Random blog about food

Food.  There are some amazing foods here in Ethiopia.  I was thinking yesterday about all of the new foods that I have been eating here that I never/rarely ate in America.  And surprisingly, most of the “new” foods are not Ethiopian foods.  In America, I was a very picky eater.  I ate pretty much the same things all of the time.  I loved to cook and try new recipes but they weren’t exactly “new” recipes they basically were just “slightly varied” from other foods I made.  

As far as vegetables-if they weren’t deep fried or in a salad heavily coated with ranch dressing, I didn’t eat them.  Within the past year I have been eating (and loving) so many new vegetables.  I now love:  eggplant, beets, zucchini, pumpkin, all bell peppers, carrots, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower.  I have experimented and made them many different ways.  Who knew there were so many ways to make veggies?!  I am kinda sad that I missed out on the last 31 years of veggie eating.  But I think I have started to make up for it.  I eat so many veggies now it’s crazy.

Fruits-not much has changed since living in Ethiopia.  My favorite is still green apples but they are very expensive here.  The fruits I eat on a regular basis are oranges, bananas, and pineapples.  All others are either very expensive (like apples and plums) or I don’t really know what to do with them (like mangos and papayas).  I guess I will have to start experimenting with my fruits when I return from the USA.

Cooking.  As I mentioned earlier, I did cook in the USA.  However, I did not cook every day or even every other day.  Because it was primarily just myself and Jasmine eating the meals we often had leftovers and would eat them before I would make something new.  But in those meals I used a lot of packaged and canned foods.  I rarely made anything from actual scratch. . .actually I don’t think I ever did.  I didn’t even known how to make spaghetti sauce from tomatoes!   I also ate a lot of fast food in the States.  Oh, how things have changed.  Most days I cook three (or even four) meals a day.

Prepackaged food and fast food is a thing of the past in my life.  Which is actually good because they are not healthy for you.  I would say the only packaged food that we eat is pasta noodles (praise Jesus I don’t have to make pastas from scratch!!) and the canned meat that gracious people from the States ship to me. 

Everything else is pretty much from scratch.  I have taught myself how to cook things that have turned out amazing.  In the States, I always used recipes when cooking.  Now, I never use them.  Most days I don’t even have much of a plan for a meal-I just walk into the kitchen assess what we have and generate something.  In the States if I was missing an ingredient I would just hop in the car and go grab it but here I don’t have that luxury.  Other than basics like potatoes, tomatoes, and onions I would have to walk a bit, get on a taxi to head into town by the missing ingredients, and head back home.  So now I make meals based on whatever we have available, not based on what I want to eat.

So now I pretty much cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day (maybe not lunch every day due to my schedule but I never used to make lunch in America so it seems excess now!).  Some days after making breakfast I even have to make Fiker’s lunch for school.  I try to make more dinner than we need so I can give her the leftovers the next day but that doesn’t always work out.  

I eat a lot less meat here, also.  I hardly ever eat red meat.  This is mainly because for quality red meat I have to get it from Addis (the capital city about 45 mins away).  I will sometimes stock up and freeze it but we don’t go to Addis that much anymore.  When we do eat meat it is usually chicken or tuna.  I can get chicken at semi-decent prices but due to wonderful people that mail me presents, I usually have a stock of canned chicken, tuna, and salmon on hand.

So you would think that with all this veggie eating and less meat that I would have lots a ton of weight, huh?  Not really.  I have lost some, I don’t know how much.  I lost quite a bit in the beginning but I gained some of it back before the wedding and I have gained a good bit back in the past 2 1/2 months.  I guess stress will do that to you, huh?  I eat a lot of carbs here, more than I ever did in the States.  When I return back to Ethiopia, my mission is to find a way to cut out more carbs.  

Yesterday, we carved a pumpkin.  Today, I am going to make pumpkin and sweet potato soup.  Which is a first, by the way.   :)

Things we want and/or need

My visit to the States is quickly approaching!  I am so looking forward to visiting but I know I am going to miss Ethiopia deeply.  But God will provide comfort in my sad hours.  Some of you have already asked what you can send back to Ethiopia with me.  I thank you so much for caring for our needs here.  Here is a list of things I/we need/want:

*Art supplies (glitter, paint, paintbrushes, markers, crayons, construction paper, child scissors, stickers, etc)

*Canned/packaged meat (ham, salmon, tuna, chicken)

*Sports equipment (soccer balls, jump ropes, ping pong paddles & balls, whistles)

*Children’s underwear and socks (ages baby-teenagers for boys & girls)

*Underwear and bras for women (most women here are smaller sizes like 0-6 but there are some bigger)

However, I will have a limited amount of space in my luggage due to airplane restrictions so if everyone donates a lot of varied items I may have a hard time packing it all.  If you would like to donate any of the above mentioned items, I would greatly appreciate it.  But, if you could donate a Wal-Mart gift card then I can purchase items that I can make sure I can pack in an efficient manner.

