Happy Ethiopian New Year

We've been learning about ET all week, and Sam has really enjoyed it. He fingerpainted an ET flag, cut out an Africa shape, and colored an Ethiopia map. On the map we glued salt in the north where there are salt plains and coffee in the south where coffee trees grow wild. Did you know many believe coffee originated in ET from the region previous known as Kafa? We also put a star on Addis Ababa, the capital city and birthcity of our Eli. This week we also looked at all our souvenirs, pictures, Birr (ET money), and practiced writing Amharic.

September 11 on our calendar is Ethiopia's New Year's Day. It marks the end of the rainy season there, so they have much to celebrate. We celebrated last night with a "traditional" ET meal. Actually, it was a loose Ausbrooks version, but pretty good for Martin County! We used soft taco shells instead of injera, the traditional ET bread, to pick up our food, which included steak pieces, BBQ chicken, hard boiled eggs, and cheese. We spread the food on our ET basket and all shared. The best part is...no dishes to wash! Sam and Cora wore their ET outfits, and ate quite a bit. We all had coffee to drink. Cora would not drink hers, which was in a sippy cup, but Eli LOVED it. He is always begging for coffee from Josh. Surprisingly, I was the one up all night and Eli slept like, well, a baby!

Prior to our adoption we committed to teach our child about his birth country. I was a little uncertain how we would be able to do that, but I'm learning that its not just for him, its for our whole family. And its FUN! Becoming an international family has made us aware of just how big God's world is. It has also given us compassion for a group of people we don't even know. How wonderful it is to hear Sam praying that people in ET have enough food.

Happy Enkutatash and God bless Ethiopia in their new year.