Proud To Be a Tewahedo Orthodox Girl – Part 2

The deacon I met from Canada is now a Priest and is known to many as Kesis Hermon.  

When I first meet Deacon Hermon, we were both in our 20s and I could not believe he was raised in the diaspora. A friend of our family and a member of my Church (St. John the Baptist – Kudus Yohanes Metmek, Indianapolis), provided Deacon Hermon with my phone number and kindly asked him to assist me with our Sunday School. Deacon Hermon called to tell me he was actually coming to my Church’s negdet (The Ark Celebration) in a couple of weeks and wanted to sit down with me and some of the older youth to discuss our concerns and issues about our Sunday School. After getting off the phone, I was shocked because he had no accent and he sounded very professional.

As soon as our negdet celebration finished and it was time for our meeting, I remember being so nervous and scared. Especially, when he walked into our meeting with his professional black leather bag. I just imagined him to be this strict by the rule kind of deacon, who was going to be hard on us.  I was also a little intimated, because he was the well known deacon whom everyone talked highly about and he was very knowledgeable, and I had little knowledge about our faith. We all went over what I was teaching and things we had done. He was very kind and understanding. He gave us additional materials and provided us with new ideas when conducting the lessons. I left the meeting feeling excited and great, because I finally had someone I could go to with all of my Tewahedo Orthodox questions.

For some reason, everyone at the negdet kept telling Deacon Hermon and I, that we would be a great match and we should get to know each other. At that moment, that was far from both of our minds and we were just focused on running a successful Sunday School program. We thought very little about what people were saying that day.

When the negdet was over, he and the people that came with him from Canada were leaving and I went to say Good Bye. We told each other it was great meeting you and as they drove off, I kept thinking to myself what an amazing and phenomenal blessing he truly was.

To be continued…..