That’s right, I finally graduated from Youth With A Mission’s Discipleship Training School in Ternopil, Ukraine! Wahooooo!!! We had agreat last week debriefing what we have learned from DTS and what we will be doing in the coming months.

The graduation ceremony was held at a restaurant that overlooks the Ternopil lake. It was naturally a dress up occasion which meant I had to wear make-up and look nice. :p

I hate make-up!!

Each outreach team, (Ukraine, Ethiopia and India) shared about their time together and showed pictures for all the family and friends that came.  We ate a yummy meal that seemed to come in spurts between the presentations.

Ukraine team

India team

Ethiopia team

Everybody!

After the presentations were made, we finally were presented with our certificates of completion! And then a million photos were taken.

I've got it!! I finally got it!

It was such a great time to spend together before everyone left for their homes. Many students left that night, so it was time well spent together!

For the first time in my life, I got to wear a skirt and T-shirt on my birthday with out having goosebumps! I loved it, now I know what it is like to have a birthday in the summer. I’m envious.

The day started with finding the shower full of balloons and little cut-out flowers all over the bathroom mirror. The cut out happy birthday and taped it to the wall for me. I love my team!

One of these letters just doesn't belong...

The boys made me a yummy breakfast and everyone had a little gift for me. I felt so loved! We left to have lunch with our favorite Ethiopian friends. They took us out and introduced us to a traditional Ethiopian dish called kitfo. Sounds exotic huh? It’s raw ox meat.

Ahhh, I'm about to eat raw meat!

Yep, just a big ol slab on a big silver platter. There is a little bit of spicy sauce to go with it, but that’s all. I like to do something a little crazy on my birthday so yes, I did eat some. I could not pull myself to eat a lot since we were leaving the next day and the thought of sitting on a toilet at 30000 feet for 5 hours did not appeal to me. 

After eating kitfo, we went to a cafe for tea. Here, they all said a blessing for me, prayed for me, and gave me some Ethiopian chocolate.

We went home, had dinner together, and then my team surprised me with apple strudel from a German bakery!! Who knew there would be a German bakery in Ethiopia! They also blessed me and prayed for me again. A massage from Marichka ended the night. I could not have asked for a better birthday!

What was church like in Ethiopia?

Hot, loud, crowded, fun, loud, athletic, stinky, very loud, interactive, alive, passionate, and loud.

That pretty much describes the majority of churches in Ethiopia. We attended an international church on Sunday mornings and a true Ethiopian church on Sunday and Friday nights.

How we got connected to the Ethiopian church is kinda funny. On Ruslan’s birthday, Marichka took him to the center and they went walking around. They heard some loud music and thought they would check it out. They walked into a church, listened for a little bit and left thinking they would have to come back next week. When we did come back the church was so welcoming, they sat us up in the front, gave us a translator, met with us after the service and asked if they could take us out to dinner the next day. This was all before they really knew our names.

Once we got to know them, we found out the went evangelizing on Fridays before church. We joined with them in this and continued to get to know them. The people there became some of our closest friends in Ethiopia.

Marichka loves her coffee, and me... not so much.

Lounging for a coffee ceremony

We had coffee ceremony with them, they helped celebrate my birthday, they did hair for some, and we went to a lot of cafes together. They were so happy to have us there, they had never had any foreigners come to their church before.

Our last week in Ethiopia we invited them to our place for dinner. We made Ukrainian food, Moldovan food, and I made fried chicken!

It was a fun experience for everyone. We played some games afterwards and spent a lot of time fellowshipping. We always had fun with our friends!

Besides working at Mother Theresa’s home, we also worked with an organization called Hope Enterprise.

How should I describe Hope Enterprise…? Hmmmm, well it took a while to find the place. We called the number we had, but no one seemed to answer. I had an approximate address (I say approximate because they don’t have street addresses in Ethiopia.) We wandered around for awhile until we found them, walked in and just asked if we could help out. It turned out to be a great place, and I am so glad we found them!

They give free lunches to the hungry 6 days a week. They also help build schools, provide school supplies and food. They live up to their name and make sure that they are providing hope to those who need it.

As a team, we divided into two groups. Half of us worked on the women’s side, the others with the men’s side. Lunchtime is a crazy time. The men’s building was the busiest. In one day, approximately 700 men come through to eat in an hour and a half. 

Let’s do some math. How many seconds are there in an hour and a half? 5,400 How many men did I say come through? 700 So how long did each man have to eat his meal? About 7.5 seconds How long did we have to put the food on the plate? Does it even matter at this point? People were flying on the men’s side!

