TIMKAT - OUR BRUSH WITH DEATH

Four days after arriving home from our vacation we looked forward to one of the biggest and most colorful celebrations in Ethiopia, Timkat. Timkat is the celebration of Christ’s Baptism in the river by John. The priests designate a central place in town and set up a tent to replicate the Temple, and they get a water basin and spend a great deal of time blessing the water so that it is Holy Water. The people all sacrifice animals and eat chicken or lamb, or whatever they can afford. The morning of Timkat we went to the field with just our family and slowly ventured closer and closer to the front. Every time we stopped to watch, so many people gathered around us to stare at us and ask for money that we couldn’t enjoy it, so we kept just moving forward. Soon, we were about 7 rows from the front and able to see the beautiful robes worn by the priests and the gold processional crosses being carried around. Then people started turning to us and saying, “it is coming…the water…get ready!” We knew that part of this celebration culminated in the Priests spraying water out into the crowd of people who had gathered to “bless” them. We didn’t realize, however, how special they view this sprinkling and as the water started to come, the crowd suddenly became like something out of a WHO concert from ages old. A mass rush for the front took place and we all started to lose our footing and be pulled apart, with our 4 kids screaming and clinging to our legs making it impossible for us to move. I honestly did start praying aloud for the help of Jesus, I can’t remember ever feeling so afraid for my kids. Fortunately, a group of about 5 young men around us suddenly picked up Nati and Cailyn and made a chain with their arms around our whole family and literally moved us against the crowd toward the back where we could stand again. Then we could laugh about it, but I certainly learned my lesson about festivals here. What was precious was that one of the guys was concerned we didn’t get sprinkled enough (they believe it has actual cleansing powers) so he ran back and returned with a water bottle half full of water and began sprinkling it on us. We were grateful for God’s hand of protection when we didn’t expect to be needing it….I guess that is always the way it is, isn’t it?