To read this post in Tigrinya, you can follow the Google Drive link below. ነዚ ጽሑፍ ብትግርኛ ንምንባብ፡ ነዚ ዚስዕብ ናይ ጉግል ድራይቭ መላክቦ ክትከፍት ትኽእል። https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d2cTvKDwHvmAQQe2JxvJ650sLc8Q-2aO/view?usp=share_link

Time goes fast! It has been over six years since we (my family and I) went beyond rivers, and came to Edmonton, Canada. As I write, I am remembering the place where I heard the name Canada for the first time during my childhood. A few years before Eritrea’s independence, our village had become a frontline. The Ethiopian army’s defense trenches ran for kilometers across the slopes on the northern side of our village. My grandfather (my dad’s maternal uncle) had a threshing floor which was located on the western side of our village; it was my second favorite place for viewing the beautiful sunset. One late afternoon I was sitting by that threshing floor together with other kids and adults from our village. The sun was hidden behind the clouds creating a mesmerizing beauty on the horizon. It was at that moment that one of the adults began to speak about the relief food items that were being distributed.

The presence of the Ethiopian army and the fact that our village had become a frontline had interfered with the farming activities and due to that, the people needed support. The adult who was talking about the relief food items said that the wheat was donated by a country called Canada. I think the only names of countries I knew at that time were: Ethiopia, Sudan, America, Saudi Arabia, and Germany and I believed that all of them, including Canada, were behind the horizon.

Some families in our village grew wheat at a very small scale and I imagined Canada’s wheat farms in light of that as if wheat should be grown on a very small scale everywhere. As a result, I had thought Canada’s wheat was grown on small farms like ours and donations of some “Ribiits” of wheat were collected from Canadian farmers and then sent to the people in our village and other villages. (Ribiit is a traditional container, usually made from palm leaves, that measures about 3 kilograms).

In May 1991 the Ethiopian army that had disfigured our farms with artillery, trenches, bunkers, latrines, etc. did not only leave our farms but the whole of Eritrea as well. Then every Eritrean thought they would live in the country happily. No one would at that time think that Eritreans would ever need to escape their country. But a few years after the liberation from Ethiopia, things didn’t unfold as was hoped. To date, hundreds of thousands of Eritreans had to make perilous journeys to escape their own country in search of freedom and dignity. I was one of them and thanks to God’s mercy and Canada’s goodwill and amazing humanitarian gesture, I am able to get the freedom and dignity many Eritreans had longed for and are still longing for. Six years of freedom and dignity! Thank you Canada!

In coming to Canada we have not only gone beyond rivers but beyond the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean as well. Back in Eritrea, in most cases, going beyond a river would mean going to a somehow different lifestyle though mostly very minimal. By coming to Canada, we did not only go beyond regular rivers; we went beyond “frozen” rivers as well. Our city, Edmonton has a river by the name North Saskatchewan river that divides the city into two, diagonally. When we came here six years ago the river was frozen as it was winter and we went beyond it to live in the northern part of the city.

The North Saskatchewan river and its surroundings are among the best attractions in the city and I love walking along its banks. Since we came here I have walked on the beautiful trails that the city made on either side of the river. From the river’s entry point to our city to its exit point from the city, the trails extend more than 40 kilometers.

Twice I walked the distance on my own and once with a few other friends. I also walked some short sections with my family.

During all those walks, time and again I was very impressed with the City of Edmonton’s investment in the well-being of its residents. There are well-maintained pedestrian trails as well as bicycle trails all along the river.

I am working at the same residential property management company that I joined since we came to Edmonton. On the other hand, in June this year, Helen got licensed as a Practical Nurse (LPN) and our daughters are doing great at school. We have also become Canadian citizens, may God bless the Canadian government who accepted our immigration to Canada and now granted us citizenship.

Over the past six years, in addition to work and study, God gave us different opportunities to serve him, and here are the highlights of the main ones:

