Then a friend convinced him to visit the Ethiopian Christian Fellowship in Willow Glen. That decision led to the spiritual and cultural lifeline that Bayou was looking for.

"I was so happy to find the church," he says, adding that he felt a part of the community right away.

In 1986 several immigrants founded the nondenominational church that rents classrooms at Lincoln Glen Church on Booksin Avenue. Now, 24-year-old Bayou is the youth pastor and provides leadership for the church's youth, who have emigrated with their families from Ethiopia and Eritrea or were born here.

During the last decade and a half, the church has grown to 200 members, as refugees fled from Ethiopia to the United States because of a 30-year civil war.

In 1991 a portion of Ethiopia split off and formed a new country, Eritrea, declaring its independence. This led to continued border wars between the two countries, which further drove the Eritrean population to flee their country and come to the United States. Although on the continent of Africa relationships between these countries and its citizens were strained, at the small church in Willow Glen the refugees formed alliances.

For Amen Mesgana, 17, and her Eritrean family, who left Addis Ababa in 1998 when they were effectively banished, the church became their second home. Mesgana's family chose San Jose as their destination because of the Abesha—a word that refers to Ethiopians and Eritreans—congregation.

Mesgana says she likes going to an Ethiopian church in San Jose because, besides sharing religious beliefs, the Abesha youth are dealing with similar issues.

"We understand one another," she says. "When we're hanging out we don't have to explain everything."

"Everything" for the 25 regular youth-group members consists more of conflicts with parents over American teenage life and Ethiopian customs than memories of war or national enmity.

"Kids within a year will totally change to American ways, but the parents don't; they preserve the customs," Mesgana says. "You have to find a middle ground."

Bayou says that many teenagers in the youth group have difficulty when they learn the differences between American and Abesha values and want their parents to allow them more freedom.

In Ethiopia, dating is a relatively new concept because of centuries of arranged marriages, and parents stipulate that their children cannot date until after college. Also, driver's licenses cannot be obtained until age 18, TV programs only air in the evenings, and elders merit visible signs of respect such as giving up a seat on a crowded bus.

Bayou knows the cultural balancing act of younger immigrants firsthand.

When he came to live with his uncle in Los Angeles, looking for a better economic and political future, he found himself dealing with cultural differences like the importance of fashion, a less-demanding education system and a more secular environment.

"I wanted someone to associate with and be able to share my problems with," he says, noting that his friends at the time were not the best influence. "And I wanted to speak my own language and eat the food I was used to."

After moving to San Jose and becoming a member of church, he started the Divine Destiny Youth Ministry in 2000 and became so passionate he decided to study to become a youth minister at San Jose Christian College, from which he will graduate in 2004.

The youth group does not differ much from those of other churches, Bayou says. They have a Bible study on Friday and Sunday, go on retreats, hold service projects like feeding the homeless in San Francisco on Thanksgiving and are planning a trip to Disneyland.

The appeal of relationships with other Abesha draws people from throughout the Bay Area and even attracts non-Christians who are looking for community, Bayou says. In the summer, the youth ministry hosts a soccer camp that draws Ethiopian and Eritrean teenagers from outside the church.

The political differences between Ethiopians and Eritreans also melt away at the church since Abesha have more in common with each other than anybody else, Bayou says. He cites an example of a young teen whose father was part of Eritrean government, and when they moved to the United States told his son to feel animosity toward Ethiopians.

"[The son] came and he couldn't find the difference between Ethiopians and Eritreans," Bayou says.

When Bayou visited Ethiopia in 2001, he was surprised to find that many of his old friends and local businesses were gone, unaware that they were Eritrean. After he had left for the United States, the Ethiopian government determined who were Eritreans based on their last names or on rumors, Bayou says, and exiled them.

Abesha share the same holidays, dress, food, and unique alphabet. Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia and Tigrinya is the official language of the Eritrean population, although Eritreans know both—making nationality hard to distinguish.

And around the holidays cultural groups gather together to share common traditions.

The Ethiopian calendar has 13 months in a year, which according to its native country's calculations makes it only 1997, Bayou says. And unlike the Christian calendar in which Christmas falls in December , Ethiopian Christmas or Gena falls in February and does not include gift-giving. But many Abesha have adapted the American Christmas tradition.

On Gena, families spend time at home together eating traditional food like injera (a spongy pancake) and zigni (stew) and dress in nice clothes, Bayou adds.

For Abesha families, Easter is a bigger holiday than Christmas, he says, adding that they also celebrate Jesus' baptism in September.

Because the United States is a Judeo-Christian­based society, there are times when the Ethiopian holiday calendar doesn't match the traditional calendar in the United States. Students will have time off but Abesha parents will be working. Bayou says during those times he tries to help students by organizing a youth activity because the teens want to be like their American peers.

