Thanksgiving and Black Friday

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I hope that you were blessed by the time with family and friends. I have definitely missed being home with family. But God used the day to teach us a lesson. The team had planned to cook for ourselves plus two guests; with each of us bringing something to the table. We were pushed to our limits when we had two American guests come 2 weeks early. And we were reminded that in this culture it is polite to invite anyone who happens to show up while you are eating. So in all we served 15 people when we planned for 7. Denise, Lori and I were exchanging glances of stress and frustration as we added more plates to the table and then had to extend the table again. But we sat and had a great time and after everyone had eaten we had (almost) 12 plates of leftovers! We may not have started with 5 loaves and 2 fish but God definitely multiplied the food. Most people left after the main course and so the 8 Americans had a nice time of singing hymns and enjoying pumpkin pies.

And it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without Black Friday. So Lori and I got up before the sun and joined our friends Mariama Saidy and Cecilia to walk to the river. We watched as they sorted through and picked what they wanted of fish, shrimp and crab from the fishermen who had just come in from a night of fishing. We were introduced to a few new interesting kinds of fish. It was a good alternative to American shopping madness.