Greetings from Ethiopia! I have been here for a week with a student from Johannelund. She was my former student who wrote her bachelor’s thesis and did an excellent job. She joined me for the Society of Biblical Literature conference in Helsinki in August, and that didn’t scare her away from traveling with me to Ethiopia. Actually, we are rather good travel partners, and she is a good conversationalist, with plenty of laughter to help us cope with the ambiguities of international travel.
I am teaching a 2-week intensive course on the Pentateuch at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology (EGST). She is also taking a Pentateuch course at Johannelund that engages the lessons with the 5 other students at EGST.
We are staying in the former Norwegian Lutheran Mission guesthouse close to Mekane Yesus Seminary about 1.7 miles away. It is a simple guesthouse with touches of rustic cabin. However, we do have electricity most of the time, and therefore, both hot and cold water. The best part is a patio that looks out to a small river. Only flowering plants and a few rusting clothesline racks stand between us and the river. The mornings have consisted of reading for the course in the sun or shade on the patio. There are quite a few birds to distract us, and fortunately I brought along some travel binoculars, and there is an East African bird book in the guesthouse.
There is no WIFI at the guesthouse, so we only have Internet access when we are on the EGST campus.
The weather reaches to the high 70s with a relentless sun during the afternoons. At 7,700 foot elevations, the evening temperatures dip into the 40s, which is chilly without any central heating—or any heating! However, the altitude means that there is little risk of malaria.
The lessons have been good with some engaging discussions, but I am having to ramp up my undergraduate Pentateuch material to a graduate level, with enough content for 3 hours of lessons each night. I’m also reading a new textbook for the course, so that is taking time (but fortunately, a lot of the reading is done on the porch in lovely weather.) After being in Sweden where academic lessons are required by law to be non-confessional and “scientific,” here the lessons are wonderfully holistic and clearly geared to equip leaders for ministry in the church. (Mekane Yesus is the largest Lutheran church in the world, but not the largest Protestant denomination in Ethiopia!)
Ethiopia is not only the origin of coffee, it has one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, with the Ethiopian Orthodox church beginning in the 400s AD. Today, we were able to observe an amazing parade to celebrate the baptism of Jesus in the Orthodox calendar. According to one of my students, this celebration is considered a UNESCO World Heritage cultural event. (We hope to confirm this, but we don’t have WIFI. It is really strange to see how we have become so adapted to having information available in our hands whenever we want to ask a question.)
We knew that the parade would be today, but we didn’t know when. We started the day doing our laundry by hand, and after a simple lunch, we started walking. Last Sunday, a former student colleague from my PhD program in Norway (now the General Secretary of the Mekane Yesus church) gave us a tour around and said that the parade would come down a street by our house, but we didn’t know when. So, we started out and decided to follow the people walking who were dressed up in traditional Ethiopian clothing. We got to an area not too far from the EGST campus and realized that we were providentially in the right place! We saw perhaps a couple thousand singing and dancing in front of and after a rolling “tabernacle” or canopy, under which walked what must be the patriarchs of the Orthodox church. There were amazing embroidered vestments, clothes, umbrellas, and draperies. The singing was filled with energy, punctuated by the booming beats of huge drums. We were fortunate to have moved to a place that ended up to be in the front row of the parade. Some special aspects were that the marchers all walked over long red carpet pieces. When they passed, a team of young men would roll up the carpet, and two would carry it on their shoulder, jogging to the front of the parade in the high 70s heat. The red carpet pieces leap frogged ahead of the rolling canopy.
As the canopy passed, a few women would bow down and kiss the ground, or they would kiss their fingers and then press their fingers to the ground. The parade had a sense of celebration, but also a sense of peaceful gathering. It seemed that there was awareness of us white people, and a few gave us greetings, but I never sensed that we were in a crowd where we would have to be diligent to avoid pickpockets or other opportunistic malfeasance.
From my previous trip, I knew of a restaurant close by, so as the parade passed, we had an early dinner. We were amazed how providential our timing was, and how the little things—like knowing where a good restaurant was and which was not so busy in spite of a parade close by—came together so beautifully for the day. I’m sensing that my dad’s prayers are availing much!
With blessings,
Beth