New Church In New World -- Ethiopian Congregation Follows A Dream

Every Sunday, before dawn, a minor miracle happens in a plain and proper Presbyterian church in Rainier Valley.

The altar is swathed in gold brocade. An icon of a haloed Virgin and Babe is leaned against the chancel railing. And the rafters ring with the chants and drumbeats of Africa.

For two hours, Brighton Presbyterian Church is transformed into St. Gebriel Church of Ethiopians in Seattle.

By 9:30, the golden altar cloths must be folded away, the icon packed up, the incense doused and the church vacuumed before the Presbyterians arrive to reclaim their sanctuary.

As most Christians celebrate the joy and promise of Christmas this morning, the members of Seattle's Ethiopian Orthodox community are preparing for their traditional Christmas Jan. 7.

That morning the members of St. Gebriel will celebrate, as they do every day, the other minor miracles that have brightened their lives in the past few years.

One is the arrival of the bishop and priest who came from Ethiopia to help keep them together as an immigrant congregation in a strange land. Another is the church they're raising - against all odds - on a muddy lot in a quiet neighborhood in the Central Area.

St. Gebriel's 400 parishioners, mostly immigrants and refugees from famine and Ethiopia's political turmoil, have collected more than $430,000 for the building fund. Most of the money has come from a blue pillowcase into which they've stuffed coins and dollar bills every Sunday for the past four years.

Church leaders say the money will run out in a week or so, after they pay to install the roof and the steel arches to support it. Work will stop until the congregation can pull yet another miracle out of the pillowcase.

"We need $200,000 to finish the church," said Ezra Teshome, a real-estate agent and chairman of the building committee.

"But it's our bishop's model that we don't borrow money. Most of our people work for minimum wage and have been contributing 50 cents or a dollar whenever they can. They'll continue to do that. But beyond here we have to leave it to God."

Ethiopian Orthodox, the national religion of that northern African country, was founded in the fourth century. It is the largest African Christian community surviving from ancient times.

The church claims a relationship with biblical Israel, through the queen of Sheba. Christian tradition says the legendary ruler from Ethiopia beguiled Israel's King Solomon during a state visit.

Ethiopian tradition says that when the queen left, she was pregnant with a son. As a young man, the son also went to Israel, bringing back with him the Jews' Ark of the Covenant. It remains in Ethiopia today, Ethiopians say, in a holy shrine, under the guard of priests.

St. Gebriel church took its name from the angel European Christians know as Gabriel. According to tradition, it was he who announced to Mary that she would bear God's son, Jesus.

"Most Ethiopians think of St. Gebriel as the angel and protector of Ethiopia and its people," said the Rev. Wolde Teklehaimanot, the church's priest. "They believe their prayers are answered by this angel who spread the good news to save the world."

When Teshome came to Seattle as a university student in the early 1970s, only five other Ethiopians lived here.

The community has grown to about 8,000 now, mostly people who've fled Ethiopia's continuing conflicts. It includes the Orthodox community's Bishop Zenamarkos, who serves the American branches of the church, and Teklehaimanot.

The clergy leaders have helped keep the local church intact and growing, members say. Over the years, the congregation has moved several times, renting space from several Orthodox and Protestant churches.

They bought the site for the new church from a Methodist minister, who once dreamed of building his own church there.

For the next two years, while St. Gebriel members held fund-raising events and continued to toss money into the pillowcase, Zenamarkos and Teklehaimanot prayed over the site twice a day, preparing it for the church. In the foundation, they buried holy objects: a heavy cross, a communion cup and a bottle of holy oil.

Some members have donated architectural, engineering and accounting expertise. Others have formed groups and pledged to buy windows, doors and other necessities down the road.

The church will look as much like an Ethiopian church as possible, said Girma Haile-Leul, a member and one of two engineers overseeing construction.

In Ethiopia, the church would have been round, and in the center would have been a place for a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, said Girma Mekuria, the other engineer on the project. There would have been no pews, and the congregation would have stood through the service.

The Seattle church will be hexagonal, a compromise that made building permits easier to come by. There will be pews and a special place for the ark replica. Downstairs will be rooms for a day-care center and recreational facility for the elderly.

Services will continue to be conducted in Amharic, the modern language of Ethiopia and Geez, an ancient language used for spiritual purposes, "like the Catholics use Latin," Teshome said.

"It's very important for us, for our children, to keep our traditions," Teshome said. "Building the church has given us a great deal of pride in our community. People come here to worship with us and they're in tears. They say this is like church at home. Keeping that attachment to faith is life-changing for them."

The church is also an important lifeline to their new lives in America, said Haile-Leul.

"We are an extension of all the first generations of Americans who came and built a church as soon as they could. We are no different from them. Our faith dictates we build a church and worship like we always have."

Sally Macdonald's phone message number is 206-464-2248. E-mail is: smac-new@seatimes.com