Rooftop Moments

I arrived in Ethiopia a tad late.  About 12 hours, if you want to be exact about it. My plane was supposed to arrive at 6:30 am, about 15 minutes before my Southeastern team. That was the plan! But I’ve learned that in the world, and in the Kingdom of God, things don’t always go as planned.

Here’s what happened: my flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was slated to take off at 10:05 pm. My flight from DC got in around late morning, and I spent the day in the airport trying to convince myself not to leave the airport and ask a driver to take me to a quaint German café with wifi. I settled for a quaint German café WITHIN the airport and without wifi. But the kaffee tasse, chocolate croissant, and Tolberone bar well made up for any lack of technological connection. (Look at me, versed in European breakfast treats and acting like it’s no big deal.)

So, long day short, I spent hours reading in that café, eating in that café, writing the first blog post in that café, and eventually using my backpack as a pillow to sleep for many hours in that café. At one point a kindly German waitress approached me to ask if I knew when my flight was. “22:05,” I answered, to which she replied “Okay, it’s just that you live here long time. Okay to go back to sleep.” I took her suggestion.

After talking myself out of buying an entire multi-pack tub of Tolberones, or any kind of Nutella-themed merchandise, I made my way to my boarding gate. It was about 2 hours before my flight was to board.

I read for a long time. And even longer. And suddenly, it was within 5 minutes of the boarding flight and our plane was MIA. A hostess got on the PA system and announced that our plane had a technical failure. Sewage from the on-board toilet had leaked into the steering system. They were fixing it in as timely a fashion as possible.

Finally, we were summoned to board around 10:15, and shuttled to a remote airport location where they had been working on the plane. Once the bus-fulls of people had arrived, boarded, and settled into the plane, our pilot had some news for us on the PA system. After I listened to the announcement in about three languages, I figured the successive groans from multiple cultural groups meant that the news was bad. Whatever it was, we were not flying to Ethiopia that night. When the news finally came in English, I learned that Frankfurt airport has a curfew; nothing can land or take off after 11:00 pm. The airline had booked us all a hotel, and we were to exit onto the bus to be taken back to customs.

I couldn’t help but suppress a smile. I was now being forced into the very thing I had spent all day trying to talk myself out of: getting out and actually seeing Germany.

Ah, Germany. The fabled homeland of at least a small percentage of my heritage, and the place where my mom lived for a brief period of the 80’s. German culture and tradition is heavily ingrained in my home state of Wisconsin, and I have recently become obsessed with German accents and language thanks to The Book Thief.

So, we were shuttled out. As a people-watcher, I had a visual feast of observations to make and characters to silently assess as we were taken from one checkpoint to another, and from line to line. I heard a lot of German curse-words. I bonded with a silent American who looked about my age and seemed as thrilled with getting to leave the airport as I was. I held deep respect for a German army man in uniform who looked like nothing could faze him and acted as if this slight detour was “all part of the plan.” It was an all-around interesting journey.

We were taken to a very lovely hotel about 30 minutes outside of the Frankfurt airport. I would love to give you the name of the place, or even the town, but you see I have since lost the pen I took from the bedside notepad that bore the inscription of the institution. So much for intentionality.

But all I can say was that it was a lovely hotel to spend my first night alone in a hotel room in. The shower was the most phenomenal use of granite, stainless steel, and technology that I have ever encountered! When I grow up, I shall certainly have such a shower in my house. It was sleek and modern and there weren’t even knobs or buttons, just cool silver squares that you touched that made the water dance and then you could adjust the temperature, which was displayed on a digital screen, and there wasn’t even a door or a sliding glass thing or a curtain, it was just sort of a cove that you walked into, and the water pressure was perfect and made you feel like you were standing under a warm waterfall, and all it was missing was colorful lights and an electronic DJ that played a soundtrack of your choice.

But enough about the miraculous shower, or about the breakfast, (which, though hurriedly eaten, contained the best European eggs, jellies, pastries, juices, and chocolates I’ve yet experienced) because this post is actually about God. Most things are, actually. You think they’re about logistics or materials or money or opportunity, but they're actually about God, and all you have to do is realize it.

The story ends with me in the airport in Addis Ababa, with my luggage cart and a hopeful heart that somehow, some way, my team leader figured out that, though my plane was not in at the proper time, it would be in about 12 hours. I didn’t know where we were staying or how to contact anyone who could help, but I had a feeling they would find me. I took a deep breath, and after a few minutes, sat down on a bench. I hadn’t been sitting but a moment when I saw Emily and Dylan (best friend and team leader, respectively) striding across the lobby with our missionary, Misu. I was rescued and reunited with my Ethiopia family. It was as if nothing had gone amiss.

