Ethiopian Orthodox Epiphany

Last week Orthodox Ethiopians celebrated Timkit, also called Epiphany.  This is the day that they celebrate the baptism of Jesus Christ.  The way they do this is really cool.  All over Ethiopia, they start their festivities by taking the ark of the covenant out of their church’s storage.  Obviously this isn’t the real ark of the covenant but each Ethiopian Orthodox church has an “ark of the covenant” that is to represent the real ark of the covenant that is believed to be in Northern Ethiopia.  So anyway, they take out the ark and in each city there is a meeting place.  Each church has a parade through the city on the way to the meeting place.

Mussie, the kids, and I got caught up in one of the parades.  We were out shopping for the visiting missionaries and the only place Mussie was able to park was in the middle of the sidewalk.  He got out to get pictures and I stayed in the bajaj.  Hundreds of people were all around us.  I wish I had a camera in the bajaj ‘cause it was crazy.  The parade of people had to break apart to go around the bajaj and they were bumping into the bajaj.  A lot of people had to stop and talk to the white girl that was caught in the middle of the parade-apparently that was new!  If you know me at all, you know I hate big crowds of people but I had to keep it together ‘cause I had the kids in the bajaj.

So all over the city there are a bunch of these parades, they come from all directions and they all met at the big soccer field in Debre Zeit.  Thousands of people spend the night in the soccer field where they spend their time praying.

Here are a few pics of the parade:

508 pounds of beef!

I am so happy to write this post.  During this Christmas season I felt a bit like Santa Clause as I was able to bless many families with gifts and food this year.  But the biggest thing, the most best thing, is that because of the support that I receive from my supporters we were able to bless 113 families by giving them each 4.5lbs of meat for Christmas!  Yes, that’s right.  I purchased and distributed (and by “I distributed” I clearly mean that Mussie distributed) approximately 508lbs of meat!!!

I am so blessed that I am able to help families in need here in Ethiopia because of my faithful supporters in the States.  Families here hardly ever get meat because it is too expensive for their incomes.  I knew that it would be a huge blessing for the families to receive meat on Christmas Eve so they could prepare dishes for their families.  Kids here are so lacking in protein and iron that I know this meat did them some good.

The families were so happy and excited!  They said that no one had ever thought of that before and they were so surprised by this gift.  Thank you to everyone that made this possible.  I am so blessed that I get to act as your arms reaching from America!!

I promise they were happier then they look here.  They just didn't want their picture taken.  :)

Christmas x 2

Some of you may remember from my blog last year that I get to celebrate Christmas twice in Ethiopia.  Ethiopian’s have a different calendar which consists of 13 months.  They still have 365 days, however, they have broken that down into 13 months.  Ethiopian Christmas falls on January 7th in the Gregorian calendar (“our” calendar as North Americans).  

Mussie and I wanted to celebrate both Christmases together and with the children.  But we really weren’t sure how to do that.  We want them to know both cultures.  I started thinking about how we could introduce “American Christmas” to them and what parts to take and what parts to leave out.  Honestly, it took me a long time to figure out what about the way that Americans celebrate Christmas I wanted to introduce to my children.  There is much about American Christmas that disgusts me.  A lot of it I think is fun and harmless but why would I introduce certain traditions to my kids and skew their perception of Christmas if it isn’t necessary? 

The way most Ethiopians celebrate Christmas is so pure and true and they celebrate for all of the right reasons.  They may give and receive small presents but it is not the focus of their celebrations.  So I wanted to be really careful to not “corrupt” them with silly traditions that mean nothing.  

After much, much, much thinking I realized one of the biggest things that I love about Americans during Christmas is their generosity.  This is the time of year that so many Americans give to others.  Christians and non-Christians get involved with giving.  I realized that I could teach them about compassion and generosity-about giving to those in need.  

So Mussie and I decided to give them a certain about of money and we told them about two families that needed help.  They (okay, this was really all Fiker because Rebirra wasn’t understanding what was happening) were able to bless one of the families with all of the money or they could have split it up amongst both families.  Fiker decided that both families needed help.

