Ethiopian Orthodox Church

I often read a blog that updates the current happenings in Ethiopia pretty accurately. And every once in a while they will post a blog pertaining to Ethiopian culture or history and I learn something. So I decided to share this one with you.

Did you know that the Ark of the Covenant was located in the church in Ethiopia at one time? Me neither. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church can trace it's lineage back to the Queen of Sheba. She married King Solomon, of Israel, whom we all know from the Bible, and together, they had Menelik, a son. Menelik, as an adult carried the Ark of the Covenant to and from Jerusalem and the ethiopian church.

Did you know that Ethiopia was mentioned in the Bible, more than once? In Psalms Chapter 68 Verse 31, it states, "Ethiopia will quickly stretch out her hands to God." Other versions say, " Cush will submit herself to God." In the Bible and at different times in the ancient world, a large region covering northern Sudan, modern day southern Egypt, and parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia were known as "Cush". The Hebrew Bible refers to "Cush" on a number of occasions, though various English translations translate this as "Nubian", "Ethiopia", "Sudan", and "Cushite" (Unseth 1999). (source: wikipdia)You remember Zaporiah, Moses' wife, the daughter of Jethro, the Priest of Midian; She and her family were described as being Kushites in Numbers 12:1.

Did you also know these facts? I just learned them.
Ethiopia was among the first nations to have Christian converts.
The church in Ethiopia was officially established in 340 AD.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church followed the leadership of the Egyptian, Coptic Church, until the 20th century when the Emperor Halie Selassie pushed her to greater independence. But then in 1974, Marxist revolutionaries overthrew the bishop and began greatly persecuting Christians in Ethiopia. When that communist government fell in 1991, there was a great division in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Many Ethiopians around the world, still argue over which form of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is better.

Coptic Orthodox Ethiopian Church in Gondar, Ethiopia.


Ethiopian Church in Jerusalem

This Ethiopian icon shows St. George, the Crucifixion, and the Virgin Mary.

Ethiopian Priest, circa 2005

The Church of St. George is a monolithic church in Lalibela. Lalibela is a town in northern Ethiopia. Lalibela is one of Ethiopia's holiest cities, second only to Aksum, and is a center of pilgrimage for much of the country.

The Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion allegedly houses the original Ark of the Covenant.

(pictures source: wikipedia)

water

I just got an email from scott@charityis.org who is in Ethiopia digging a well today, on his 33rd birthday. He has an amazing charity called charity : water. He raises funds to build wells in African villages so that they people can have clean drinking water and water to bathe, clean and cook with. It's amazing how much that can change lives. The people struggle and die everyday simply because they do not have clean water and water is such a necessity to sustain human life. So Scott is providing access to that rare comondity for as many people as he can. Here's what the email said...

"A few hours ago, water came shooting out of the ground from 184 feet deep at the Abenea school in northern Ethiopia. More than 2,000 people looked on and cheered, knowing their kids would soon have clean water to drink.
Please take 2 minutes and watch the drilling video."

It seems like it costs us so little to make a HUGE impact on someone else's life.

Get involved. Make a difference.

This Saddens Me :: Sudanese Troops Attack Darfur Refugee Camp

I go to this site every morning when I get to work, usually to find no new news stories from Africa, but today was different. There were several new articles to read up on. Now, I do get frustrated in the fact that I don't know what is the truth or not and who to trust in a particular conflict. Africa can be very complicated with so many tribes, governments, groups, rebel groups, and countries within it, but I try to make sense of what I read and figure it out for myself and do a little continued research on a subject.

Today, I read this.

And I don't know what to make of it. It seems to me that there are 2 scenarios that may have occur ed in this refugee camp...#1) the government backed military attacked a refugee camp in hopes to rid the camp of illegal weapons or #2) the refugees within the camp fired on some Sudanese military men who retaliated. I don't know where I see truth in these stories, they conflict one another and I don't know what to think. I just know that God knows what REALLY happened and I pray that H"is hand is involved in good and truth and beauty in the lives of those affected that day.

Either way, innocent lives were lost and innocent people were wounded. Why do the Sudanese government need bazookas, rocket-propelled grenades, and machine guns in a refugee camp? The military is supposed to protect its citizens, not be a threat to them.