One of the ways Bayou helps close the gap between the old and new cultures is through events such as Holy Yehun, which replaces Halloween. Yehun means "let it be" and is celebrated with games, drama and worship at the church.

"It's trying to put a bridge between the two," he says, adding that the parents were happy about this alternate activity.

For the church's evangelism pastor, Simon Sharku, celebrating his people's culture and worshiping in Amharic is a huge advantage in outreach.

"The most exciting thing is the church has a passion to reach people," he says. "For American churches it can be hard to reach us, but we have the advantages of holidays and cultural meetings to bring Abesha here."

Sharku estimates that 10,000 Ethiopians and Eritreans live in the Bay Area.

"It's like another family you can turn to," says 18-year-old Ariam Gebremedhin, who has attended Ethiopian Christian Fellowship for six years.

One of the church's youth leaders, Bethel Sine, who moved out of the area for 12 years to study medicine, was eager to return to the church because "I've always considered it my home."

Although the Ethiopians and Eritreans left their countries out of necessity, Klaus Dojahn, 65, chose to leave his native Germany because he wanted to travel the world. Eventually he settled in San Jose and joined a Willow Glen church because, like his African counterparts, his heritage was important. He chose the German Church of God on Newport Avenue, which reconnects him to cultural roots. He has been a member of the church since 1965.

At age 19, Dojahn says, he was "still dreaming of adventure" and moved to Canada in 1957 because he wanted to see bear and moose. After eight years in Canada with a wife and three kids, he settled in San Jose in 1965.

But while he says he "cannot be nailed down," he couldn't discard his heritage, so he sought it out at the German Church of God.

"I love it here, but I can't forget the past," he says, explaining that services are performed only in German. "With immigrants in general, they don't like to nationalize."

And that is how a German-language congregation exists in Willow Glen, says Rev. Harold Mueller. Most of the congregants immigrated as children after World War II, he says. The church began in 1965 after the number of German speakers who attended the English-speaking Church of God on Minnesota Avenue grew to a number that could sustain their own congregation, he notes.

Mueller says the longevity of foreign-language churches is challenging when younger generations assimilate or move away and there's not a steady stream of immigrants to replace the dwindling and aging population.

"But we don't want to forget the German community," he says, adding that his church mails hundreds of newsletters a month. "They're there. Few people can offer them German. It's the last piece of homeland they have."

Mueller's wife, Aganetha, says the number of people who show up regularly don't fill the 120-person maximum capacity of the church, but the Christmas Eve service draws 400 Germans, requiring them to rent a larger building to accommodate everyone.

"Christmas Eve is a big service," Dojahn says. "Everybody goes to church."

The Dojahns make sure that a German Christmas is passed down to their three children by continuing various traditions.

On Dec. 24, German fathers decorate the tree behind closed doors. The tree is left more natural and green to symbolize durability and hope, Dojahn says. Apples are used instead of ornaments to represent the Tree of Life in paradise and that the birth of Jesus opened a path to the Tree of Life, he adds. And cookies are also added to the tree. After the 16th century Reformation—when Protestants split off from the Catholic Church—candles were added as part of the German tradition to the tree's decoration to signify that Jesus is the Light of the World, he says.

After the Christmas Eve service, children see the tree for the first time. When the children learn a Christmas poem, they are allowed to open their presents and the family sings Christmas carols. Families eat a simple meal of potato salad and frankfurter sausage.

In the German tradition, Christmas is a two-day holiday beginning with first Christmas Day on Dec. 25 and then continuing with second Christmas Day on Dec. 26.

On Dec. 25 they have the big family dinner with a cooked goose instead of turkey and children play with their presents. Second Christmas Day is a German state holiday that continues the observance. After Christmas, children are allowed to eat one cookie, called a kringel, off the tree every day they've been good until the tree is removed on Jan. 6.

The one thing that Dojahn says is missing from a German Christmas outside of Germany is the Kris Kringel Mart-Christ Child Market—an open-air event where vendors set up workshops and sell their crafts. Dojahn says about 75 percent of Christmas gifts are bought at the markets in Germany.

"There's a special atmosphere to the markets," he says.

Excluding the holiday craft workshops, Dojahn says his church provides everything from his childhood, including the celebration of German church holidays, German hymns and a more "rigid discipline" of punctuality and seriousness that goes with Germans' thinking.

Although his children are bilingual, Dojahn thinks future generations may not continue to embrace the traditions of the German church because they were educated outside of Germany and "don't fully understand the philosophy."

Still, he says everybody searches for their ancestral roots and sees his children wanting to know about Germany.

"You don't shrug off your culture," Dojahn says.