His Holiness Abune Paulos

The one in red is a secretary to the Partriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.  

Through him we initiated our appointment to meet with His Holiness Abune Paulos.

We were invited to lunch with the Priests.  It was food like I would imagine Monks at a 
Monastery would eat.  The bottom part is a spongy-type of bread, greyish in color and sour to
 the taste called injera.  You tear off a piece and then squeeze some food into it.  There was 
no meat because it was a time of fasting.  The food was quite good (beans, vegetables, 
salad, and bread) but very spicy.  Our mouths were numb after eating.

The amazing story:  After we secured a tentative appointment from the secretary, we were 
invited quite strongly to go to their museum.  We did and the young priest who was our guide
told us to be sure to mention to His Holiness how impressed we were with his museum.  As 
we were returning to leave, we met this priest on the stairs.  He spoke only Amharic and we 
spoke only English, but suddenly Elder R. and he were speaking German!  Neither of 
us can remember how that happened but the priest was so pleased to speak German and Lon
was so fluent (I think he had a little extra help).  Anyway, that is why we were invited to 
lunch. Sitting on the other side of this gentleman was the Arch Bishop but he did not want his 
picture taken.  He offered a prayer in Amharic before we left.  At the top of the picture is 
the chair where His Holiness would have sat if he were there.  He was presently in France.

It's interesting--every time we took their picture they would hold their cross in front of them.

And this is His Holiness Abune Paulos the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
He is also one of the seven presidents of the World-Wide Council of Churches.
He really wants a relationship with the LDS Church--mainly because he wants money for
a large project for Ethiopia.  He wants to build a museum in a place called Aksum to house
the many Christian Artifacts that they have.  They claim to have the Ark of the Covenant from
Moses' Day and the right portion of Christ's Cross.  Reminds me of Moses' staff that we saw in a
museum in Istanbul.  Really?  I'm a bit of a skeptic.