Breaking Fast with Friends

In Island culture, people don’t usually eat together.  In fact, they don’t really have regular meal times.  Whoever is there eats when the food is ready, or when they are hungry, wherever they find food.  The exceptions to this rule are events (like weddings) and the month of fasting.  

Frying the Starches

In the month of fasting, families eat together and every night (if they have the money) is a feast.  The menu does not vary a great deal.  There are fried starches in abundance like cassava, green bananas, breadfruit, arrowroot, and sweet potato.  There is tea, porridge, juice and water for drinking.  There will be a meat sauce (or sauces) made with beef, chicken or fish.  There are bread options—especially a special spongy bread from with coconut milk that is a must for the season.  Usually there is salad, with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, carrots, cucumbers, etc.  Beyond that there can be other additions, like samosas, desserts, soda, coffee, dates, etc.  A good fast-breaking is a feast to remember.  And when it lasts a whole month it makes the time special.

We want to take advantage of this time.  It is a time for fellowship, a time to deepen relationships and a time to get to know families.  For those in the family of Truth, it is an opportunity to love neighbors and one another.  And that is how it came to be that this past Thursday we had nearly 70 people at our house for breaking the fast.  It was meant to be a time for the family of Truth to gather, encourage, and simply be together.  We would not only eat, but we would sing and pray and worship in spirit and truth.  But such an undertaking would take some work.

Preparing the Salads

It began with a list.  Who would come?  What would they bring?  Thankfully, for a feast like this, we would not have to bear the burden of all the cooking.  Each part of the meal was divvied up and people were called and given assignments.  The next step was buying the things that were needed.  On the day of the feast, Tom went out with an island brother to look for and buy green bananas in bulk—that’s around 100 bananas.  Also a sack full of cassava—maybe about 40 pieces.  All of these were brought home to be shucked and prepared for frying (not a small undertaking). Frying began around 3pm (three hours before the event).  Porridge was cooked in a giant 5kg pot and carried out to the serving bowls in a bucket.  Meats and breads arrived (cooked at others’ homes) and were plated for serving at our house.  Salad ingredients also arrived needing to be arranged beautifully on serving trays.  The house too, needed preparation.  Tables, chairs and sofas were moved out, and into the back hallways.  Mats were put down.  Food was arranged into groups on the mats with plates for each guest.  Around 6pm everything was prepared and the guests promptly arrived.

We were about 40 adults and 30 kids.  Everyone ate with gusto.  Plates were passed, juice was served, and many dirty dishes were created.  Generally, Islanders get down to business when it’s time to eat.  Conversation is saved for after.  This was mostly the case that night.  When even the latecomers had been served and everyone had eaten their fill we quickly cleared plates and swept mats and invited all the adults for some singing, prayer, and teaching.  Meanwhile a few of our teammates gathered the horde of children outside for stories about God and fun, and numerous trips to the bathroom.  The prayer time went pretty smoothly.  Most people were eager to participate and ask questions and certainly there was good news shared.  Some of our brothers and sisters brought their families with them and among them members who are still searching, so this was a wonderful chance to share some good news.

Our big 13 yr old!

But in relatively little time, people were on their way home. We packed up some young men with all the leftovers they could carry. Those who had contributed food grabbed their pots, bowls, and other items.  We pulled up the mats, swept and moved furniture and then stopped. As a team, we gave thanks to God for a wonderful night.  Many dishes remained to be washed and we were all tired, but we had feasted and fellowshipped well, and we were thankful.  May these fellowships only grow and grow.

PRAYERS ANSWERED

We celebrated all three of our team birthdays, including our daughter who turned 13! We are so thankful for her and the ways she is growing, maturing and blessing our family. The large event went well and people had positive things to say— we pray that it’s impact would continue and that the connections of the group would grow into a true feeling of family. Everyone’s allergies seem to be improving! 

PRAYERS REQUESTED

We are in the middle of busy time and feeling a bit stretched thin. Pray that we would trust and rest in the midst of busyness. We are taking this week to do a language push with our team— pray that it would motivate us to greater fluency in the local language, pray that we would grow in our ability to communicate and understand our island friends, especially pray for those teammates who are just starting out, that they would persevere in their language learning. Thursday should be the last day of fasting and Friday the biggest holiday of the year! The holiday is about connecting with all your friends— may it help us build on our friendships with islanders. We are hoping to go on a team retreat after the holiday (and before our short-termer arrives), pray that the logistics for that will come together. Our old landlady (from whose house we moved in January) is now saying she’s unhappy with how we left the house. We had left money for the minor damages and wear/tear of us having lived there for 3+ years, and walked her husband through the entire house. She is not known for being terribly agreeable or reasonable, but we would like to leave on good terms with her (we thought we had!). Pray for wisdom as we negotiate that situation— we find it quite stressful and at this busy time it feels like an attack.