We took them shopping and got clothes, shoes, and food.  Fiker said it felt really good to be able to help others.  She seemed kind of surprised that people around her-friends at school, even-lived in such dire situations.  

One of the families the kids helped.

We also decided to give them stockings for American Christmas with candy and small, small gifts.  We also went to spend the day in a neighboring town with friends.  I have no pictures of that.  I had been suffering from insomnia right before that and I hadn’t slept in two days so I really was no fun that day.  I just wanted to sleep.  But I do remember that we had amazing food!

When it came to Ethiopian Christmas I also wanted to make sure that I don’t corrupt them and foster a sense of entitlement and great expectations for every forth-coming Christmas.  It is so easy for me to go overboard with presents because I think they are cute.  Let’s get something straight-God has blessed our family and my kids do not need anything.  They have way too much.  But we did want to give them some presents for Christmas.  Mussie and I decided that we would give them each 3 presents.  Jesus was brought 3 presents when he was born so we figured if it is good enough for Jesus then it’s good enough for our kids.  But we decided to get them 3 normal presents-not 3 over the top presents.  

But as usual with Christmas, one of Rebirra’s presents was more pricey then we had intended for it to be.  My mom got Fiker a scooter for Christmas so we wanted to get Rebirra a riding toy as well so we can go around the neighborhood together and get exercise.  

We gave Fiker: Connect 4x4, pjs, a jump rope.

We gave Rebirra: A matching game, pjs, and a tricycle.

We are really going to try to keep these traditions going.  I especially want to keep the “helping others” tradition going for American Christmas.  

Sometimes it’s not easy incorporating two cultures into everything but we try to figure it out as we go along.

Can we say awkward?

Last week, I was invited to celebrate Natsenet’s 2nd birthday by attending a party at his house.  I invited Dawn and her daughter Chloe to come along with me.  They are in Ethiopia with other organizations and spent a few days with BCI.  So we go to the birthday party and most of the kids from the BCI foster home, one social worker, and BCI’s missionary coordinator were there.  I would say there were 17 of us guests.  At the start of the party, Natsenet’s social worker gave the testimony of this family.  I had heard the testimony before but I always love to hear it.  So here goes:

Natsenet has a nine year old sister that was adopted to a family in America 5 years ago.  After giving birth to her, the mother left the baby with the grandmother and went and lived on the streets.  We were told that the adoptive family and the little girl would be coming to the house to visit. The mom ended up pregnant again with Natsenet.  She returned home to her mother and gave birth to the baby.  Volunteers of BCI went to visit Natsenet because they heard about his dire situation.  During the visit, they started praying for his mother and a demon manifested itself.  A special prayer team was called in to handle the situation.  It was then discovered that the baby was never given a name.  In Ethiopian culture, if a family thinks a baby may die or be harmed they do not name the baby.  It was decided that his name was to be Natsenet, which means Freedom in Amharic.  Nothing is sounding awkward yet?  Well, here it is:

The adoptive family and little girl were scheduled (on purpose) to arrive while we all were there.  Just imagine:  you adopt a little girl from Ethiopia.  You make a special trip all the way across the world to meet her birth family.  The little girl is basically meeting her mother for the first time and reconnecting with her grandmother after 5 years.  You are nervous and excited as you walk up the front walk.  You enter the house and see 17 random people!

The look on the adoptive mother’s face broke my heart.  You could see that she was so shocked at the intrusion of all of these strangers.  You could see her confusion.  After just staring at all of us she turned to me and said “who are you people”?  A bit later, the adoptive father asked me if we knew they were coming today.  I explained that I knew they were coming today, but I had no idea that they were coming while we were there.

I completely felt as if we had intruded on such a special occasion for this family.  I hurriedly tried to get us all out of there so they could spend time with each other and get to know each other.  

Just another difference between our cultures.  Americans feel as if moments such as this should be private but Ethiopians tend to feel that things are to be shared amongst the group-community style.