I don't know what else to do besides pray for the innocence to continue to stay innocent and for safety and God's protection on those He desires to give it to.

And awareness. I am not in a position yet where I can go and make a difference, and maybe I will never be there the way I think, but I can open people's eyes to the happenings on that beautiful continent. So here I go, I tell you what I read,. learn and understand about Africa and I pray that you feel for them as much as I do, because if enough of us know what is going on and desire deeply to do something, amazing things can happen.

So join me.

This Should Not Be :: World Food Programe Aid Worker Killed in Somalia

This should not be.

Abdulkadir Diad Mohamed was only 33 years old and was living his life to help others. He worked in Wajid, Somalia, Africa as an administration and finance assistant for the World Food Program and took a vacation to visit his family back home in Dinsor. But he wouldn't make it back.

He and his driver were abducted and killed as they tried to escape their captors. This is the first violent death of a WFP staff member in Somalia since 1993, according to the organization.

The Red Cross warned earlier this year that Somalia faces the worst famine since the early 1990s. The country's continual armed conflicts in central and southern Somalia have aggravated the situation, hindering people from accessing shelter and medical attention

My friends, this should not be.

Proud to Be a Sudanese-American

This is a man who has seen way too much, and in the end (as of now, but his story still isn't over) his story brings him to Beijing, China to the Olympics; not only that, but he is the single American (only been a citizen for 13 months, by the way) representing our country in the Olympics opening ceremony by carrying our flag. I am proud to be an American, but I am first a citizen of God's Kingdom, before anything else; but I still understand the blessings I have simply being born in this country. And Lopez Lomong understands that all the more.

You see, he grew up in The Sudan, through conflict, war and genocide, and landed in Tully, New York, USA and on to graduate from the University of Arizona after a journey that I can't even imagine. Lopez Lomong was one of 3,800 of The Sudan's Lost Boys. These boys were seperated from their families and everything they had ever known because of the conflict and war they found themselves in the midst of. These boys wandered together throughout the region avoiding everything they could, scraping for food, and simply trying to survive. The older boys took care of the younger and they watched out for one another. For months they wandered and thousands died of hunger, disease or attacks by bandits or wild animals. It is not the childhood that they deserve at all to have.

Lomong is also a member of Team Darfur who are seeking to raise awareness of the violence and genocide in the Darfur region of western Sudan. He wants the world to know what he witnessed first hand.

Regarding the honor of being chosen from among his fellow American Olympians, he said through a USOC statement, "this is the most exciting day ever in my life, I'm here as an ambassador of my country and I will do everything I can to represent my country well."

The Olympics, China, Darfur and Genocide

I heard this Olympian's story on the news this morning while I was straightening my hair. This is the genre of newstory that I perk up, stop and watch...Africa, humanitarianism, philanthropy, genocide, international African relations. I am very interested.

So, there are a group of Olympians, former and present, who have come together to form "Team Darfur". Their goal is to bring awareness to the current Chinese-Sudanese relations, oil interests mainly, because basically, the Chinese are fueling 2 sides of a war, including genocide, and the international community isn't doing enough to stop it. (Here's what I've studied, learned, read, and think about this subject.)

Former Olympic speedskater Joey Cheek, planned a trip to Beijing this week to promote the effort of Team Darfur during the Chinese-hosted World Olympics. He was denied a visa by the Chinese government, the night before leaving on a jet plane. He isn't allowed to go into China and speak encouranging China to help make peace in the war-torn Darfur section on the Sudan. Now, I say that they didn't allow him into the country becauase of his plans to speak against the government's relations with the Sudan, but that's not the reason the Chinese government gave Joey. They claim to have denied his visa and they are not required to give an explanation. But what better explanation for a formally closed country to deny someone acess into their capital city at such a time as hosting the World Olympics than to shield themselves from potential protest in the streets. It just wouldn't look good. And governments don't want to not look good when the whole world is watching. And that's what they're worried about, themselves looking good...not the millions of people dying in Darfur. Their proiorities are screwed up.

But not being able to plant his feet on Chinese soil this week isn't stopping Cheek. He is speaking in the US to as many venues as he can to keep his cause out in the open and in the public eye as they public watches intently the happenings in China this week.

