I visited a small church in a remote town called Chambe in southwest Ethiopia in March. This choir was composed of more than half of the church. Beautiful music, enjoy!
Millions of people speak the Guji dialect of the Oromo language of Ethiopia. A translation of the New Testament was completed recently, and the translation team continues to work on a translation of the Old Testament.
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As far as I know, most of my ancestors came from Ireland, Scotland and England, a few came from various countries in mainland Europe, and some in my family also believe that we have a few native Americans amongst our ancestors. The Christian heritage of my family, at least people who would identify themselves by the name of Christian, seems to go back at least a few hundred years.
In Acts 16, the Bible records Paul’s Macedonian call, which probably was the beginning of the spread of the gospel in Europe. In Europe, Christianity eventually reached all the way to Ireland and Britain and became established by the third and fourth centuries. Sometime after that, I imagine that one of my ancestors became part of the church.
When I think of the Christian heritage of Europe, I can think of how old it is. I was reminded again on my trip to Ethiopia that Europe is not the only place outside the Middle East with an old Christianity, and it isn’t the only place for which the Bible records early evangelism. Africa also has ancient Christian roots. Christians in Ethiopia have a Christian heritage going back more than 1500 years.
Before Paul is called to Macedonia, in Acts 8 Philip meets an Ethiopian eunuch who becomes a follower of Jesus. Many believe this was part of the beginnings of the spread of Christianity in Africa.
Christianity became established in the ancient Ethiopian Aksumite Kingdom by the fourth century and has remained strong ever since. A unique attraction in the northern part of Ethiopia is rock-hewn churches from the 12-century. They can still be visited and are one example of the archeological testimony of the longevity of Christianity in Ethiopia.
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Why do I always think, Surely we must all… (you fill in the blank).
I’m always amazed that things I think are standardized rarely are. The list in my head of what everybody does keeps getting smaller. There is always another way to do it.
I just came back from 10 days in Ethiopia, a place I’ve been to before that I always enjoy.
Ethiopia does several things differently from other places. The one that caught me on this trip was time. Yes, they tell time in a different way than I do. Yonathan and Tizita, my hosts for part of my trip, laughed when this came up in discussion as I just sat there…caught again. Really…you tell time…wait… really? That’s so different! I love these moments, and I laugh at myself that I still get shocked by them.
In Ethiopia the clock is six hours different from my clock. At 6am my time, it’s 12am in Ethiopia. Seven in the morning for me, marks the beginning of the first hour of the day on the Ethiopian clock. To figure out Ethiopian time, I just subtract six from my clock.
The Ethiopian time system reflects what is used in the New Testament of the Bible. While newer English Bible translations have changed the times of day to reflect the modern western clock, older ones, like the KJV, will show you the original time references. Take a look at these two examples:
While most western countries follow the Gregorian calendar, Ethiopia also uses its own calendar which is more like the Coptic and Julian calendars. Their calendar began in a different year than the Gregorian calendar, it uses different months, and has a different first day.
It has twelve 30-day months and one month of five or six days (for leap year). New Year’s Day in Ethiopia is September 11 on the Gregorian calendar, and it’s currently the year 2003 in Ethiopia, while for me…its 2011.
And, if that’s not different enough for you … they also use a different script. I loved getting this bottle of Pepsi and seeing Pepsi written out in Amharic script. The Amharic alphabet has over 100 different letters.
I wonder if they have a song for their alphabet like we do for English. I imagine that it would have to have a few more verses!
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One part of traveling that I enjoy is trying new food. While I was in El Salvador, I tried a traditional Salvadorian dish called pupusas–yummy. It’s like a stuffed corn tortilla. From what I saw it comes in three varieties: cheese (queso fresco); cheese and beans; and cheese, beans and beef. The last one was my favorite.
We went out for them twice, and the first time we ate them was at a Mister Donut. It was the fanciest Mister Donut I’ve seen with a multiple page menu that included not only doughnuts but also breakfast, lunch and dinner meals including a selection of traditional Salvadorian foods.
The pupusas and the Salvadorian horchata I had there were great.
Towards the end of my time in El Salvador, we took a trip to a pupuseria. Take a look at the video below to see how pupusas are made.
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Africa has a wide-range of foods, and South Africa also has its own collection of unique recipes. A couple that we’ve come to enjoy here are bobotie and yellow rice served with spicy chili chutney. We enjoyed it at some people’s homes, and this weekend we made it ourselves for the second time. Bobotie is like meat loaf but with more flavor variations. The yellow rice you make to go with it is sweeter than the yellow rice we used to eat at home. Both are delicious.
Try them. You might like them!
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Helping people use and actively engage with Scriptures is an essential part of Wycliffe’s ministry. However, Wycliffe is not the only organization that is passionate about and involved in Scripture engagement. Some friends of ours in Nairobi just produced a video about how some AIM (Africa Inland Mission) staff are helping the shepherds of Lesotho engage with God’s Word.
