Ups and Downs

Hot temperatures and soot in the air from the burning sugar cane fields around town…that means that the holidays are here again!

Last week Thursday, we had a Thanksgiving meal with friends from our small groups from church. By the time we ate, between adults and kids, there were twenty-two of us there.

The evening started with a devotional time followed by meter long turkey sandwiches. Not the traditional meal for the day, but much easier and still tasty. Sue had made three pumpkin pies – with whipped cream on top – for dessert.

After the meal, candy corn – a novelty brought down from the states – was given out, and people gave thanks for something in their lives with each piece of candy they had. The candy corn was way too sweet for everyone, but they still had a lot to be thankful for!
It was decided that next year, we’d use chocolates instead of candy corn.

Since it was a weeknight, the get together didn’t go too late, but people still hung around to visit for quite a while.

Saturday morning, we went out with the evangelistic teams into the church neighborhood. This outreach has been going on each Saturday during November, but this past Saturday the sun was exceptionally hot! There have been all kinds of responses from the folks we’ve talked to, the kindest ones have been those who invited us in for a cup of juice or water along with the conversation. Some have come out to visit the church, and several expressed how nice it was just to know that a church in town was interested in them.

Saturday afternoon, the thanksgiving decorations came down and Christmas decorations went up. Even after all these years, I’m still not used to decorating the tree with a fan blowing on me, but we got it done. Good timing too, as we had out of town guests for lunch today. On Friday evening there will be another group over for supper. It’s nice to have the house decorated both for us and the folks we have in.

Looking ahead, there’s another wedding is coming up at church this Saturday night. Though Brazilians have said that it is an “American thing” to have air-conditioning, everyone that comes in breathes a sigh of relief and is so thankful to walk into the church. I know I am!