Gabriel Church was on top of the flat topped mountain nearest to Mulu Farm. It was quite a new church but for us at Mulu it was the place which warned us that we were about to get rained on. The clouds above it got blacker and blacker and we could sometimes see lightening flashes. We knew that it would start raining within 20 minutes or so, so we would kick our horses into a canter so we could get home in the dry. We occasionally rode up there to have a look at what was there, it was not nearly as flat as it looked from below but it was flat enough to canter up to the church.
Nearly all Ethiopian country churches looked the same inside, they were round with three concentric circles. The centre circle was the smallest and the holiest, in it, lay a replica of the arch of the covenant, this had the 10 commandments carved on it and was wrapped in a beautiful length of material. No one was allowed in there. The middle circle was for the priests and the outer circle for the general public so that was a much bigger circle. On holy days like Easter and the epiphany and on the Saints day for whom the church was named.
The arch of the covenant was carried outside by the priests and was specially chosen, he would be carried around the church several times. Sometimes he would be taken to the nearest spring or stream where the water was blessed and scattered all over the people who gathered there so that they were showered by the holy water.
The priests and some of the elder of the congregation would get quite wet but because it was holy water nobody minded. Once we went passed a church on one of our riding trips and it was the holy day of the church, we got off our horses in politeness and walked slowly passed the church. My Dad was taken up to the front row of the people gathered and had a whole jug of holy water poured all over him. He got very wet and cold so we left as soon as we could so he could put on some dry clothes.
Everyone had there own special Saint and they did no work on the morning of that day. That made it hard for us as employees to keep a working labour force, we decided that the nearest church to us was out parish church and everyone would have a day off but other saints days were working days. If the men wanted to have their own saint days off, they would not be paid for it. It was surprising how soon their own saints days got forgotten.