Feel Like Chicken Tonight?

Micah couldn't contain his excitement yesterday evening as he bounded down the path clutching the rooster to his chest, "We get to kill Green King…I can't wait to eat Green King!" I wasn't nearly as excited, knowing that the end of my blade would soon sever another failed attempt at raising chickens.

0 for 3 – not a very good track record since returning from the US a little more than a year ago now.  Round 1 was last January-April and as reported in the "Kellogg was Invited to Dinner" blog, it ended up producing only chick who disappeared likely down some animal's gullet. In June, we tried again, starting out big by buying 10 hens and one rooster. Well, apparently one (or more) of our new arrivals brought and shared a sickness that killed more than half the flock within one week. When only three remained, we decided they could serve us better on our dinner plates and so we asked Maateyos (our summer intern) to call together his English class for an interactive English lesson which simultaneously saved us a lot of time slaughtering and preparing!

Gmz have it down to a science, where as we look like pathetic freshman mutilating our dissection frogs without mercy. Wanna learn the ropes from some real professionals? Well then, pay close attention.

First grab yourself a chicken.

The next step requires three people. One brave person to hold the legs and wings tight. One heartless person to slit the throat. And lastly, if possible, it's nice to have a hairy Canadian to make a goofy smiles into the camera, trying to make us feel ok about snuffing the life out of one of God's creation.

When the life is drained all out, one can start pulling off the feathers.

Boiling water helps release the feathers from the skin and since Gmz hands are as thick as pot holders, it's much easier for them than it would be for you or me!

Next make a fire to roast off the tiny hairs on the skin.

The legs/feet make great handles, just like a built-in marshmallow roasting stick.

Once again pot-holder hands are recommended.

Next gut the chickens and cut them into pieces.

Most everything is eaten…that includes heart, liver, lungs, intestines…

 feet…

and heads lined up nicely on a nice shish-ka-bob!

Consider yourself trained, now could you please pass a beak...and a talon if you got one!

The Chuch In Which She Peed

Of the many things that we learned from our church in Dallas, one lesson that we will never forget is the joy and blessing of being a blessing to others. Granted we don't follow their example nearly enough, but occasionally, the Lord allows us to be his arms in a special delivery of his blessing to others. Such was the case last Friday afternoon.

Having had enough for one day, I snapped my laptop closed at 4:58pm, two minutes before quitting-time. The Gmz translators, Work'u, Thomas, and Janey, were equally ready to start their weekends and so we rose from our chairs in unison and began to pack up. As Janey led the way in making their exit, I called them back, "Hey, I have one more thing, do you have a minute?" They all stopped and turned back and so I continued. "Well, you all know how Andrea and I receive our salary. People and churches back in the US give money toward our ministry as the Lord leads them. And so some months, like October are less than our budget, but other months, like November are over our budget. God has always provided for us. Well, we just received our December statement, and with many people giving year-end gifts, we were richly blessed. Among that blessing, we found a 13^th month gift from one particular church in Michigan. By that I mean, when this church noticed a surplus in their budget at the end of the year, they decided to use it to bless their overseas servants with an extra month's donation. What a blessing and how appropriate since we actually did serve 13 full months this past year (there are 13 months in the Ethiopian calendar)! Then again, as we thought about it, we weren't the only ones who worked those 13 months in bringing Scripture into the Gmz language. Andrea and I thought of you guys and wished that you could also be blessed with an extra month's salary – and that's when the thought came (yea, for some of us it takes just a bit longer). When I roughly translated the extra $300 US dollars into 5700 Ethiopian birr, I realized that that was just slightly more than enough to cover that 13^th month for all three of you! And so we would like to take that extra gift from the church and pass it on to you. Is that a good idea?"

All the translators had listened intently to my soliloquy in a broken mix of Amharic and Gmz, but now, hearing the ridiculous question with which I ended, they burst into smiles and laughter. "Of course, that's a good idea! May God bless you! May god bless Andrea! May god bless Micah and Grace too!..." Not wanting them to move on to calling down blessings on our chickens as well, I threw in the blessing that was missing "May God bless the church in which Andrea…" and I paused. I always pause when I say this word, for I am well aware of the terrible miscommunication that can take place if I don't. You see, I could correctly say, alafagan, which means "in which she grew up." Or, on the contrary, I could accidently speak the third syllable with high tone, alafágan, which means "in which she peed." It no doubt would have ruined the moment to have me blurt out, "May God bless the church in which Andrea peed!" - especially in a cultural context where church buildings don't have bathrooms. "She peed in the church" would mean just that…IN THE CHURCH! (as bare-bottomed Grace did last week) Then again, knowing the guys and all the good laughs we've shared over the last two years, it would have been par for the course. I praise God for these three, confident that God was preparing them long ago for such a time as this!

Red Light Special

In celebration of finishing the consultant check on Luke (and at the "strong urging" of colleagues), we took a week's vacation at a Negash Lodge about 2 hours outside of Addis Ababa. We had heard good things about the lodge – good food, beautiful grounds filled with playful monkeys, uniquely designed the houses, helpful staff, swimming pool…BOOM! That's all Micah needed to hear before he punched his ticket, but, honestly, I couldn’t share in his excitement. That is, until I heard that the swimming pool is fed a natural hot spring! I don't particularly enjoy being cold – ok, I hate it, and when it comes to swimming, I can't help but want to trade my scrawny seahorse frame in for that of a nice blubberous whale! But hot spring water? That changes the "refreshingly cool" swimming pool into a giant hot tub! Count me in!

 All in all, the week at Negash Lodge met and exceeded our expectations. The food was excellent, the grounds truly were beautiful and the monkeys were great fun to watch. The pool, however, though yes, filled with warm spring water, wasn't quite the steaming bathtub I had set my heart on. But Micah needed a swimming buddy and so Andrea and I both took turns. The best place I found, was under the warm spring-fed showers. I think Micah agreed, considering that he loved to sit under it for 10-15 minutes after getting out of the pool. And that for a boy who until that time would cry whenever water was poured over his head at bath time!

 I have to admit, warm showers truly are a moment in paradise! It reminds me of the discovery I made back in October. There's a saying in Amharic which goes, "In October, one bone." (it doesn't quite rhyme as nicely as it does in Amharic). What does it mean? We were told that October is recognized as one of the coldest months in the Ethiopian year (it comes right at the tail end of rainy season). Therefore, people should beat the chills by eating extra meat in October…or something like that. Anyway, for some time now, I have been travelling up to Gilgel Beles to work with the translation team, and the Catholic Fathers on whose compound we work have graciously offered that I stay in one of their guestrooms. 

That in itself is a priceless gift as they don't blare their music late into the night like every hotel in the city does. But one thing in the guestroom always taunted me, a hot water heated mounted on the wall in the bathroom. Despite my best tinkering in previous months, I could never get it to work…until one "cold" day in October (yes, it must have dipped down into the 70s!). And that is when I saw it for the first time – the red light special! 

Commuting 30 miles by motorbike is stressful, being away from my family is stressful, working in foreign languages is stressful, but I praise God for the blessing of a warm shower which has an amazing ability to wash away some of that stress at the end of the day! I remember my dad once saying, "If you aren't feeling well, take a shower." Good advice dad, and its been a long day, I think I'll do that right now.