So here’s the real story, the one about God. It’s a story that begins on a rooftop in Haiti, and ends on a rooftop in Germany.

I got the opportunity to spend a week in Haiti during the Spring Break of my freshman year of college. It was my first experience with a “developing” nation, and with the devastation that has hit Haiti in particular during the last few years, it was bound to be a culture shock. I began to prepare myself, but once I had arrived, and seen homes made of tarps, kids swimming in septic water, and trash being picked through like the $5 DVD bin in Wal-Mart, I did not seem to be affected. I took it all in, saw the devastation and the struggle rising up like the smoke of cooking fires, and didn’t shed a tear or stay up at night in deep thought and guilt. The majority of my missions team could not stop talking about the lack of water, the deplorable home conditions, and the displacement from the earthquake. My thoughts, on the other hand, were among the lines of “How fun would it be to live in a slum some day???”

I became afraid that I was wholly unaffected by human suffering. I was worried I was heartless, and questioned and double-questioned my passion for missions.

But one night, I was on the rooftop of Mission of Hope’s Titanyen campus. The Caribbean sunset was to my right, the lights of Port-Au-Prince were to my left, and a hillside alive with nighttime village sounds was behind me. It was peaceful and breathtaking, the perfect spot for a sentimental confrontation with God.

I asked Him what it meant that my heart seemed unmoved by the surrounding poverty. And in His ever-so-sneaky-and-loving-God way, He showed me some things. He showed me the difference between material poverty and spiritual poverty. He took me back through the moments that stuck out to me: the people in the slums and markets had smiles on their faces. The church, though without electricity for a night, was awake with a deafening chorus of joyful praises. Those kids playing in the sewage seemed to exude that same joy….

God is not in the safe, hot water of our suburban houses. He is not in the 4-door sedan we drive to pick up our kids from soccer practice every afternoon. He is not in the mega-malls or the mini-malls or the strip-malls or even the national mall, as much as we pretend He is, anyway.

God is with the poor. He is the breath of life among them and through them. We ought not to mourn the fact that they do not have stainless steel home appliances or Starbucks. We ought to be learning from them about what sustains them. And I found, there in Haiti, that many of these people are more interested in what sustains their spirit instead of what sustains their body.

God asked me that night which gifts I would pursue and value higher than anything else: the gifts of this world, that, for my whole life, I had coveted so highly every Christmas and birthday and paycheck, or the Gift of Jesus Christ Himself.

The answer is so obvious.

We do not do missions because of poverty. We do missions because we are burning beacons of Jesus Christ, and we have to go where He is going. We burn, and we meet others who are burning and we start other flames burning and the whole world burns a little brighter.

So that night, I made a teary-eyed decision.

“I will follow you anywhere.”

It was a simple decision that has and will shape the rest of my days on this earth. I will follow Jesus Christ anywhere. I have decided to get in a canoe on His River. I am floating in His current. When and where He asks me to paddle, I will, but trying to make it to shore or move upstream on my own is tiresome and useless. Since making that decision, since getting into that canoe, I have stayed the course because of His guidance. When I am tired, or confused, or lost, I hear a whisper that says “Keep going,” and I turn a corner and usually find Him standing there with a bouquet of flowers (He walks on water, if you recall). He is a romantic and a surpriser and absolutely satisfying Person to follow. He is God, without a doubt.

So that leads me to Germany. My flight was delayed, my team leader was freaking out. I could’ve been anywhere in the world, lost and alone. But I happened to be in the center of God’s will.

I followed Jesus Christ to Germany.

And it wasn’t until the morning I woke up in that posh hotel, and stepped out onto the room’s balcony (my second rooftop), that I realized why Jesus had gone to Germany. He went because His daughter was weary. She had just finished 2 weeks of nonstop assignments, exams, planning, leading, and saying goodbye. She was fraught with emotional, financial, and logistical pressure, and what’s more, she has always wanted to go to Germany. He knew it even if I didn't.

The Lord offered me rest. It came in the form of a small detour – in a comfortable, rich-y hotel, a magnificent shower, a fantastic night’s sleep, and a peaceful morning of revelation on a rooftop.

Make no mistake, I am addicted to following Jesus Christ.