Every donation we receive is so appreciated.  It is really hard to find high quality items in Ethiopia.  Also, most items are imported making the costs very high.  Some things are impossible to even find here.  Thank you in advance for your help and sacrifice.

Baby with no name

Names.  Are they just a way to identify people and/or things?  Or could there be more meaning and emotion involved?  Are names just a necessity to keep everyone from getting confused?

These thoughts came to mind today when I met a mother that didn’t know her own child’s name.  I tend to see and speak to the same children around Zion Church.  I have spoken to this one particular little girl before but she never answers me.  She was with her friend today (who I see all the time-her name is Fiker).  A friend I was with asked Fiker what the baby’s name was and she replied “Boradoe”.  Boradoe means cockroach so we knew that wasn’t her name.  My friend sent Fiker to ask the baby’s mother what her name was.  She then came back and said “Mitu”.  Mitu is a term of endearment that they use for baby’s here so we knew that wasn’t her actual name. 

The mother then came a short while later and we asked her what the baby’s name was and she said “Mitu”.  We asked her for another name and she said “Boradoe”.  My friend (who is Ethiopian) asked the mother to be serious and tell us what the baby’s name is.  She then said that she forgot what she named her.  Take a moment and let that sink in.. . .

This woman named her baby girl when she was born but she has now forgotten.  I, of course, was wondering to myself how you could possibly forget what you named your own child.  I thought to myself: “Does she mean so little to you that you forgot her precious name?”.  Then I thought:  “Well, how important is a name really?  Maybe it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t know her name.  It’s just a word.”

But I couldn’t actually believe these thoughts.  They were just rolling around in my head because I was trying to come up with a logical reason as to why this woman would forget her child’s name.  I know deep down that names are important.  Just imagine how devastated you would feel if your own mother forgot your name?  It is just a word but it is a word that holds a lot of meaning and emotion.  I know that people whose parent’s suffer with Alzheimer's are devastated when the day comes that they forget their children’s names.  And I know that God thinks our names are important.

Isaiah 43:1 says: “But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you: I have called you by your name; You are Mine”.

Read that again.  He has called you by your name.  He didn’t just say “Child 54,839,327,293 of mine you are redeemed”.  No, he said “Jonnett,  you are redeemed.”  “Jasmine, you are redeemed.”, “Rebirra, you are redeemed.” etc.  How powerful is that?  The Creator of the world, the King of kings, and the Most High God has called us by name.

Even though this young mother doesn’t know her own baby’s name, God does and He sent His Son to die for her sins.

One Year Later

It was one year ago that I said goodbye to my family, friends, church, and home country and boarded a plane to Ethiopia to live.  Leaving the States was so bittersweet and I was really unaware at the time of all that would change in my life during the upcoming year.  I am tired just thinking about it all.

Before moving to Ethiopia I thought I had prepared as much as I could.  I did a great job preparing for the logistics of moving and living in a foreign land but I did a bad job of preparing myself emotionally.  I was so caught up in the excitement of this new journey that God had me on that I didn’t allow the fact that I was actually moving and leaving to sink in.  Sounds weird but I prepared to move but didn’t actually prepare to leave.  It didn’t hit me until my last Sunday at HPC.  I am crying now just thinking about how emotional that day was for me.  That is the day that I had to leave the place that God used so strongly to change my life.  

Sometimes I think about my life back in the States and wonder how it would be if I moved back.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t desire to go back but of course it crosses my mind of how things would be “easier” if I go back.  When I have a really bad day here I wonder why God called me to leave the comforts of the States and my family, friends, and HPC.  But God has allowed me to wonder recently why we, as Christians, think that it won’t cost us anything to follow Him.  

Does it hurt to leave all of my precious family and friends behind?  Do I miss not sticking out wherever I go?  Do I sometimes get tired of the culture here?  Do I so long to be back in HPC that it actually hurts?  Yes-all of these things happen-but these are the costs that I must pay to follow Him.  He never said it would be easy but He said it would be worth it.  

And it SO has been worth it.  I have learned so much from Him that I wonder if I would have seen it all had I not followed Him.  I have learned so much about the world, other people, myself, and God.  I have seen things here that I have not seen anywhere else in the world.  Some things I have seen I can’t even adequately put into words.  

