches over this next year. As I prayed, I felt a totally unrealistic and astronomical number drop into my head. The number was 1,000. The speaker then encouraged us to ask The Lord to show us the faces of the people He would have us begin reaching out to. Every single face I saw was African.
We also met with John Elmer. I trust John with my life and I know that he shoots straight with me. John has a lot invested in us staying in the US, including the role I have in church planting which is an area that he oversees. I thought that John would tell us we were crazy and to just shelve the idea. Instead he really saw something The Lord was doing in our hearts, saw that we were soon going to be free of our duties here, and saw that there was a potential to make an impact in Ethiopia. He helped talk me through the things that hold me back - where will the finances come from?, what about the fact that we need more churches in Philly?, etc, rather than try to talk us out of this. He encouraged us to take a scouting trip to Ethiopia soon to see what possibilites might exist.
That night back at the hotel room I went online and found out that Ethiopian Airlines is currently running a Buy One, Get One Free ticket promotion so long as you end your travel by March 31st. That saved us over $1700 and made the trip feasible for Christy and I to make .
Since returning with this scouting trip in the plans, Christy and I have had more peace than we’ve experienced in several years.
Since returning I also have talked with one of the Missions Coordinators in the Vineyard and also a guy whose expertise is Africa. Both of these guys have had affirmation for us and think that if we get the green light from God, this could be a great move.
So, we are going to spend 8 days in Ethiopia to explore some areas and ask The Lord for clarity and for a searing of Ethiopia in our hearts - or to close the door completely.
1 comments:
Wow, so amazing! You guys are definitely in our prayers and thoughts. God has done wonderful things through your family and I know he will continue using you guys for his glory. Peace and love the Compton family.
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