Thursday, December 28, 2006

A Christmas to Remember!

So Christmas was really a three-day event this year! The highlights…

… I was doing an advent devotion that my pastor and mentor Elliott had sent over via email. It was really wonderful to study that out, I love old traditions there is something so rich and deep about them. What I loved most about them is sitting down over our three-day extended Christmas with Ruthie, Karina (two great girls from Oregon) and Jessica to spend time reading the scriptures and talking about topics around advent. I loved it! I also loved talking with my brother Dan each day!!! We talked three separate times- it was great, I felt so loved. Thanks Dan!!!

Christmas Eve started with church in the morning, where my friend George stood up to sing out Micah 6:8 and his friend Charles got up with him to dance. It was so so funny, I wish I could have recorded the dancing on video!! After church we prepared baskets to give to the ‘LC-1” leader… he’s kind of like our governor of the islands. We wanted to make baskets for some of the poorest of families. We filled the baskets with practical items such as beans, rice, posho, tea, sugar, soap and a pineapple. We wanted to keep our identity hidden as to the giving of the basket that is why we gave it to the LC-I leader. Later in the afternoon Karina and Ruthie cooked down in the kitchen making a feast for us and our invited guests :) we invited men and women from the camp that we were in relationship with that didn’t have any family and were alone for the holidays. They made a beef stew with beans and dumplings… the dumplings were so so good!!! Ruthie and I made rice-crispy treats (Karina had brought over marshmallows from the states and they have rice-crispys here) they were a hit! Later I went to go and make paper snowflakes for decorations, I made everyone invited a snow flake with there name on it and then put a scripture verse on it. So everyone came, and at first it seemed a bit awkward because here are all these people who don’t really know each other… so karina and ruthie started singing Christmas carols (I would like to say I tried but you know my voice :) ) and a quarter of the guest spoke English so I grabbed Kompatant, the man I knew (he pilots our boat to the mainland when we have visitors) who speaks about as much English as I speak lugandan and we started dancing around our mudd hutt (with a grass roof)…. Ahh, this got people laughing! We danced and danced all around, it was great… and so to the next Christmas carol the girls sang and a new dancing partner I picked. We had so much fun… it lightened the awkwardness and made a joyful evening! Then, Christmas day, I made banana pancakes to start the day! Note to self: BRING A GRITTLE TO AFRICA. I sat making pancakes for almost 2-hours!!!!!!! After church I went into the camp to wish mama syheedi a Merry Christmas. I ended up sitting with her for 2-3 hours, it was great. She invited me into her hut with her 5-children and we ate rice and beef with our hands. She handed me a spoon because I think she knows we usually use a spoon, but I have come to prefer to eat with my hands… its almost easier, especially when you have a piece of meat with fat around it, it is much easier to eat the meat and go around the fat. With a fork and knife you usually end up eating a bit of the fat. So lets do it, lets go back to eating with out a fork and a knife!! It really is much easier! I came back up to ywam and everyone was just relaxing, it was wonderful… just like Christmas at home where everyone is just laying around! It was nearing 7pm and nobody had cooked dinner!!! Jess and Karina went down to cook only to find the chicken I had been given as a gift earlier had almost pecked the chicken jess had been given earlier, to death!!! We had to eat Jess’ chicken that night! But all we had was a dull knife! So as I was on the phone with my great friend ‘oh-sama-Ben’ … Bennie Shu :) I turned around only to find Karina sawing at this poor chickens neck :( it was so sad… after I got off the phone I went with a flashlight (remember it gets dark at 7pm here and there is no electricity) to my chicken and put the spotlight on him and asked him…’how do you feel about almost taking another man’s life tonight’ only to hear a small chuckle in the background, followed by my friend Karina, who had Hope’s voice (my sister) for a split second, as she said… ‘Amanda’…. In a stern voice… I didn’t know what I did!!! Later I realized the boy Tony who had given jess the chicken was in the kitchen with us and he would have felt extremely bad had he known his gift was almost pecked to death! I get in trouble in the U.S. I get in trouble in Africa… you really can’t take me anywhere… it was a really funny interview with the chicken though, everyone laughed when we were alone! The next day, the 26th was really our (karina, ruthie, jess and I) Christmas together…. We had drawn names for gifts and we opened gifts together. It was so great, jess had gotten my name and she knows how much I love adventures and surprises. She had my gifts hidden throughout the base with clues to the next gift. Oh, I had so much fun, I was screaming with sheer joy throughout the hunt for my gifts! After we opened and exchanged gifts we sat to pray for one another… I loved it, I always need prayer!!!! So we really had our Christmas feast this day, the day after Christmas…. And a feast we had! Ruthie, Henry and I were the chefs of the day. So, I went to slaughter my chicken…I had one foot on the chickens legs, the other on the wings and my friend Henry is telling me to pull the neck out to extend it so I can cut it… I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t… I started laughing, screaming and crying all at once… needless to say Henry ended up killing our chicken. I thought I would be brave, but when it came down to the dirty work I just couldn’t do it. I still had my feet on the chicken when Henry cut it, and when I came out from the Massacre and uncovered my eyes… I had blood all over my ankles!!!!! Ruthie and I made guacamole and ‘chips’… chips---- we eat this food here called posho. Posho is a tasteless clump of corn-flour I think and they usually make it with beans. Anyhow, I was told that if I make posho I can than roll it in small balls, smash it and fry it and I’ll have something like a salsa dipping chip. So we did and they were great! We also made what Karina calls ‘buckeye’s’ but what I think is better known as my mom’s famous peanut butter balls. I couldn’t believe it, here I am in Africa and I am enjoying real authentic peanut butter balls! I loved it they were so sweet and good! Janet we finished off the peanut butter you send on these fabulous treats, thanks again! Henry boiled the chicken with some good spices and veggies and I had found a can of coconut milk in town a few days earlier and we threw that in the chicken and it was so so good! Henry also cooked up some rice and we had a feast! And how could I forget, the first thing we cooked was popcorn, now how could I go without popcorn… my mom raised me well :) thanks mom! This was a Christmas to remember!

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