Sunday Church

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I ran into Zelalem walking home from work one day. He was with an American who is helping his father start a coffee business here in Ethiopia, (his father is gone, only he is here). We got to talking, he is actually from San Fran, and now he is pretty much our 3rd Amigo. In honor of this I will call him Little Neddy Neddenlander…Three Amigos, Martin Short’s character. Anyways, his family somehow knows Zelalem and he has been helping them with translation and paying fair prices instead of Ferenji-fied prices. Neddy suggested we go to Zelalem’s church for the experience and I was totally down.

That Sunday we went to the church. Like all homes in Ethiopia it was behind a metal gate, but this one had big red crosses on it. The church was modest, maybe 50ft from entrance to pulpit, brick, tin roof with exposed metal support. There was a pastor, stage left was the choir in yellow robes, two men, two women. Slightly behind the pastor and to his right were three lady singers in black robes. Stage right was a guy on the keyboard. Behind the pastor was a large blue poster with a shinning cross on it. The cross had a red sash drapped over it and a crown of thorns. Four Amharic letters were written across the poster. When we entered they were singing some sort of upbeat praise song. Neddy mentioned that there had been some fairly recent violent conflict with Muslims over practicing Christianity.

We stood like most for the song. Women would occasionally make that noise that sounds like “la-la-la-la” only high pitched and in rapid succession. I always associated that noise with Arabic peoples. The song ended, we sat, the pastor said a couple words, we broke into song again. This time one of the ministrels in black took the mic. She looked young, fairly cute, and she rocked it. Everyone was up and dancing, the most animated the crowd was for the whole day. The service continued like this, song, quick preach, song, quick preach for maybe 45 minutes. I think the church took a page from the George Clinton playbook, all of the songs were 8 minute jams that probably could’ve been 3 minutes. Like Flashlight, yeah it’s a great song, but 8 minutes is a bit much.

The pastor, who was dressed in regular clothes, trousers, button up shirt, jacket, turned out to not be the pastor, three different guys served the duties. One guy did the introductions, one read passionately from the Bible, and one was their stereotypical preacher. The actual pastor was evidently away. Services progressed. Zelalem found us and sat next to us with his youngest son who was maybe 5, not Temesgen our data collector. Families with newborns were asked to come up and be blessed. Only one family came up and I think the guy made a joke of there only being 1 family. Next all the kids came up, received some sort of blessing, then left through the side door for what I assume was some sort of Sunday school.

We, in the church then got our sermon. Zelalem tried to explain what he was saying. I wasn’t really following along. At one point the preacher got a big laugh and Zelalem translated the story for us. Mom and dad you can tell Rabbis Frank and Brown they can use this one at no cost…
A man is on his way to buy a goat. He sees a friend who asks him where he is going. “I am on my way to buy a goat,” the man replies. “God-willing you will buy your goat then,” says his friend. “What do you mean ‘God-willing’? I have my money, the market is down the street, there are many goats. What does God have to do with it?” When at the market the man is pick-pocketed. His money is stolen and he cant buy his goat. On the way home from the market the man sees another friend. This friend as well asks him where he is going. The man replies, “God-willing, I am going home.”

The kids came back in. Two kids sat in front of us and were mesmerized by our presence. Services eventually ended, I was nearing my limit, it was about 2 hours. We said our goodbyes. Zelalem’s son held my hand the whole time and I was attracting a little bit of a crowd. Neddy was like, “what is it? All the kids are into you.” Neddy’s family actually bought an apartment that was directly across the street from the church and Neddy is overseeing the final stages of construction. We checked out his place, it will be nice when it is done. He has been talking about what a pain it is to get these guys to do their jobs. The place should’ve been done a week ago. Light switches are at random locations and heights. The first fixture installed was the toilet. It will hopefully be done in time for us to have a housewarming party.

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Comments

[bubie]

i thought most church services were about one hour. see you at church god willing. love ya