There is a new piece of art in the Parish Commons to the left of the coffee pots.  The mural painting is a standard depiction, found on church walls throughout Ethiopia, of St. Yared, who brought music to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.  He is said to have created the three distinctive types of church music (liturgical chants) inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit, who sent three angels to him in the form of birds.  It is their songs that formed the basis of the music he created.  As the story goes, when he sang this music in front of King GebreMeskel (the kings game means "servant of the cross"), they were both so enthralled by the music that neither one realized the king's spear had stabbed St. Yared's foot.  St. Yared is painted with his prayer stick in one hand and a sistrum (a rhythmic musical instrument of very ancient origin) in the other, both of which are still used today when clerics and choristers chant during church services. 

The painting is by Gard Giday, an artist from Aksum, who was born in 1976.  He is a prominent artist known for his mural paintings that cover the walls in many churches in northern Ethiopia.  His painting is exactly the sort that is first painted and then pasted on the walls of those churches, where they have assisted the teaching and sustaining of Christianity for at least fourteen hundred years. (Christianity arrived in Ethiopia in 330CE.)

Peace Community Center(Hilltop Scholars) is in need of computer science and calculus tutors. If you are able to help please contact Bruce Sadler at [email protected]