Church...

So, this week, we didn't go to church, but I'm going to back up and write a bit about church last week.  It was our second time going to church in Addis.  The first time, we went to the International Evangelical Church, which I wrote about earlier.  This time, we wanted to go somewhere more "local" and so we asked Tilehun if we could go with him to church.  He said his church had an English service and so we decided we would go to that.  The first week that we planned to go was the week that "the roads were closed", and so last week was the first opportunity we had to go.  He thought that the English service was at 10:00, so we arranged a driver to come at 9:15.

We made our way to his church, which is called Beza International Church.  The earlier service, in Amharic, was still in progress, and it just went on and on.  Thankfully they had a little coffee stand in front of the church where one could buy snacks and drinks, which helped the time go more quickly.  Eventually, after 11:00, it was time for us to go in to church.  Once again, the kids' patience was largely used up before we got into the building! haha.  Imagine my surprise when the bulletin was passed out and I saw that English church was booked at 11:15!  So it didn't start late, we were just over an hour early.  Again.

Not a great picture but here we all are! You can see we were basically the first ones in the building for the English service.

I was trying to get the Canada Flag, but it's hard to see...

Not a great shot, again, but you get the idea.

Church began with about an hour of very fervent worship.  The songs were in English, and while not familiar, easy enough to sing after the 10th repetition. ;) I would say the congregation was about 80% African and 20% White/Asian/Indian/everything else.  It was a large church, at least 1000 people.  I greatly enjoyed the worship; singing, dancing, jumping, and shouting were all involved.  It was the last Sunday before the Ethiopian New Year, and so everyone was in a very joyful noisy mood.  After the worship, the children were dismissed to their classes.  I had talked with my kids ahead of time, and we had decided they would rather go to class than have to sit through the adult service.  I asked if Faith could stay in the boys' group (age 6) and I stayed with them the whole time.

Sunday school was something else.  It started with a large group session for ages 6+, which we missed most of trying to find our room (which was a large tent in the parking lot).  Then it split into "small groups" based on age.  Our group of six year olds numbered at least 24 students with one leader in his early 20's.  The pulled the benches that had been used as seating in the large group into clusters and tried to engage the kids in some discussion.  Our group, and the two nearest us, were absolute chaos.  The kids were pretty squished on the benches, so of course there was shoving, pushing, etc. The poor leader tried to use humor to engage the kids but they would hardly listen at all.  One little girl repeated climbed all over the leader until he basically restrained her on his lap, and even then she kept trying to interrupt, whether with words or by licking him, etc.  I felt so bad for the leader, as the materials and environment he was trying to work with just weren't doing him any favors.  It was awkward to watch, and I'm sure he felt conspicuous.  I hardly blamed him... this particular group, on this particular day, needed to be summarily marched back to their parents! To handle as they saw fit. ;)

One other comment about this group... Considering they were all supposed to be 6 years old, they were huge!  WAY bigger than Thomas and Bereket, or any of the Ethiopian kids we have met here. The kids were mostly black, but as it was the English service, I wonder if they were expat families from other African countries.   Anyway, that was something interesting that stood out to me...

After Sunday School, we went looking for the rest of the group.  They all said that the sermon had been excellent, if a little long. We decided to go for lunch, as it was 2 pm and we were starving.  The driver suggested Lucy's which is by the National Museum.  We had eaten here our very first week in Ethiopia and enjoyed it, so we agreed.  Everyone enjoyed their lunch, and it was nearly supper time by the time we got home to GT.  The driver lives near Tilehun, so he gave him a ride home.

So anyway, like I said, this week we just stayed home.  We are all kind of feeling under the weather, and just sort of "experienced" out. lol.  I am going to try to go back and blog about the other activities of note from the past week.