A Mother's Love

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso - After she woke in the dark to sweep city streets, after she walked an hour to buy less than $2 worth of food, after she cooked for two hours in the searing noon heat, Fanta Lingani served her family's only meal of the day. First she set out a bowl of corn mush, seasoned with tree leaves, dried fish and wood ashes, for the 11 smallest children, who tore into it with bare hands. Then she set out a bowl for her husband. Then two bowls for a dozen older children. Then finally, after everyone else had finished, a bowl for herself. She always eats last.

That is what I just read at the beginning of this article, and it got me thinking...

A mother's love is the same, no matter the culture, the language, the time, the circumstances.

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

And these mothers have no choice but to feed their families first. The youngest children are fed, then the older, then her husband, and if there is any left over, she makes a bowl for herself.

Now that's sacrifice.

This is a picture of a little girl who works on her family's vegitable stand, After working hard all day, she is allowed to have an ear of corn.

Inflation :: Off the Charts

Zimbabwe's problems aren't over. In the aftermath of a horrific Presidential race and elections, now the people of Zimbabwe are facing inflation, at a world-record high, even exceeding 20 million percent. For example, for 1 US dollar, you can buy a 4 pound bag of sugar; that is 20 billion Zimbabwe dollars. 20 BILLION. On the black market in the country, the same bag of sugar will sell for 90 billion Zimbabwean dollars, which equals $4.50 in America. Unskilled workers (which most with jobs are considered) make up to 200 billion Zimbabwean dollars annually. That is only 10 US dollars. TEN. per month. And those are the lucky few, who actually have jobs. 80 percent of the country is unemployed. Gas prices are also effecting the people of Zimbabwe. Because the bus fare usually exceed monthly earnings for a single person, that is more than 200 billion Zimbabwe dollars for ONE person to ride the bus; most people walk to where they need to be.

You'd think the world could step in and help.

This Day in History :: Independence Day

June 30: Independence Day in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo (1960)

Awareness Is Key :: Ethiopian War Crimes? American Non-Involvement? I Disagree.

U.S. accused of ignoring Ethiopia war crimes
Satellite images purportedly show destroyed villages near Somalia

Above is a satellite image taken Sept. 26, 2005, of the village of Labigah, Ethiopia. Below is an image taken Feb. 28, 2008, that an analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science says shows 40 structures removed or damaged. The analysis says the gray-white areas are possible evidence of burning.

NAIROBI, Kenya - The United States and other Western governments are ignoring clear evidence of war crimes by Ethiopia, a key U.S. ally that launched a military crackdown on rebels last year, a human rights group said Thursday. Separately, a U.S.-based science group said satellite images confirm reports that villages have been destroyed in the country's Ogaden region.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said America's relationship with Ethiopia means an alliance with a country repeatedly accused of violating human and political rights. In recent years, Ethiopia has become a U.S. partner in the fight against al-Qaida, which has been trying to sink roots in the Horn of Africa.

This makes me so sad. Based on this last statement, it looks like to me that the US government cares more about its own war on terrorism than it cares for people (how is that possible, you say? I have no clue.). The Ethiopian people have enough to deal with on their own, more than they can handle alone really. We need to make sure that they are cared for and I don't think that America is doing enough with the abundance of resources that we have avaliable to us.  I don't know what I can do to change this.  I want to make a difference, besides awareness, I don't know what to do.  I am just me.

