This past week it was my class's turn to give a little presentation in chapel. They'd been practicing choreography to a song called, "Jesus is my Superhero." Thursday, Lance came up to me and said, "Jesus is a Superhero!" and posed like Superman with one fist out, the other on his hip, and leaning forward with a leg kicked back. As if that's not cute enough, you should here his naturally raspy voice and see his fat cheeks and floppy hair!
BJ, the "big kid" in my class (the one with the smelly gas) said to me, "I ate so much for lunch, my neck is getting so big!" I said, "You mean your tummy?" and he said, "Yes!" English as a second language can be pretty comical sometimes.
As you all know, Thursday was Thanksgiving at home! Of course, that's not celebrated here, and I kept forgetting all week that it was coming up and then forgetting on Thursday that it was even Thanksgiving. Maybe part of the reason I would forget was because I didn't REALLY think of it as Thanksgiving until later that night when it was Thursday morning at home and I could text my family a happy Thanksgiving. Anyway, it was pretty cool to be able to look at my Thursday and see how blessed I am even with my every day experiences. How many Americans get to say they teach at a Christian elementary school in the Philippines? How many people got to sing worship songs, share a Bible story, and help feed a meal to a group of under-privileged children? And then, the day ended with a terrific Bible study, and it was also great to be able to look around and appreciate the many, many new friends I have made. Oh, and after Bible study Lauren, Anderson and I still hadn't eaten, so the choice was obvious. The closest thing to home here: McDonald's!
Saturday was great as well. All of the Agape staff was invited to the Carla Village to watch the Ati school's first ever program. They are a sister school to Agape and will be trying to provide the same opportunities as Agape even though there is maybe a total of 20 kids in the school at this point. The kids gave a fun, cute U.N. Day celebration program and it was great how the kids were able to feel so special and important and didn't have to worry about criticism (which the Ati people receive plenty of).
After the program, the Russells had us all over for a Thanksgiving feast! All of us "foreigners" went, as well as Praise, Randy, and Lilia (Filipino Agape staff) who had also gone to the performance. We had turkey, which they had put on a stick and prepared over a fire, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes (which is more like normal potato with a really sweet sauce on it), and PIE. We didn't know how they would find turkey here but apparently they know someone who keeps turkeys that they were just able to buy from. They brought the live turkey home and did the whole, well, preparation themselves. We also didn't know how they would bake pie without an oven, but there is another American missionary family that lives near the Russells and I think they actually have an oven they used. That's the first oven I've heard of here! Also, we were promised pumpkin pie, and it was a mystery to us as to where they would find pumpkin. Turns out it was actually kalabasa pie which tastes the exact same as pumpkin! There was also apple pie and a custard pie.
Lilia's five year old daughter was there with her and said, "What's a turkey?"
Lilia watched as we put gravy on our mashed potatoes and thought that it was such an interesting concept. She tried it and liked it!
We also had cool whip for the pies, which she'd never had.
It's so easy to go to a different culture and think of some of their customs as strange, but others think the same thing about us!
 |
| Pre-dinner prayer |
I loved the food, fun, and fellowship. God is good!
No comments:
Post a Comment