One day away. Sort of.
Yes, tomorrow Levi and I fly out of Dulles airport in D.C. toward Ethiopia. We leave Monday night but don’t arrive until early Wednesday morning. So it’s pre-day one for leaving but still three days from actually arriving. Whatever. I’ll try to get you a blog every day regardless. Maybe I’ll start using fractions.
It’s only a 20 hour flight. But when you add in the time zones, it takes over 48 hours by the clock. The good news is, it will take about one hour by the clock on the way back. I wonder if you just flew that direction non-stop, could you defy time and never age?
Anyway, regarding times and dates: the Ethiopian Church is on the old calendar. They celebrated Christmas just a week ago. Our Orthodox Church in Chattanooga celebrated Theophany (sometimes called Epiphany—the celebration of Jesus’s baptism by John the Forerunner) just last week. But The Ethiopians celebrate it 13 days later, which is this coming Friday. They call it Timkat, and it’s their biggest celebration of the year for the entire country. Pics definitely coming your way.
Ethiopians have a different year count as well. They say it’s the year 2010. And they keep daily hours the way they did in the Bible. The “first hour” is around 7 am, when you might first wake up and care about hours. The third hour is closer to noon.
So, the long and short of all this is that we’re entering into a bit of a time warp, for all sorts of reasons. And when time stops, good things usually happen. Pray for us.