Their Ruby Red Slippers

The Final Word: For former orphans, there’s no place like home

By Craig Wilson, USA TODAY

Her name is Alemteshay, Amharic for “light of the world.” She’s 3, although her exact birth date isn’t known, because both her parents are dead. Casualties of AIDS.
I met her this month poolside at the Hilton hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Alemteshay is HIV-positive and deaf, and she has survived tuberculosis. But nothing seems to slow her down. She was fearless, jumping into the pool as if she knew how to swim. She does not. If nothing else, she’s a testament to the human spirit.
She was waiting to head home with her American mom. Back in Colorado were her new father and five siblings, two of them Ethiopians who had made a similar journey.
Like them, Alemteshay had been in an orphanage. She made the transition from her spartan surroundings to the Hilton pool, however, with little problem. Her new pink sneakers — the kind that flicker and blink when she danced — also helped to make the trip easier. To her, they were as magical as Dorothy’s ruby slippers.
When I arrived in Addis Ababa to volunteer with an organization that helps orphans, Alemteshay had been at the hotel more than two weeks, delayed by bureaucratic problems with her visa. Not that she didn’t make the best of a bad situation. She became the Ethiopian version of Eloise at The Plaza.
By the time she finally left, she knew everyone from the bellmen to the front-desk clerk to the waitresses at breakfast. A charmer with a killer smile. And she was not alone.
Every night, another wave of Ethiopian children would come through the hotel’s lobby, carried by their new parents. I couldn’t help but wonder what they were thinking. The kids, not the parents. I knew what the parents were thinking. You could see the joy on their faces.
Angelina Jolie had a similar look when she picked up her Ethiopian daughter, Zahara. Madonna has the same glow whenever photographed with her Malawian son, David, whose adoption was finalized Wednesday.
But news that some countries are making adoption by foreigners more difficult — Guatemala and Vietnam are two — made me wonder whether Ethiopia, which has about 5 million orphans, eventually will clamp down, too. Corruption and baby-selling are concerns in all adoption circles.
At first, even I asked myself whether these children should be taken from their native land, but almost every Ethiopian I spoke with was philosophical about the situation, especially considering the alternative. I had to agree.
An 8-year-old Ethiopian girl sat across the aisle from me on the flight home. Her parents also had died from AIDS complications, but like Alemteshay, she carries on with boundless enthusiasm and the help of yet another wide smile. She was heading to a new home in San Francisco with a lesbian couple. Over the 15-hour flight to the USA, she took turns falling asleep against each.
I couldn’t help but wonder what she, too, was thinking, but somehow I suspect she and Alemteshay will be just fine.
They seem to travel with their own ruby slippers.

Inspiring :: Young People Who Rock

This girl is amazing. She is only 16 and is already trying to make this world a better place. I pray that there are more young people out there like her, that is what this generation needs, young people who are willing to live for others and make this world a smaller, better, more loving place. Check out the article.

Tara Suri, 16, hopes to help to young children around the world achieve their
full potential.

Bake sales and recycling are common fundraising tactics in middle school. But Tara Suri wasn’t baking cupcakes for just any common cause. Her cause was hope, literally.
When Tara was 13, she was more than saddened by her trip to India with her family. From her sadness sprung the idea of trying to help the orphans in India and Sudan whom she saw abandoned by their parents, sometimes found in garbage dumps. Tara started H.O.P.E., or Helping Orphans Pursue Education. It aims to give kids the opportunity to achieve their full potential with the basics, like a sturdy roof over their heads, that Tara and her friends sometimes took for granted back in Scarsdale, New York.
Now, at 16, she has expanded her cause with an umbrella organization called Aandolan, which means “a movement for change” in Hindi. Through that fundraising group, Tara now runs Turn Your World Around and Connect a Kid along with H.O.P.E., and a lot of it for kids growing up continents away who are in sad situations.

Awareness is Key

"Women from Sudan's Darfur region fill containers with water near Gourokon, Chad, in October. The tiny village has swelled with displaced people as thousands have streamed across the border to escape the violence in Darfur. There are an estimated 250,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad, most in 12 camps in the east."

Pray That This One Works

:: Headline ::

Kenya rival leaders sign power-sharing deal

Agreement seeks to end post-election violence that has left 1,000 dead

Awareness is Key

I read a blog about this this morning and it got me thinking again about it. I think that thesepeople just need to be educated on the subject, I think that they just don't understand what female genital mutilation really does to them. These girls deserve to live healthy, long, beautiful lives, and this practice is taking that away from them. Tradition is getting in the way of the law in some cases. These people need to be educated on the subject.

Awareness is key, like I've always said.

The Lost Children of Kenya's Political Violence

NAIROBI, Kenya - Among the children laughing and shouting on the swing set at a Nairobi orphanage is a boy who was pulled from his bed by men with machetes and an 11-year-old girl who assumes her mother was burned alive. They play as they wait for aid workers to bring news of their parents, to tell them if they're orphans or not. Waves of attacks since Kenya's disputed Dec. 27 presidential vote have uprooted more than a half million people and left more than 1,000 dead. In the chaos, many arents and children lost track of each other: Kenya's Red Cross says it knows of at least 500 youngsters who were separated from their families, and many more robably went unreported. With violence ending, more than 300 children have been reunited with their parents. But others remain adrift, stuck in orphanages or in camps for those forced from their homes.

