Girmay shows up, always more, his Hand lifting into the sky. “The ropes are just below the Church,” he says. But we see no rocks Church, we see the intimidating rocks, stone walls, vertical Sandstone towers and are worried. The climbing we would have seen belts like before the rise. “Abuna Yemata,” whispers Girmay and crosses. Abuna Yemata is considered the Holy Grail among the one hundred and thirty rock-hewn churches that were carved into the Rock of the Ethiopian highlands, mystical, the world caught up to find. The Church is located in the massif of the Gheralta mountains, and escaped the storm thanks to its hidden location is the only rock Church of Fire, the Queen, Judith, in front of more than a thousand years caused.
The path leads steeply up, after a three quarter of an hour, pain the seven participants of the Expedition the legs. Florence, the Belgian, staring at, suddenly stunned on the shoes of your son. The Boy is climbing in Crocs. “No Problem,” says Girmay, “the shoes have to all take off when we go to the rope, above the sacred Rock begins, which may not be with shoes.” For the Englishman John concluded, before. We are on top of each other, in front of us an unsecured Passage, in a rock outcrop must be surrounded, the Belgians turn a precaution. “Come, come”, call the helper from the other side of the body. We hesitate, the French woman next to us burst into tears, centimeter by centimeter we advance us, rough Ethiopian hands reach out to us, then we have reached a balcony.
Grasp and out of reach
Thirty meters, the Rock rises vertically in height, six meters of the wall are to defeat, about a paragraph in the Rock of the access to the Church. We climb the belt in the offered climbing, the rope is new, the snap-hook to close, in the Rock are scores. “Left foot here, right Hand there, high”, the instructions are quiet, now, not down look, but the right foot is in the column to the plug, where the left is, because no place is impossible. “Lift,” Girmay, and crosses again, so with the tips of your fingers to pull the body up high, the left foot of the column, the right, thing, the adrenaline makes it possible. The Rock is cold, the North side, amazing how good bare feet on the stone.
The wall grows in the sky, everyone here is high, said Girmay, who has the orange T-Shirt of the tour guides pulled out and perhaps a priest. Further, in the descent, thinking, buttons, grab, finally, the olive tree comes into view, the rope is laid, armdick he is only, what edge for a scrawny sapling, handle the rock, on the knee, the trembling legs, Girmay solves the safety rope.
We are standing in front of a ridge, the, three, four steps at crawling speed, to achieve a pulpit, here you can sit up, five square meters of sun-bathed happiness and shimmering light, the Sandstone lights up in yellow and ochre in all shades, a rocky outcrop, on top of that, another assistant, calls “Almost done”, but you don’t want to believe. Abuna Yemata is to Grasp and seems out of reach.
trust in God instead of physics
The entrance is on the South side of the hollowed-out rock needle, and of the love God has imposed on the believers as a final test before you are allowed to find enlightenment. The Church as exposed to speed runs, no feet wide, a wobbly plank of wood obscured the view into the depth. Two hundred meters of the abyss, the breath, the head says no. Girmay gets easy, but he did it well, he believes in miracles and do not doubt, with a laugh, he has a rope that runs on the ground. The rope is a rock wrapped and disappears in the rock Church. Voltage it has, but maybe no physics helps now, but trust in God. Seven metres to Abuna Yemata, seven meters, from which countless steps, each set of weightless and reverently, with all the fibres of bare soles on the Rock, then the input and a color noise.
