Henry David Thoreau’s two million word Journal in many respects died out before he did.  It has been difficult for me to be faithful to this Journal too especially as I near its conclusion.  I’m too tired to try to be interesting.  Because it takes less energy to do so, I have reverted to only pretty much listing our day’s activities rather than telling you the few stories that more accurately convey what it feels like for us to be here in Africa.  I never intended this to be a tour book, with every place accurately named, with every place and story precise, with some kind of health/comfort/price/taste description of every hotel and restaurant that we visited.  I guess I just wanted you to have a sense for the experience of one soul seeking God through a modern pilgrimage.  We have met poor and middle class people, cynical people, joyful people and faithful ones.  We saw ancient churches and new ones.  We followed people who practice an ancient faith and we tried to learn from them  We saw God’s extraordinary glory here in nature among people struggling to make a living off the land.  We visited massive modern cities and hermit caves and yes god has appeared to us while the children prayed, in fellowship with new friends, on mountaintops, and great valley floors, at sunset and midday, among plowmen, threshers and children playing and beggin and churches of people worshiping together before dawn.

Melia and I shared a room tonight and I am watching her sleep feeling so blessed by God who brought her into the universe.  She is so new and greets everyone so joyfully.  The love that people feel for her and Micah has been such a blessing here.  The wind blows cool through our open windows.  I hear crickets.

We rose early this morning to Heidi’s knock on the door.  It was 6:30 a.m.  We planned to leave at 7:00 a.m. to visit the 11 churches of Lalibela.  These are not set aside in some location distant from the lives of ordinary people here.  They stand in an area the size of downtown Los Altos; the paths that connect them are filled with people in their daily business.  Read about them in a tour book, about how King Lalibela wanted to make a new Jerusalem so that his people wouldn’t have to brave the dangers of travel through Sudan, Egypt, the Red Sea and Arabia.  This is no Mount Rushmore.  The priest-king succeeded in building something holy whether the legendary angels helped him in the construction project or not.  This town and its churches itself has a divine plan with clusters of churches in three regions depicting a different part of the pilgrimage of human life - our earthly pilgrimage, our worldly life from the Old Testament days across the river Jordan and into the life on the other side.

We started with the largest church, the Savior of the World church under its protective scaffolding and finished with Emmanuel Church.  We were sent off into the world with the reminder that God is always with us as we try to build his Jerusalem in the places where we find ourselves.  We visited Holy Mary’s Church, St. Gabriel’s Church, St. Rafael’s Church.  We prayed and received blessings at the iconic St. George’s Church (without scaffolding standing alone carved out of solid rock deep in the ground).

The ritual was the same – approach the massive hole in the earth and the thick stone walls in reverence after climbing decaying stairs or passing through deep channels in the earth, over bridges, etc.  Removing our shoes we’d stand awestruck in the sanctuary seeing how its particular structure corresponded to the typical three-part Ethiopian church (1. Holy of Holies, 2. Communion, 3. Choir).  The first few priests solemnly brought out ancient processional crosses while wearing sunglasses.  They anticipated the flash from our cameras.  The last few priests weren’t so well equipped and laughed when I handed over my sunglasses before the pictures began.  The children went in to the fist few churches and then sat outside on blocks of rock drawing pictures in their journals with our new found friends.  One of them painted St. George on a piece of leather.  I copied this on the facing page.  I told the children a very long and embellished story of St. George saving the town’s beloved daughter Wanda from the dragon.