Harambee

Our whole group (all 200 of us) went to Washington, DC for the day. Our goal was to be intentional with sharing Jesus in a cross-cultural setting. We had all been given a checklist of things to do to help achieve this goal so we were supposed to do things like ride the Metro, observe parenting skills of families from a different culture, identify different languages, eat at an "ethnic" restaurant, prayerwalk, and be intentional about having spiritual conversations with people. Our little group ate at an Ethiopian restaurant called Awash in the Adams Morgan area. We were told there were lots of markets around there but it ended up being mostly restaurants. Fine by me!

 I don't even know the names of the foods. I ordered the "lunch combo" and it seemed to be injera with mounds of collard greens, yellow peas, lentils and a potato/carrot/cabbage dish. Whatever it was, I liked it!

Emily and I split off from our group after lunch so we could to go our embassies. First stop, Kenya. The men that worked there were awesome! They were so glad we were going to Africa and loved the fact that I had already been before. When they asked why we were going we briefly explained our jobs but said that mainly it was because the Lord had led us to go. One guy was especially wonderful, quoted Scripture, and told us that he didn't know why we were still in the US since God had told us to go to Africa!

Harambee is used to describe unity and literally means "all pull together" in Swahili. Emily and I took our picture by the coat of arms out in front of the embassy.

The Republic of South Sudan actually has an embassy now! It's no longer "just" a mission! For some reason I totally forgot to take any pictures while we were there but even if I had it would have been really underwhelming. It's literally an office suite on the 6th floor of a random office building. The suite next door is a college prep testing center. But even though it wasn't a cool-looking established building with a coat of arms and black SUVs with tinted windows out front, it was MY embassy and I was excited to be there! We talked to the Protocol and Public Relations Officer for almost an hour. He is a believer named Enoch. He wasn't quite as outgoing and animated as the Kenyans but he was patient with my millions of questions.

I was a little discouraged during part of the afternoon because I felt like I didn't have any chances to participate in spiritual conversations with people, but God reminded me that the point of today (and every day) was to be intentional in how I act and what I say...not to check things off of a list that someone gives me. I do feel like I was intentional with the opportunities that God gave me, even though they weren't with the people that I was hoping for. DC was oddly vacant today, or maybe it was just the places that I went to, but in the end I got to meet believers from east Africa and get even more excited about going to South Sudan. I would say that is a success!