It's Thanksgiving!!!!!!!! We are celebrating this American holiday tonight in the smoldering heat in a tiny house with dozens of people, while my family in Virginia will be spending their holiday in a tiny cabin in the freezing cold mountains. It is bittersweet not being there with them. My sister and I have a big menu of classic Thanksgiving dishes that we're preparing for dinner tonight for the family and boarders at my uncle's house. Which means the girls who usually cook will enjoy free entertainment (again) watching us sweat and scramble trying to figure out their tiny kitchen only equipped with the essentials- a couple gas burners, a sink, and a counter.
Anyway I haven't posted any pictures because I'm not a good blogger, but here are a few that I pulled from the handful of pictures we've uploaded to the computer.
Mangosteen- the new not-so-new super fruit that everyone is crazy about back home right now.
It is actually very yummy.
But it feels and kinda looks like a brain on the inside.... this picture makes it look less slimy than it really is. (And that's my beautiful mama holding it open)
This is Kristi-Faith. She's four. She's the daughter of a young pastor and his wife that live in a remote village -literally in the bush- about half an hour from Ozamis City. They are so excited because they are finally going to have a church building to meet in with their small congregation. Earlier this year, two of their original five children died inexplicably in the middle of the night. They are still committed to doing the work they feel called to- pastoring their people, giving Help and Hope in every way their sweet family can. Isn't she just the cutest, purdiest thing?
And this is me conquering the coconut...
I'm a pro now
\
Without the duty of work or other obligations here, I've had as much free time to spend reading and thinking and reflecting and dreaming as could ever satisfy my appetite, basically. I've also been getting a lot of pressure... from everyone... to dance at different events while here, and- I don't dance anymore. I don't know how many times I've said that sentence just in the time I've been here. And every time I say it, it feels like I'm driving the nails a little deeper into the boards covering that door in my life. I can't and won't go into all the details, because I'm sure it sounds silly when I say that this one issue has been a point of spiritual struggle and revelation in me since I arrived. I'm like having the biggest inward battle I've face in a really long time and it, on the surface, is about something I thought was totally irrelevant and no longer a part of who I am. Well, dozens of journal entries and conversations and countless prayers later, I was dancing in the pouring rain on a tiny old basketball court on our street when I realized all the reasons why I gave up dancing in the first place. Silly reasons. Blind decisions. Lies that I believed. Buried dreams. And I just decided that day- I'm going to start dancing again.
I hope you all have wonderful, delicious Thanksgivings with the ones you love or whoever you may be lucky enough to be with today, and that you discover something new about yourself or them or the world you live in.
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