Originally, Tigist told us to meet her at the corner of the Holy City Center at 9:15 so that we could be there on time. This morning a little before 9:00 she called me and told her she had a few errands to run beforehand so meet there at 9:30 instead. Millie and I arrived there on time, and usually Tigist is just a few minutes after that, which isn't a big deal. We don't mind waiting! We were starting to get worried though because it wasn't until about 9:50 that Tigist got there! Her errands ran slightly longer than she planned! We were only a tad late to church, but others still arrived after us and here it's totally okay if you show up to things late. Everyone's joke here is Ethiopian time is about a half hour later than normal time. If you tell someone to come at 10, they'll show up at 10:30 at the earliest! They could be up to over and hour later! But that's okay! They're just functioning on Ethiopian time! :) Everyone says that forengi (foreigners) have to patient when they travel here because in most countries, people show up on time to everything if not early. Not here! :)
The actual Confirmation itself was only a few minutes. All the students that were receiving it gathered on the stage, the preacher said some words to them all for a little while, everyone raised their hands in the air (many faiths do this), we all prayed for them, and then the students sat back down and that was it!
The service was totally different from anything I've ever been to. There was a lot of singing, shouting, crying, and so much more! Before coming here, I've never seen people cry in church! (Other than during a wedding or funeral.) It's so different. People at the International Evangelical Church cry! I'm not used to it! I don't understand it either! Even though everything was in Amharic, I could still understand some things. They said ameseginalehugn a lot, which is "thank you," so I figured every time they said that, they were thanking God. (Pronounciation: ama segin ah lun, but a lot of people also say it like: ama segin ah doe, so I'm not quite sure.) Also, I could tell where we were all saying a prayer together because the preacher would get real quiet, everyone would bow their heads, and the whole room would be silent.
Some things really threw me off though. When we first got there, the choir was singing a song, and everyone in the congregation was singing along. I heard some extra sounds that didn't really sound like it was part of the song. After looking around and after a couple minutes, I figured out what the noise was! So many people make a loud lulululululu! sound whenever they want! It's extremely loud, but that's just what they do! So many people do it, and it really does sound pretty cool, but it really threw me off during the service. Honestly, I'm used to a quiet, reserved, and peaceful environment during church, not loud singing, a preacher that almost shouts while speaking, and everyone in the congregation going lululululululu! and dancing while singing. I mean don't get me wrong, I loved it so much! It's just not what I'm used to. I really enjoyed going to the service this morning. I was very curious what some of the religions do as church services here, and I finally got the opportunity to experience one of them! How great?!
Something else that was different from my church was the service lasts over 2 hours! We arrived there around 10 am and the service didn't end until a little before 12:30! Tigist was originally going to pick us up at 9:15, which means we would have gotten there before 9:30, so I'm really curious what time it really starts. That would make for a long service holy moly!
I really enjoyed going to it this morning though. I got to see Tigist's daughters for the second time which was really cool and I got to hug them too! It was so sweet! Also, I got to meet her husband as well! I only got to shake his hand and introduce myself because he was in a hurry to go somewhere. It was still really neat to finally meet her whole family. Tigist said that sometime this week or weekend she'll have Millie and I over to her house just to see it and see what a house here looks like! We've only been to Andreas' house here so far, and he lives on a compound, so it's a little different from Tigist's house. I can't wait!!! :)
The rest of the day was relaxing. I did some reading and Millie and I cooked up some lunch! We had tomato soup, bread with some really tasty spices, and watermelon! Yumm!!! Later we decided to make some cookies again for the staff for our Monday Morning Meeting! I didn't take any pictures of these because we're not quite done with them. We used marshmallows, chocolate, butter, and oatmeal. We rolled them into balls, then flattened them a little bit. Because of the marshmallows and chocolate, they're very sweet, so in the morning we'll put bananas cut in slices on top! I'll make sure to take a picture of the final product and post it tomorrow! I didn't take any pictures today, so sorry about that! I didn't have anything to take pictures of! I couldn't take a picture of the church because we arrived late and that would be kind of rude to take a picture during the service. Afterwards, I didn't have any time and there were so many people so I couldn't have gotten a good picture because I am slightly on the short side... Oh well! Sorry! I'll have pictures tomorrow!
Just for Dad though. I just remembered I have pictures of Dr. Jean, Tigist, Asebe, and Lei so that you can now put faces to their names!
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| Asebe |
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| Dr. Jean |
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| Tigist |
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| Dr. Lei I'll try to get a better picture, but this was all I had for now |
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| The one on the right was the first one to open up |
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| Aren't they beautiful? |
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