• Oral storytelling (specifically the STS approach; http://simplythestory.org) was one of the tools I had used in South Sudan. And when we came to Edmonton, I conducted one STS training at our local church (2016) and I keep telling bible stories from time to time, especially to kids.
• Kairos course is a condensed missions course. I took this course in Kenya in 2012 and when we came to Edmonton, I participated in conducting two Kairos Courses hosted by two C&MA churches (2016 & 2017).
• At the local Eritrean church that we joined here, there was a need for training people on evangelism. So, I developed an eight session training and taught it at our church together with our pastor (2017). 
• One of the blessings in Canada is the opportunity to have a reliable internet connection. Because of that I was able to be involved in several online trainings. One of these was an online training on Disciple Making Movements (DMM); in 2019, I was able to train Eritreans who live in different parts of the world.
• If there is any film that I had watched over and over, it is the Jesus Film, which is believed to be the most watched and most translated film of all time (wikipedia). I watched it in Tigrinya, English, Arabic, Tigre, Amharic and Dinka languages repeatedly. This is a great tool that the Lord has given for the advancement of his gospel. I wanted this film to be translated into the Blin language of Eritrea; the Jesus Film Project also had wanted to translate the film into Blin. As a result, despite the many challenges we faced while working on the Blin translation, by God’s grace, a friend of mine and I were able to translate the film into Blin by the help of the Jesus Film Project team (2018-2019). The Jesus Film in Blin is available at https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch/jesus.html/blin.html.
• Since fall 2017, I am involved in the children’s ministry of our local church, and was able to participate in curriculum selection, program development, teaching kids, and training volunteers. Most Eritrean churches in Canada don’t have well developed children’s ministries mainly due to lack of trained children’s ministry teachers and volunteers. To fill this gap, in our church, together with my colleagues in the ministry, I participated in conducting training for children’s ministry teachers and volunteers. Furthermore, I am also taking online courses at the Children’s Ministries Institute of Child Evangelism Fellowship.  
• When I was in South Sudan, I had the opportunity to travell to Khartoum twice (2012 and 2013) and teach a course on missions at Berea Ministers’ Training Center. Likewise, last year I was also able to teach the course at the same school through Zoom and I am scheduled to teach a course on leadership in November this year. In addition, I also had the opportunity to teach Basic Tigrinya Grammar at Bethel Bible College (Edmonton branch) last year and this year.
• In addition to the above, at our church, I served as Secretary of the Board of Elders (Oct. 2017 – January 2019) and Helen served as Women’s Ministry leader (June 2018 – May 2019).
• In August this year we had a great visit to the US. My next blog update will focus on that. 

What about South Sudan? Did I maintain communication? Well, I am not very good at communication. Yet I did my best to communicate with some of the pastors from the Aduel area of South Sudan. From what I hear from them, it is now over a year since the security situation in East Rumbek areas has significantly improved and Christianity is growing in the face of all challenges the people are facing. Pastor Peter Monyde is one of the main pastors that WGM trained in Oral Bible Storytelling, Community Health Evangelism and Farming God’s Way. In the past two years, Peter and other two pastors from the East Rumbek area attended a two-year bible school in Wau, South Sudan. They have now started training some of their fellow pastors. Early this month they did few days training for pastors who came from different villages; they will continue after new year. Please also keep us in your prayers for the Lord’s direction as we seek to get His leading and direction for the next chapter of our life and ministry. God bless you!

FOUR SEASONS IN CANADA

At the end of this month (December 2016) I will mark 10 years since I left home, Eritrea. Helen will have few more months to go after me to complete 10 years. We lived most of that period as refugees.

Being a refugee had been very uncomfortable for us until early this year. What is wrong with being a refugee? Did Jesus’ not live as a “refugee” in Egypt? Well, being a refugee as we had experienced it as a family in the past is being vulnerable. Think of someone refusing to sit at a table where you are, for a meal because of you being a refugee. How would you feel? Think of someone avoiding the seat next to yours in a bus. Think of a policeman threatening to destroy your documents and arrest you if you don’t give him the money he demands. Etc…. All these: just because you are a refugee. Won’t you want to get out of such a situation? Well, I wanted. Helen wanted. My daughters wanted too. We all prayed to be out of that situation. We asked friends and family members to pray for us in this regard, and God answered the prayers at the right time.

Wait a minute, here, I want to make it clear that by mentioning these challenges I don’t mean to undermine the positive sides of being a refugee – at least for me. The first thing, it made us put our trust in God firmly.  Secondly, we had some freedoms that we enjoyed, including freedom of worship that we didn’t have at home.  At home even carrying a bible in public was a risky venture, whether you read it or not – forget about sharing from it.

Therefore I am so grateful to my former host country. Despite the challenges, here and there, as I had began to mention above, it gave me some freedoms that I never enjoyed while at home.

Believing that it would reduce our vulnerability and challenges, one of my dear friends offered to sponsor us to come to Canada. As a result we came to Canada towards the end of February 2016. Let me share some of my experience in Canada from the last ten months.

ENCOUNTER WITH SNOW AND COLD WEATHER

None of the four of us had any experience with snow, and extreme cold weather. Our first exposure was in Winnipeg, Canada; when we exited from the Winnipeg Richardson International Airport. We had just exited the airport building and were heading to my friends’ cars. Yes, that was the time we first happened to be physically present where snow is. It was very cold. Shamna tried to uncover her ears – she was not used to that type of coverings, and said, “Why does the cold want to take my ears?”

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Despite the exhaustion from the long flights the girls kept asking, “Dad, can we play in the snow? We want to make snow man, and snow balls…” Ironically the snow was not that exciting for their Mom and Dad. So they had to wait about 2 weeks for their Mom and Dad to let them play in and with snow. They loved it, and later we loved it too! It is beautiful!