I hate not knowing. I hate the waiting game. I am usually a patient person, but with bigger stuff, I just want to know. I don't like waiting for the surprise of life, of the future. But I have nothing on these kids. They don't know whether or not they are orphans. That would be grueling.

These children deserve to live in peace, in a safe place, with people who love them. I pray that they get there, wherever there may be.

Happy Birthday Markos!!!!

Our little boy is 4 today! I pray that he has a wonderful day, and knows that he is loved and that we are thinking about him. I pray that he gets 3 meals today and he has fun and laughs alot. I pray that he gets a giant bear hug, bigger than he has ever recieved and he knows without a doubt that he is loved, unconditionally.

You can sponsor a child too...it will change their lives forever, and yours too.

Click here to begin your journey.
Check out these guy's journey.

Rock on Spielberg, Rock On

Stephen Spielberg dropped out from helping with the Beijing Olympic Opening and closing ceremonies on Tuesday. He had been acting as the atristic director for the shows, but dropped from the gig this week, blaming Chinese/Sudanese relations.

You see, as I've said before, the Chinese are more interested in making money than in the lives of the innocent, than in humanity. China has oil interests in the Darfur region of The Sudan. They are making deals with the Khartoum regime in Sudan, providing equipment and weapons and funding them through their deals with oil revenues. This is just plain wrong. They are putting their pocketbooks before their hearts.

Spielberg saw this and spoke up.

I laud Spielberg right alongside the rebels in Darfur. He rocks in my book.

Red Hand Day

I love wikipedia. I learn something everyday by browsing it. Check out the main page section titled "On This Day", there's always something interesting there! This is what I read today...

...today is RED HAND DAY. A day to bring awareness to the use of children in war. And it happens all too often, even today.

Read. Learn something. Be called into action.

Red Hand Day, held on February 12, is an annual commemoration day created to draw attention to the fate of children who are forced to serve as soldiers in wars and armed conflicts. The aim of Red Hand Day is to call for action against this practice, and support for children who suffer from this severe form of child abuse. Examples for massive use of children as soldiers in recent years include armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Côte d'Ivoire, Myanmar, Philippines, Colombia, and Palestine.
Red Hand Day was initiated in 2002 when the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict entered into force on February 12, 2002. This protocol was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in May 2000. It currently has signatures from 92 different states. A number of international organizations are active against the use of children as soldiers. These organizations include, for example, the United Nations Child Fund (UNICEF), Amnesty International, Terre des Hommes or the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
The work of these organizations can be summarized by the acronym DDR:
Disarmament
Demobilization
Reintegration
The military use of children is addressed by a number of international legal norms. These include International human rights law and International humanitarian law. According to the Additional Protocols I and II to the Geneva Conventions, adopted in 1977, children who have not attained the age of 15 years shall neither be recruited in the armed forces or groups, nor allowed to take part in hostilities. For persons older than 15 but younger than 18 years, the State Parties to the Geneva Conventions shall endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest. The "Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict", adopted in 2000, stipulates that its State Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons below the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities, and that they are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces. In addition to these legal norms, The Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention of the International Labour Organization, adopted in 1999, includes forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict as one of the worst forms of child labour. In the context of this convention, the term "child" applies to all persons under the age of 18 years. The worldwide number of child soldiers is estimated to be between 250,000 and 300,000 (as of 2006), a third of whom are girls; however it is difficult to know the correct number, as most of them are deployed in armed rebel groups.

Homeless, Scared, Fleeing, Trying to Survive :: Not Getting Any Better Anytime Soon

These poor people have no where to go, no safe place to lay their heads, no place is safe for the children to play and to be children. And now their last resort has been marked off the possibility list...do they even have a plan b?

The Sudanese people from Darfur are fleing their country and going into Chad, who wants them out; many Chadeans have fled into Cameroon and are beginning to return to their homes after violence has decreased in the last few weeks in their homeland.

Do you think that more of us should get involved over there? Our brothers and sisters over there are in serious need.