Just imagine the silent night that Christ was born and then think of the totall opposite. That is what it is in a Mengen village, where many exited new believers are staying ready to celebrate the birth of the Redeemer.
It was as usual very interesting to be amongst the Mengen people but also to viswit with our Co workers. They are from Canada, America and Ireland and we from South Africa and each one of us believe we know how to celebrate Christmas.
We as a team met together and marked a few different days to visit amongst each other and test the different foods and traditions. Most of them come from countries where it snows so our suggestion of a traditional South African Braai with some patato salad and fresh bread did not sound so good. We had some good food and some good laughes. At one stage, Liam was dressed as a Candy cane and our co workers daughter as a gift even with a bow in the hair. I some other time I was blind folded and had to stick Rudolf the reindeers nose to his face. We had to eat stuffing and pumpkin pie and who knows what all. Even though we are living in the tropics and it is basically 100% humid most of the time, our co workers had a miniature imitation fireplace in their house and pictures of snowflakes in their windows. It was all great fun!
And then there is the Village…
You know by know that the Mengen people love their pigmeat. But there is something else that they also love, and that is what they call ‘fresh meat’.
This would be imported rack of lamb from New Zealand, which we can buy in certain stores in our local town. This all comes in 20 kg boxed kind of bulk packed.
This is only something they can buy if we help them a bit to fly it in. So this year they decided to have fresh meat, which is then prepared in the hole in the ground called a ‘Mu-Mu’. (See picture)
On Saturday evening they all got together and prepared the ground and stones and visited together to about 3AM and then they packed all the meat in the whole on the stones and covered it with the Banana leaves. This all happened close to our house, so we end up joining them at about 3 Am because if you can’t beat them then join them.
After some good fellowship and we all got together at about 8 am and I shared with the believers about how it will be if Jesus comes again to fetch us!
Then it was time to open up the hole in the ground dish out the meat and other local food and eat. It was great!
Ok, just wanted to say we survived.
We are out on our support centre for a workshop in Bible translation and would love to hear from you guys.
Greetings Marie for the Laureti clan