God has used Ethiopia to grow, change, and mold me into what He wants me to be.  At times it has hurt and I have fought Him and I won’t even lie and say that I have never told Him no.  Because I have told Him no and there are things He has asked of me that I have refused.  But God is a God of grace and He scolds me and we move on.  But in those times that I have said yes even when I didn’t want to I saw true beauty.  Beauty in a God that loves us more than we can ever imagine.  Beauty in people that truly love God.  Beauty in people that I serve.  Beauty in people that serve me.  Beauty in who God has made me.

Obviously there have been big changes in my personal life.  I never thought when boarding that plan one year ago that I would finish my first year in Ethiopia with a husband and two children.  I knew the children (Fiker and Rebirra) would happen eventually because God told me the prior year but I didn’t know when or how it would happen.  I definitely never, ever thought that God would bring me a husband within my first year.  People had joked that I would find my husband in Ethiopia but I never truly believed it nor made it a priority.  But God had big plans for me and I am so happy that I have followed Him.  It hasn’t been easy and I have had to pay some costs but when I start having a pity party about all that following Him has cost me, I think about all that Jesus paid to follow the will that God had laid out for him.  Jesus paid it all, I can at least pay some “comfortability”, can’t I?

God recently brought the following passage to mind:

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:12-14

Sometimes we have to leave things behind to gain what God has in front of us.  We can’t move forward to the life and promises God has for us if we are hanging onto the past; even if those things are great and wonderful things.  People often talk about how you have to leave your past behind to move forward with Christ and usually these people are talking about mistakes and sins from the past.  This is true that we must leave those things behind but sometimes we can stunt our growth in Christ by hanging onto the good things of our past as well.  Sometimes we have to let go of wonderful things, things that are truly blessings from God in order to grab what lies ahead of us.  We may be comfortable in todays blessings but what if we all strained for tomorrow’s blessings and take hold of all that God has for us?

So as my second year in Ethiopia begins I strain for what God has in front of me.  Straining to grab hold of all that He has in store for me, even if it hurts or pushes me beyond my limits.

Irecha Day

Today is “Irecha Rite” day here in Ethiopia.  This is a day that people that practice witchcraft gather around Lake Hora here in Debre Zeit and worship the lake.  Ethiopia is full of people that worship the devil.  A lot of them (especially people from the Oromo tribe) gather on this day to join together and celebrate their idol, Lake Hora, and offer her sacrifices in hopes that she will improve their life and/or situation for the next year.  

People offer sacrifices such as: animals, expensive whisky, a traditional drink, etc.  In the past it is said that people sacrificed children to their god.  It is unclear whether or not this still happens but some people believe that it does. 

Obviously, the Protestant Christians in Ethiopia hate this holiday.  Many Christians here carry a great burden for the people that follow this religion.  For the week prior to Irecha Rite day Christians climbed Couch Mountain in Debre Zeit to pray over their city.  Mussie and I wanted to participate more in this activity but due to not having early-early morning babysitters, the first week of school and my being sick we were only able to participate one day.  Looking back we probably could have tried harder to overcome some of these obstacles.  Next year, I will make more of an effort to attend the mountain prayer every day.

Mussie and I dropped Fiker and Rebirra off with Asaua at 5:30am on Thursday and left with Michelle, Kiara, and Lydia and headed off to the mountain.  We walked approximately 2 miles until we found a taxi that would take us closer to the mountain.  We reached the mountain peak at 6:45am just as the sun was coming up.  Everyone broke off either by themselves or into smaller groups and prayed for Debre Zeit.  We then all gathered into one group and sang songs and prayed together.

It was a great feeling to sit with Mussie on top of this beautiful mountain, sing worship songs together, and pray together for our city.  And, it was so powerful to be standing on top of God’s creation and pray for the people that have succumbed to a false religion of worshipping creation.  From our vantage point we could see the whole town and I prayed that God’s Truth would be recognized by the whole, entire town.

Lord God I pray that you open the eyes of Debre Zeit.  Many people in this town live in the clutches of Satan.  This town, this country is full of false religions, false teachers, and people that live in untruth and darkness.  Lord God, I pray for the people today that are worshiping Lake Hora.  I pray that even in their ignorance you keep them safe from today’s activities.  Satan wants today to be a prosperous day for him-he wants to see people die.  He wants to see people worship someone other than you.  He wants people to make empty sacrifices and believe false truths-anything to keep them from You.  I pray that you awaken them, soften their hearts, open their eyes so they can see You, open their ears so they can hear You.  I especially pray for the children that are being raised in this false religion.  Guard their hearts so they don’t turn like stone against you.  Lord, I pray for the Christians of Debre Zeit to rise up and proclaim your glory.  I pray for strength so we can be your light in the darkness that surrounds us.

Meskel Holiday

Yesterday was a big holiday in Ethiopia.  It is called Meskel (which means cross).  This is an Orthodox holiday that is greatly celebrated through all of Ethiopia, especially in the Southern region.  Protestant Christians don’t celebrate Meskel but it is a day off from work so most use it as a day to spend with their family.

