Our Christmas outfits
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! We did and I thought I’d take a little time to tell you about it.
The big event for our Christmas was our church’s Christmas program, which was the Friday night before Christmas. Friday morning I went to church to work with the ladies putting together that night’s meal. There were chickens to de-feat, de-skin, wash and marinate. We made said marinade (which by the way…Senegalese make the best marinade ever!). We cooked the chicken and meat in a giant pot over a fire, then grilled it to finish it off. There was also onions to cut and garlic, hot pepper and much more to pound in the mortar and pestal. Since we were there all day, we cooked up the chicken hearts, livers and gizzards for our lunch to tide us over until that night’s feast. I had so much fun with these ladies and was encouraged by how I can actually help at events like this and not be like a little kid who needs instructions on how to do every little thing, like I did before.
That night we had a blast with lots of singing and dancing. Both kids had a song they were in and they both made me tear up. Gracia’s song even had a fairly complicated dance to go along with it. She hadn’t wanted to participate in practices a couple of times, but we talked to her about it and it encouraged me to see her up there not only doing it, but enjoying herself!
One of our elders shared about how we need to tell others the Good News just like the shepherds did, then they handed out gifts to the kids. First to kids who had been invited by their friends, but weren’t church-goers, then to our church kids. And last, but not least was the meal! There was couscous, vermicelli noodles, bread, salad, onion sauce, chicken, meat, cake, cookies, drinks and probably more that I’m forgetting. We got home at midnight and fell fast asleep.
The whole day and night was so encouraging to me because I felt like we were a part of the church. I’m so thankful God gave us this loving church to patiently walk with us and accept us in their group…even if we still talk with weird accents and sometimes make cultural blunders.