This is how it went. We arrive early, are told to wait for a little bit, no problem, we have to trek up a busy hill in the hot sun to get there. Once they are ready, we put our bags under a desk, hurry down  the stairs to the feeding center, put on aprons, grab some injera, fold in half, then 1/3, and 1/3 again to make a little triangle.

A mountain of injera!

Stack it on a flat woven plate and repeat about 700 times. We start putting the injera onto plates and then stack up the plates, the men start to come through, they give a little token, take their plate, wash their hands, sit down and wait for their wat, we come by and give them two scoops of wat (soupy sauce stuff made with lentils.) When over half the men have finished their plates, we move them out, give a quick wipe down of the tables and the next bunch of men come through and the whole thing repeats, after we wash all the dishes of course. And the whole time this is going on, we’re still folding injera. 

The women’s side is a different story. The women’s building is about a 15 minute walk from the men’s. It is down a quiet lane, with flowers all planted around the dining area. It is much more relaxed here. When we come, they offer tea and bread and we chat for a bit. The injera is already folded so we basically just wait until there are enough women. Only about 200 women come through, not including any children they bring. Once we have a large crowd of women, we begin passing out the injera and wat. It is much louder here since the noise is made up of chatting women, playful kids, and crying babies.

I love injera!

Last group through

I always loved working here since everyone was so friendly and happy. We wash dishes together once everyone has left and then sometimes we have more tea, bread, and conversation.

I had the great privilege of celebrating 2 Christmases, New Years, and the Ethiopian holiday Timkut while we were in Ethiopia, it was almost like Christmas everyday. We arrived in Ethiopia on the 22nd so Christmas was not that far away.

Holiday #1: Christmas

Christmas time was here and it was a little different for me being with a team of people who celebrate Christmas on January 7th. My Christmas is normally so filled with family you barely notice Christmas has come and gone sometimes. This year, I had no family.

Just me surrounded by great friends who…

don’t celebrate Christmas the same day I do. I was dreaming that I would be home Christmas.

We decided to still have a big meal and do a small gift exchange. We invited the German missionaries that we lived with for dinner and they graciously accepted. The menu consisted of meat (we love our meat,) stuffed peppers, boiled potatoes, bread, green beans, and belinchiki (basically crepes.) I managed to make a yummy gravy which was a big hit. We chatted about what everyone does on Christmas and ate until we were busting at the seams. The gift exchange ensued after we cleared the table. Yulia brought some corn for popping and we ended the night with a movie. Christmas here was certainly green and bright! 

Holiday #2 New Years

This was a fun time. For whatever reason my team thought it would be fun to have a fruit party. I did not understand this at first, but apparently we had to pick a fruit, dress up like it, and create a game to use the fruit. Kinda strange, but it was fun.

Mmmm, meat!

I chose an avocado since not too many people on my team had eaten them before. I got caught up in cooking dinner and did not have time to go out and find some so I asked Ruslan to buy me 6. Seems simple to someone like me who has bought avocados before. Ruslan came back with 6 bright green avocados. I had to revamp my game real quick. I basically did the relay with an egg on a spoon but substituted the egg for an avocado. We had a watermelon eating contest, race to peel a mango, and conversation starters with bananas.

We ended our time with communion and sparklers. Ethiopia’s New Years is in September so nothing special happened in the rest of the country.

You can see our Christmas tree up in the background!

Holiday #3 Orthodox Christmas

This was my first time celebrating an Orthodox Christmas. Nothing really different except for the day. We had almost the same menu as before but we had mashed potatoes, shashlik (kebobs), and fruit salad.

The highlight of the night was dessert, I got to teach my team how to make smores! Yulia had found some marshmallows when we were in Turkey so she had saved them this whole time until we had built the firepit and could properly roast them. At first they were trying to use skewers, then I cut down a branch from a tree and showed them the real way to roast a marshmallow.

I pulled out some crackers and we all shared chocolate to make as close to smores as we could. They all loved them and I was happy to have something that reminded me of home. We did our main celebrating on Thursday night and then on Christmas day we went to church where there was lots of dancing and singing. On our way to church, low and behold, here comes Santa Claus walking down the street. He was there mostly for the tourists, but it made me laugh! I think we had ourselves a merry little Christmas.

Holiday#4 Timkut

This holiday is supposed commemorate the day Jesus was baptized. This is THE biggest holiday in Ethiopia by far. People all dressed up in white and went singing down the street; there were parades everywhere. Streamers were hung over the streets, the majority of places were closed. We had a great time simply walking around and watching the celebration.

P.S. Did anyone notice how many different Christmas song lyrics I used in this post? Yes there are references to Christmas song. Can’t guarantee a prize, but you can always have bragging rights!