The work of the Lord progresses in Ethiopia

So something really cool happened last Sunday. All the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ethiopia gathered for the dedication of a chapel in Debre Zeit.

The Church in Ethiopia has seven congregations. Before the explanation of locations, please note two things: (1) there is a map below for your reference and (2) there's no way that map is going to be large enough to be helpful so you should just look these places up on Google Maps (note that because Amharic is the official language, places can be spelled many different ways in English so you may see slightly different spellings from Google).

I'm not positive which are branches and which are sacrament meeting groups (definitely no wards). Three are in Addis - Beklobet, Meganagna, and Kality. One is in Debre Zeit, which is about 30 miles (or 1-2 hours driving) southeast of Addis (in between Addis and Mojo on the map below). One is in Awasa, which is about 170 miles (3-5 hours) south of Addis. The last two are in smaller towns about 30 minutes north of Awasa. As you can tell, compared to the total size of Ethiopia, the congregations are pretty concentrated. Definitely room for growth. In case you're interested, there are two sets of Elders (no Sisters) in each congregation except for Meganagna (which recently moved to 3 sets) and the two congregations north of Awasa (I think there's one set in each).

The current mission president (President Jackson) is leaving at the very beginning of next month, so this was his last visit to Ethiopia. On Sunday, he made the Kality Sacrament Meeting Group (one of the 3 congregations in Addis) into the Kality Branch and dedicated the new building in Debre Zeit. All the different congregations took buses and converged on Debre Zeit.

This is the second official Church building in Ethiopia. Meganagna also has a building (though not as big as the new one in Debre Zeit) in a compound that also has the headquarters for LDS Charities in Ethiopia.

Everything in Ethiopia began with the Beklobet Branch (where I attend). Meganagna and Kality have both split off from Beklobet. We're still meeting in a rented house. We're stretching its capacity, but I like it.

Anyways, so Sunday's schedule started with 9 am abbreviated Sacrament Meeting at Beklobet (opening hymn, prayer, sacrament, closing hymn, closing prayer). Then, we loaded a bus down to Debre Zeit. We got there a couple hours before the 1 pm dedication meeting. Everyone wandered around the new building and met up with friends from the other congregations. It felt like a big family gathering from all over.

The only part of the dedication meeting that was in English was the actual dedicatory prayer (don't worry, they also translated it into Amharic), but the spirit was strong throughout. It felt like a dedication for the country even beyond the building. To sit in the congregation of several hundred Saints representing the Lord's entire kingdom in the country was really powerful. I imagine this is how the early Saints in places like New York and Ohio felt. We're all supposed to get copies of the dedicatory prayer, and they'll hang one in the atrium of the new building.

Afterwards, everyone ate and we drove back to Addis.

The building in Debre Zeit looks really nice. It reminds me a bit of Emma's building in Abu Dhabi, except better...you know, because it's here. It took 6 years for the building to become a reality, so there's a definite sense of accomplishment.

The bus we took. In the second picture, the gentleman in the aisle is President Berhane, our Branch President. If you look closely in the third picture, you'll see some of the Ethiopian Orthodox decorations that adorn many buses, taxis, etc. in Addis.

THE BUILDING. You'll notice from the last picture that it's much larger than it looks from the front.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plaque in Amharic.

No way! There's grass! Real grass!

I was proud to sit in a room full of such strong members. Unfortunately, none of these pictures fully shows the size of the room or how packed it was by the time we started.

The members of my branch deserve multiple posts just to tell some of their amazing stories. For now, I'll just give some names. The first picture has Biruk (my home teachee) on the far left (sitting by the missionaries) on the bus. The second picture is of Hunde (in the hoodie) sitting in front of the building (seriously, I've got to tell you about Hunde next time). The third picture has Kassahun and Tameru (first counselor in the Elders' Quorum). The fourth picture is Ron. The fifth picture is me with my home teaching companion (and member of the Branch Presidency) Alebachew.

On Sunday, Ethiopia also had a huge home soccer match with South Africa. This was one of the pivotal qualification matches for the World Cup next year. These are the second-round qualification matches. Ethiopia had previously defeated Botswana, and beating South Africa would give them an unassailable lead in their group to move on even before their final group match with Central African Republic.

The match clearly ended with an Ethiopian victory while I was walking home from Beklobet after the bus dropped us off because the city went crazy. For example, I didn't get my camera out in time, but I saw a large bulldozer (there's construction equipment everywhere around Addis) driving down Bole Road at full speed with ~15 guys standing in the shovel screaming with joy.

In a related "of course" story, a couple days later, Ethiopia was given a huge penalty that essentially changed the outcome of the Botswana game from a victory into a 3-0 defeat (both the new defeat and the goal differential really hurt). This is because Ethiopia used a player who had gotten two previous yellow cards in earlier qualification matches (meaning that player should have been suspended for one game). Apparently, putting the player out in a slightly different uniform than usual wasn't enough to fool officials (though this wasn't apparent until the ruling came down over a week after the Botswana match). You gotta love it! All eyes are now on the September 6 match between Ethiopia and Central African Republic. As long as Ethiopia wins, they still move on. Otherwise, things get interesting.