Lesotho [lih-SOO-too] is a small, land-locked and mountainous country located in the south eastern part of South Africa. It is not part of South Africa, but an independent country of about 2 million people. At least five languages are spoken there. Wool is one of it’s exports, and boys can be set apart to be tend flocks of sheep from a very young age.
While Lesotho has a high literacy rate, shepherds have a strong oral culture and many are not literate. AIM staff are helping some shepherds learn to read and write which gives them access to God’s word in their language. Staff are also hoping to launch a Bible school which will transmit all of its teaching and Scripture orally and through audio. This will allow shepherds to engage with God’s word and learn to teach others about God’s Word without having to learn to read.
Learn more about orality and ministry to peoples from oral cultures.
Learn more about Scripture engagement ministry.
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I love to observe how other people do things, and when I travel I so often see things that make think, huh, I would have never thought of doing it that way. One of those observations in Singapore was how they hang clothes.
The city is full of high-rise apartment buildings, and outside of many of the windows are bamboo poles with clothes hung on them. They use a different sort of clothes pin (it’s more like a clothes clamp) that wraps around the bamboo pole. With the prevalence of bamboo in that part of the world, why use rope? Bamboo rods offer a more practical approach to getting your clothes dry.
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Photo by Norm Quisumbing
Singapore’s food reflects its mix of cultures–Chinese, Indian, Malay, European. A couple of friends that Jeff and I used to work with in Orlando now live in Singapore. They invited me and another friend for Sunday lunch at a hawker food center where I was able to try a few local favorites. The center is full of different food vendors who each generally specialize in one type of food. Not only are there lots of good options for food, but they are all pretty cheap: $2-$3 for a meal.
I tried some fried noodles topped with fish and sea morning glory (a green leafy vegetable), chwee kueh (that’s the white stuff topped with what I think was fried radish?), and some carrot cake which in Singapore is essentially deep fried chwee kueh. They were all good.
My food experiences in Singapore also included a noodle stew with some Heavenly Tea at a local mall food court, and a brief visit to the restaurant in Singapore’s IKEA with some friends. We had to order the standard: Swedish meatballs. Mmmmm.
I did some grocery store tourism like Jeff and I often do in new places. In the midst of all the different kinds of noodles, rices and teas that I would expect to find, I found a package of Spicy Nacho flavored Doritos in the snack aisle to take home to Jeff. They survived the plane ride and have been a good treat to have at home.
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In view of the Hillbrow Tower in downtown Johannesburg is the Ellis Park Stadium, home of the Lions rugby team. We went there on an outing with some Wycliffe colleagues. One of them had received some free tickets that they shared with the group. This was our first time attending a rugby game.
The Lions were playing the Bulls, and red and blue team flags were waving all around the stadium. Rugby is very popular in South Africa. We saw Invictus earlier this year–a movie set just after the end of aparthied that featured the Springboks, the South African national rugby team. The final game of the 1995 Rugby World Cup featured in that movie was played in this stadium.
Rugby is an intense game with regular scoring and constant action. Between the swift tackling (with no protective pads!) and the occasional altercations, sometimes it looked brutal. The game consists of two 40-minute halves. Unlike in American football, there is no break after a tackle; the play just continues until someone scores, the ball goes out of bounds or there is some infraction. Rugby is played in several other African countries including Kenya.
Overall, we quite enjoyed our first experience with South African rugby.
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From Kenya to South Africa to Ghana to Czech Republic to Germany–we’ve seen World Cup fever everywhere! This was our first time to really experience World Cup excitement. I don’t remember it being a very big deal at home. So many people everywhere else we’ve been these last few months were into it that we both found ourselves checking the scores and watching some parts of games.
We were in South Africa in late February during the lead up to the games and saw two of the game venues (Soccer City in Soweto and Green Point Stadium in Cape Town). Preparations for the World Cup were still in full swing and many shops were already full of World Cup souvenirs.
I was in Ghana during the first week of the World Cup. A street was blocked off downtown for a screen and projector set up for game viewing. While I waited at the Accra, Ghana airport for my flight back to Kenya, the England vs. USA match was on. Everyone cheered every time a goal was scored.
In Austria at the meetings we attended there, we both saw some of the Germany vs. Ghana game at Schloss Klaus. Nearly everyone in the castle was watching the game…and cheering for Germany.
We saw World Cup fans in Prague watching the South Korea vs. Uruguay game on two large screens set up in the middle of Old Town Square. In addition to this viewing, many restaurants also had TVs for game viewing.
A highlight of this World Cup for us was being in Berlin the day the German soccer team beat England. We were there after our meetings in Austria and after a brief visit in Czech Republic.
Wow, the city was alive. We’ve never seen so many people so psyched about winning a soccer game. We were just walking around town, but we could hear people in their homes, at restaurants and at other viewing points cheer every time Germany scored. We enjoyed being part of their celebrations.
Congratulations to Spain for winning the tournament!
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