Few weeks after our arrival to Canada Winter was gone, spring took over. And we kept adjusting. We are still adjusting….

Summer came and it brought a lot of fun for all of us. Going to the nearby park was the girls’ favorite thing. It was lovable for Helen and me to see our girls play freely after all the years we lived in fear and vulnerability as refugees. It was also a unique experience to move around without any fear after all these years.

Fall came. I had thought it is called “fall” because the leaves begin to fall from the trees. But then one morning found lots of snow falling. Hmm, is my understanding of fall getting modified? It is fall, and even snow is falling. May be in fall anything may fall. I should be careful not to let my body slip and fall!

 

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Church Experience

On Sundays, in the morning, we worship in an English service then late in the afternoon we go for Tigrigna (Eritrean) service.  Both services are different from the ones we were used to in the past. Yet we love them. In the English Services church we have a great privilege to learn from the pastor’s wonderful and deep sermons. In the Eritrean Church we have the privilege to still have the taste of “home”. Have the opportunity to know almost everybody in the church. (Well this is a tiny church. That makes it easy to know every body). There, I also get opportunities to preach from time to time, and once I had the opportunity to do a training on Biblical Orality – Simply The Story approach. It ran for 5 Sundays and 2 Saturdays. We had about 25 attendants.

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Kairos Course

I joined the Kairos Course Facilitators team in Edmonton. I had written about Kairos Course in my past blog updates. So far I participated in conducting one Kairos Course few months ago. If my memory serves me well, 19 people attended. There is one scheduled for February next year.

Canadian friends of Chinese origin

Edmonton has lovely people from all over the world! Among them are people with Chinese descent. There is a Chinese church from which I met few people that I have loved SO MUCH. Through them I got some materials that kept me busy studying for some months. And through one of them I am getting to know some gardeners in Edmonton.

Work

God has provided me a job in a way that I had never imagined. I do site management at certain residential apartments complex. There I interact with people of different origins and nationalities. Canadians, Americans, Caribbeans, South Americans, Africans, Asians, people from the Middle East, and Europeans. Different cultures to appreciate! I use the bus and train services to go to work. I use the time in the bus and train to read.

Gardening

Before coming to Canada I was wondering if I would be able to have opportunity to do some gardening there. Well I believe I am going to have some lovable handling of the Canadian soil from the next spring. Already have contacts for that reason, and attended a half day session on compost making.

Eritrean Pastors

Had the opportunity to travel to Ottawa and speak during Eritrean Pastors meeting. Great initiatives taken by the Eritrean pastors to work together to reach out the Eritrean Diaspora in Canada and beyond. The message I delivered was from Nehemiah 3.

School

Helen and the girls are going to school. The girls love the school. It follows a different system than the one they were used to in Kenya, but they like it. Helen is doing some English course. She has done very well in the past few months. She will continue for the next 2 terms.

Culture

We are learning new cultural practices. There is a lot to learn. Some of the practices we come across them as a surprise, some we read. Let me give you 2 examples from the many cultural practices we are struggling to learn. 1- When you speak to someone or someone is speaking to you, look at the person’s eyes. In our culture doing so would mean disrespect and threatening. Not so here, in fact almost the opposite. 2- When in a queue don’t cross arms on chest, it has negative meaning. In our culture, it would mean showing respect to those in the queue. Well the aspect of cultural shock is unavoidable, but it is lovable when you reach to the level of reasoning out and accepting the cultural practice (not necessarily to practice it though).

We have now seen four seasons in Canada – for 10 good months – awarded with freedom and dignity. We can’t be grateful enough to God and the government and people of Canada.

As a child Jesus went to Egypt for safety reasons. Different culture, different religion. Helen and I never meant to leave home at the time we left it. But God had his own agenda in our lives. When I first went to Sudan first I never meant to go beyond it. I thought that would be a safe place where I could live and serve God. We are now here very far not only from home, but also from Soudan (South Sudan and Sudan), the lands and people we dearly love.

We believe our being here at this appointed time is perfectly God’s will. Despite our being far, not only me but also my whole family keeps thinking and praying for South Sudan. For the last 2 years my daughters have continually prayed for the children of South Sudan. At times Fasika prays, “God, please help us to go to South Sudan for Dad to teach the people, and Mom to help the sick.”

 

We keep following the situation in South Sudan through the media, and from our contacts. There is a lot of need for prayer. We believe God can change everything for good. Please join us in prayer for this beloved country of South Sudan.

In addition we would appreciate your prayers for our continued adjustment, and wise use of our time here as well as opportunities for ministry while here.

Many of our friends had been praying for our coming to Canada, because they know the situation in which we were. Likewise many had been praying and are still praying for our adjustment in Canada. We strongly acknowledge the role of of our friends and ministry colleagues in our lives. We are so grateful for this. We love you and pray for you!

Happy New Year!

 

 

THE GREATEST REASON FOR A GREAT JOY.