If it weren’t for the rain…

If it weren’t for the rain…

            Ethiopia has four seasons, just like us…only way different. (I’m doing my best to phonetically spell the names so please bear with me.) Carrumpt  (with a rolled R sound in the middle) is known as the ‘rainy season.’ It normally lasts from sometime in June to sometime in August (or in the year we decide to visit, late September). Szaday is known as the sunny season and lasts (typically) from September to November. Bugah is the dry season (with 2-3 weeks of ‘God-timed’ rain for the harvest) from December to February. And Bulg is the short rainy season before the long rainy season (sunshiny days with sporadic light rain) from March to May.

We have not been in Ethiopia long enough yet to experience all of these seasons, but this is the description that one of our Amharic teachers gave us. We did, however, get to enjoy (or rather, endure) nearly a month and a half of the long rainy season. Much to our displeasure, it rained EVERY DAY…Forest Gump kinds of rain. And it was cold! (This is not the description I was given to prepare for Africa.) The rain made it difficult to do so many things. It rained on all three of our ‘moving days,’ but thankfully, our suitcases and personal items were spared from any damage from the rain. Upon making our most recent move (to the seminary compound where we are now) one of the things that we were most excited about was the clothesline hanging out front. We could finally do laundry (yes, I mean hand wash them and hang them on the line to dry)! The only problem with this was…you guessed it…the RAIN! It didn’t stop us from trying though. We would wash a few items…hang them outside…come back inside…hear the rain start…run down the stairs and out the door to grab the clothing items…hang them inside (on our fancy make-shift clotheslines, where they wouldn’t dry either because it was so damp inside too)…and repeat this cycle for about three days until the clothes were dry. At which point they began to smell sour, so we had to start all over again. We were also beginning to notice the mold that had taken up residence in our quaint little home and made itself comfortable on a bunch of our belongings – yuck! Needless to say, the rainy season was not the most fun season.

With the traditional ‘Meskel’ celebration we, along with a gazillion grateful Ethiopians, said goodbye to the rainy season and welcomed in the much-needed (longed-for) sunshine. Just like that, the rain was gone. Every day since then has been sunny and breezy. Not too hot, not too cold…just right. We could walk to class without facing a monsoon. The kids could play and we could exercise outside. We could hang our clothes outside to DRY! The first week of full sunshine Grams and I did a good bit of laundry together. The first day we brought our clothes in off the line (after only hanging out for half of a day) and they were actually DRY, boy did we rejoice! I mean, we giggled like little girls and went on and on about what a blessing it was to have dry clothes after only one day. It seems like such a small thing, but to us…it was HUGE! That day we realized that if it weren’t for all of that rain, we surely would’ve taken our dry clothes and the sunshine for granted. I can now confidently say that I am grateful for the rain. Isn’t it funny how and where God reveals himself to us sometimes?

“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”

1 Peter 5:10