Today I experienced my first Ethiopian worship service.  I enjoyed it!  J, the other American missionary, preached today and Mussi translated for him.  The people at this church are so passionate about God and their faith amazes me.  These people have, what we consider to be almost nothing, but they know that they have everything they need. . .as long as they have their faith in Jesus.

 

I am having so much fun here!  My family won't believe this but I have had SOOO much coffee.  It is Ethiopian culture to have 3 coffee ceremonies everyday, and have a coffee ceremony whenever guests come over to your house.  There have been some days when I have had coffee 4-5 times a day!  In America I hate coffee but here it is delicious!  Mulageta (the BCI Academy principal) told me today that it is my turn to do the coffee cermony next so I get to pound some coffee.  Should be exciting!  :)

 

Yesterday, I went to the Sunshine Foster Home run by BCI and played with the kids there.  Haben, who is 6, had a make believe coffee ceremony for us.  It was so sweet.  She served her coffee in bottlecaps.  It reminded me about how I used to play tea party when I was little. . .of course, I was blessed and had a toy tea party set.  Even though she didn't have a tea party set, she served us a beautiful ceremony. 

 

So, apparently I am quite hilarious to these people for some reason.  :)  When I came to the Internet (as they call it here) on Friday I went into the cafe.com next door and ordered 2 sodas.  So the server has them on the tray and she is just standing there staring at me and I'm like, "where do I pay?"  And of course, she doesn't understand so I show her my wallet and just say "Birr?" (Ethiopian money).  She laughs and points to the cashier.  So I go and pay and then I turn around and she is still just standing there with the sodas on the tray so I pick them up and start walking out the door and all 5 or 6 people that were working and like, 4 patrons just start hysterically laughing at me!  I'm like "What?" and someone said "Soda no take away."  Goldy (BCI Social Worker) had to come in and help me.  Apparently, you can not take the glass bottles out of the restaurant.  And apparently, this was really funny to everyone because they just kept laughing at me.  So I'm like, "well, in America we can take away soda" and they kept laughing! 

 

I was just in the cafe.com and I ordered a soda and of course, stayed in there to drink it and when I did it fizzed up, went up my nose, and shot across the table and hit Karen (missionary from Canada).  So of course, they all started laughing at the white furrungie (foreigner) again but this time there were like 30 people in there.  Everywhere I go someone laughs at me for something stupid that I do.  It's okay though, everyone here is so nice and welcoming.  It's funny though because I know they are talking about me because I hear "furrungie" alot.  :)

 

Happy Birthday Angie and Kevin!!!

 

I love and miss everyone!  Kisses!