At home church is usually more conservative for me. On occasion some may lift their hands, while worshiping God but for the most part there isn’t anything super out there that happens at my church. When I got to the church in Ethiopia I was totally caught off guard. The people were jumping, speaking in tongues, lifting their hands, laying flat on the ground, and people were rolling around on the ground shaken by the Holy Spirit. I even saw the pastor there cast out demons. It was WAY out of the norm for me. All of that would be happening at the same time while I had 5 kids around me tugging on my hair, sitting on my lap, or just simply touching me. I would always find it funny how the kids wouldn’t even be phased at what was all going on around them. It was just normal church for them.
The church services would all be in Aramaic, so we wouldn’t understand any of it. But it was still cool to be there and support the local church. The church services are usually for 6-7 hours. My squad however would not stay that long. My ministry host would have us stay for 3-4 hours and at the intermission we would go back to the house for lunch.
If you ever get the chance to go to an Ethiopian church or really any church in any another country…go! It is such a blessing and really cool to see how we all worship and love the same God even though we do everything so differently.
