Happy Easter! Confession: I totally have a love/hate relationship with the Ethiopian calendar system. How do you coordinate things when people are using different calendar systems? The question, “In yours or mine?” always comes up and has caused quite a bit of confusion. BUT one thing that I love about using a different calendar system is that we get to celebrate most holidays TWICE!!!! :) Once firenji (foreigner) style and once Ethiopian style.
While most of the world celebrated the resurrection of our King just over a month ago, Ethiopians celebrated this Sunday (May 5th). We celebrated by going to church and listening to a sermon from Luke 24. Then we rested for an hour before the festivities began. As like most holidays, the Ethiopians that live on the compound invited us to their homes as a part of their extended family for food and fellowship. They usually work out a schedule for us as we do a ‘progressive dinner.’ The only catch to this ‘progressive dinner’ is that you eat FULL meals at each stop along the way! We ate at 3 different homes covering a total of 5.5 hours, 6 rolls of injera with doro wat (spicy chicken stew) and 3 cups of coffee. I can usually barely finish 2 rolls of injera, but every holiday the Lord seems to expand my stomach so won’t offend our hosts. It is fun to be apart of the body of Christ.
When Bryan and I got home we were stuffed to the gills, but as my family always says “There is always room for dessert!” Ethiopians don’t eat very many sweet things, so we finished our Easter celebration with an sponge cake covered in fresh strawberries and whipping cream at home!
While most of the world celebrated the resurrection of our King just over a month ago, Ethiopians celebrated this Sunday (May 5th). We celebrated by going to church and listening to a sermon from Luke 24. Then we rested for an hour before the festivities began. As like most holidays, the Ethiopians that live on the compound invited us to their homes as a part of their extended family for food and fellowship. They usually work out a schedule for us as we do a ‘progressive dinner.’ The only catch to this ‘progressive dinner’ is that you eat FULL meals at each stop along the way! We ate at 3 different homes covering a total of 5.5 hours, 6 rolls of injera with doro wat (spicy chicken stew) and 3 cups of coffee. I can usually barely finish 2 rolls of injera, but every holiday the Lord seems to expand my stomach so won’t offend our hosts. It is fun to be apart of the body of Christ.
When Bryan and I got home we were stuffed to the gills, but as my family always says “There is always room for dessert!” Ethiopians don’t eat very many sweet things, so we finished our Easter celebration with an sponge cake covered in fresh strawberries and whipping cream at home!
