A Birthday to Remember

Imagine that you're attending a mandatory training class for your job, and you happen to hear that one of the trainers is having a birthday on one of the class days.  Would you care?  Would you maybe chip in a buck if someone else took the initiative to pass the hat for a dozen bagels?

Happy Birthday, "Sinde"!

When Bob emailed me a few weeks before the trip to ask whether it was appropriate to celebrate Cindy's (his wife, not mine!) birthday during the training, I literally laughed out loud, remembering how our training class had celebrated Cindy's (my wife, not his!) birthday in 2010 - and she wasn't even there!  I promised Bob that it was indeed appropriate, and that we'd be able to do something special as a surprise.  Little did I know how big that "something" would become!

What's a party without coffee?

The first step was to enlist Getu and Mesfin as co-conspirators, and they took it from there.  Getu found a local bakery who agreed to make an American-style birthday cake, complete with icing reading "Happy Birthday Cindy".  Mesfin met with all of our participants, who then planned a traditional coffee ceremony and rehearsed the "Happy Birthday" song.  By the time the big day rolled around, it was hilarious how many whispers and knowing grins were being exchanged.  Thankfully, Cindy was blissfully unaware of all of this.  When time came for break that morning, she couldn't understand why it was being moved to the cafe across the compound.  Even when we walked her over there and through the circle of

Fito and Mesfin

participants to the coffee ceremony in the center, she hadn't caught on - until she saw the sign!  From then on, it was a joyous celebration, including the participants giving her two gifts - a beautiful scarf of the local Hadiya design, and even more special, a new Ethiopian name - Fito, meaning "flower" in Hadiya.  Four days later the group gave Bob a new name at the certificate ceremony - Eromo, meaning "good man".  A well-deserved name for a husband who started this whole ball rolling weeks before the event.

Why do our participants sacrifice their time and money to celebrate birthdays for people they hardly know, when birthdays are not typically celebrated very much in Ethiopia, especially for adults?  Why do they honor us by giving us names in their native languages, when names have almost sacred significance there?  There are no simple answers to those questions, but God does something mysterious and wonderful when he brings together the ferenji and the Habesha.  He creates a new community, united in His love and His will.
And that is truly worth celebrating.  Pass the cake, please!