CCMI Brussels, Belgium: Close to being done

Unbelievably our time here has gone by way too fast and we're almost done. I will be heading back to Atlanta on Thursday, February 9. Back to life- back to reality. Like most concentrated trainings/conferences/internships, etc there have been a ton of fun times and also deep learning times. I look forward to trying to summarize all of those for those inquiring minds who want to know and hopefully sharing in some amazing Belgian chocolate with you all.

This week I have again been humbled a lot and encouraged a lot by God's goodness. This concept has been a theme in my life- just the struggle to always trust that God is good despite whatever circumstance comes my way. What's weird is that I think I get so used to the struggle that I'm surprised when things are awesome. I've felt this a lot while being at this training. It seems like God continues to remind me that His character and core essence is consistent love and goodness. He has given me several gifts along the way here.

One being is the reminder of the power of prayer. This week, and several other times here, we've had a more extended time of prayer in the Word, and for each other. I guess that's something I always enjoy about trainings like this, is that there are scheduled times for you to do it, so there's no like slacking off. One day this week the women gathered to pray and were asking me about prayer requests. I mentioned that my Ethiopia team is having a meeting probably in April in Atlanta, and we could be praying about that. I also said that it looks like right now, I have just $100/month left in pledges to be at 100% of my financial support team built. I am at the last $100/month. It's totally weird to put that into words. Since I'm likely not leaving for Ethiopia until May, I was just asking them to pray that it comes in. They were like "why don't we pray that comes in by the end of this training." I'm often hesitant to pray really specific things like that, especially because I'm afraid of that whole dichotomy of having faith it will happen but being able to hold the outcome of this loosely and in God's will. But I thought it was cool they wanted to pray and believe that with me. We'll see how God does this!!!

Another thing I wanted to mention was that I got to take several of the CCMI participants to enjoy Ethiopian food in Leuven, which is a town about 20 minutes from where we're staying in Zaventem (outside of Brussels). Since I've become a walking advertisement for Ethiopia and all things food related, quickly I discovered that I was the only participant here (a lot of the staff had had it before) who hadn't experienced this part of Ethiopian culture and they totally wanted to do it. Andrew found this place so we went! Man, talk about cross-culture experience. I volunteered to order everything so looking at the menu, I decided already I wanted tibs and wat and their yellow peas things and gomen. I also wanted shiro, but that wasn't on there. The Ethiopian lady/owner came and spoke English but honestly she might as well have been speaking Latin I had no clue what she was saying. Somehow we figure out that the menu online we were looking at was five years old and now all the prices for the sampler platters (best for big groups) have gone up by 9 Euro which is a boatload of money since everything's crazy expensive here. Also they don't have shiro because no one liked that in Belgium. So I try to order a minimum amount so we don't get too much food- one veg platter and one meat platter. About twenty minutes later one very small platter with meat and vegetables come out. We all eat it and it's awesome but we only get like two bites each. Everyone's attitudes are great though and no one's like throwing me under the bus. We keep waiting thinking another one's coming out. Nope. After flagging down the lady's son, we order another platter and more of the yellow peas and gomen and I order tibs and kitfo (Andrew and Megan will eat anything as long as it's crazy and weird and kitfo is in this catagory. Google if it if you're curious). The son leaves. Five or so minutes later the lady comes back out again and talks again in the English/Latin and somehow I think she's confirming our order so we're good. We're wondering at this point why her son works there. Anyway, we did get enough food and somehow managed not to pay a fortune. So great! Everyone loved it, and it warmed my heart to get to share this part of my life with them. That literally was the only thing warm though because it was a VERY COLD 15 minute walk back to the train, and then 10 more minutes back to Zaventem. Whew! Can't wait for 60 degree Atlanta!!

I think they liked it