Day 6: Easter (Fasika)

Day 6 - Easter (Fasika)

I woke to a light tapping at our door. I had asked the manager to wake me up to help with the sheep. This was my 3rd time to be a part of helping to prepare an animal for a feast in Ethiopia. I am always amazed how efficient the process is but I learned today that this efficiency is really dominated by the lower class here. Meat is so sacred and seldom, that it truly is a gift and celebration. The killing was very quick and was proceeded by a prayer and Thanksgiving for the animal's sacrifice.

After things had been cleaned up a bit, I invited the kids to visit the scene. The reaction was very limited and met more with curiosity than disgust. Most of them found it really cool to see the different body parts (heart, liver, stomach). It was quite a non-event, although I'm not sure what I expected.

We got dressed and headed to church. It was an international church that was in Amharic but always translated into English. There was a rock band and lights very similar to our praise services. The service was 2.5 hours long with about 2/3 of that singing. A sermon and communion concluded the service. The energy was very high and it was quite an amazing experience. The Lord was moving in the congregation in a very strong way. I will try to post some videos when I get home. The kids got pretty exhausted by the end since we were standing most of the time.

Streets are filled with stacks of hides. Roughly 2/3 hides and 1/3 live animals now...

We immediately headed to our driver's inlaws for a "pre-feast". The hospitality was amazing although they kept trying to feed us as if we had been fasting with them over the past 40+ days. We kept having to graciously deny 2nds and 3rds since we had been eating heavy all week long!

On to Yoftahe's parent's house... Again, our hosts were amazing and the tables were filled with food and drink. We hung out until the evening as we still had to pack and prepare for our journey home. Our hosts graciously understood our need to depart early... I think they were in the early innings of the celebration when we left.

Back to the guest house to pack. The kids wrestled, played hide and seek and jumped on the trampoline some more.

Laughter is truly a universal language. While in some of the slower moments without activity, there have been some small quiet language barriers; overall, our time together as a family has been universally filled with smiles, play, laughter and love.

Oh yeah.... getting 6 riled up kids to go to sleep in one room is HARD.

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