It is believed that Queen Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, found the cross that Christ was crucified on.  She claimed that in a dream she had a vision that she was to light a bonfire and the smoke would lead her to the true cross.  She claimed that she light that fire and the smoke lead her to the place where she found three crosses buried in the ground, one of which was the true cross.  This holiday is celebrated in September in Ethiopia, even though it is believed that the cross was actually found six months prior.

This day is huge in Ethiopia.  People celebrate with fireworks and making bonfires.  Since it is believed that the cross was found because of a bonfire people light bonfires all over the country in celebration.  Some people even put a cross above the bonfire and burn that. 

One of the cross bonfires I came across.

The crazy, expensive celebrations kind of reminded me of the gross expense that goes into the celebration of Christmas in America.  Some families send their children to bigger cities to work and they save the money the make for the entire year and then spend it all on the Meskel celebrations.  Then they go away the next year and save all of that money and blow it all again on a day of celebration.  

It was interesting to see how people celebrate this holiday here but it actually made me really sad.  People are celebrating a thing-the cross-instead of celebrating the person that died on that cross.  The cross is an object.  It was a means that allowed Jesus to offer himself as a payment for our sins so we could be cleansed.  The cross didn’t do anything.  The cross can do nothing for us.  I am not saying that we can’t use it as a symbol to remind us of what happened that day on Calvary but the Orthodox don’t believe that Christ’s death is the payment for their sins so I really don’t understand this whole holiday.  In simple terms, the Orthodox believe Mary is more important than Jesus.  They believe that Mary is the intercessor for their sins and that she will be their advocate.  I hate seeing so many people worship a false savior.  I pray that the eyes of the Orthodox in Ethiopia will be opened to the Truth.  It seems that we have a lot more work to do here in spreading the Truth.

Ethiopian New Year

Yesterday was Ethiopia’s New Year.  Ethiopia works on a different calendar known as “Ge’ez” as opposed to the Gregorian calendar that the USA (and most of the world) uses.  Ethiopia actually has 13 months in their calendar because for the first 12 months they have 30 days.  They have a 13th month that has 5 days to make up for the “extra” days.  So, in Ethiopia I get to celebrate two of every major holiday.  Two Christmases, two New Year’s, and two Easter’s.  The difference in calendars can be confusing.  When you ask someone for their birthday or when getting dates on receipts it is often confusing.  As if the calendars didn’t make things confusing, I also have to deal with different clocks here in Ethiopia.  Instead of their new day starting at midnight like I am used to their new day starts at 7am.  So if an Ethiopian says a program starts at 1pm you have to ask them “ferenji or habesha time” to know if you should show up at 1pm or 7pm according to your clock.  So confusing!

Anywhoo, we had a lot of fun celebrating New Year’s.  We went for brunch at the Tiatia’s house and then we had dinner at the BCI foster home at 4pm.  Ethiopians really put a lot into their holidays.  I love that they are so rich in culture.  One of the coolest ways that they celebrate is that boys go around from house to house singing for money (kind of like trick-or-treating).  It was cool to see and hear singing everywhere we went.

The New Year was really special because it was our first holiday as a new family.  It was cool to look back at this time last year and see how much our lives have changed (which it pretty much changed in every way).

But after all of the celebrations and good times Mussie and I ended our night with how I have ended every September 11th since September 11, 2001.  A few weeks after September 11th CNN was selling DVDs called “America Remembers”.  I bought one of them and every September 11th since I have watched it.  I never want to forget that day.  Not in a morbid way but as a small way to keep the memory of those victims alive.

I remember that day like it was yesterday.  I lived in the Baltimore area and my mom and step-dad lived about 20 mins outside of DC in Maryland.  I remember getting ready for class that morning and seeing on TV that the first plane hit.  Like most everyone else, thinking it was an accident, I went to school and then heard about the second plane.  My mom worked a few miles from the pentagon and my step-dad worked in DC so sheer panic set in.  I couldn’t reach them on the phone right away because the phone systems were completely overwhelmed.  I didn’t know what to do with myself so I started driving to work only to realize that I would be heading in the direction of Camp David so I turned around and went home.

It was cool to watch the DVD with Mussie last night because I was able to tell him about the experiences of that day, weeks, and months to follow.  It was also cool to hear how the Ethiopian people reacted to the news.  They were celebrating New Year’s and around 4pm the word started to spread that America was attacked.  He said that their New Year’s pretty much came to a halt while most Ethiopians spent the rest of the evening watching the news and praying for America.

September 11th is now a weird day for me.  A day of New Year’s celebrations and a day of rememberance for the loss of innocence that hit my home country.