blue diamonds. that is the name friske received this afternoon from our muslim friend. he said her eyes looked like blue diamonds and the bashful girl just smiled. 🙂 she is too stinkin cute.
what a day we had today. it was awesome. we woke up this morning and everyone went downstairs for breakfast. i stayed back and decided to just pray for our day and the city we are in. a little while later, they left again for lunch. this time i received a visitor at my door. he is a doctor and friend of our contact here in china. we met him on monday back in the last city. (sorry for not being able to spill names…)
anyways, he asked me if we would like to join him this afternoon/evening to go into a village where his friend lives for dinner. he said he was going to make us “sheep.” i of course, am a bit apprehensive of the whole “village meals” but gladly accepted his offer. everyone came back and also decided to go. so at about 3:30 we got in a little mini-van.cab.go-cart deal and headed up the mountain.
his friend is muslim and he told us we would be arriving right at the end of their prayer time. so we saw many men walking out of their mosque…which is already an interesting sight for us. 🙂
we were warmly greeted by a large group of people who had NEVER seen “foreigners” before. i cant even begin to describe the stares we received. it was honestly really funny. the women and children were all very shy. the men escorted us into this room and pointed to a spot with a table for us to sit. it reminded me of like a japanese restaurant how you sit around those low tables. we all took our shoes off and jumped up on the blanket.
we were then served a variety of “dishes.” i wish i could tell you what they were…but i have no clue. and when you have 39 eyes staring at you…you definitely eat what is in front of you. the first thing they brought out was like a fried bread-twist thing. not bad. then they brought out these puffs that had veggies and meat inside. i think?! 🙂 after that was the bowl of meat with maybe onions or noodles inside with some broth. not real sure, but we prayed, ate, and smiled. 🙂 we were also told that what they served was a huge “delicacy” for the muslims. they only have this food on special occasions and it was a real feast they had shared with us!
the doctor speaks a bit of english so he was able to guide us a bit. we sat and laughed at them, and they stood and laughed at us. i kind of felt like i was in 6th grade again, with the whole separation thing between guys and girls. no communication. and how you would just stand around and look at each other and laugh. then run away and hide. yes…that was pretty much what happened. they were really shy around us in the beginning and then began to warm up a little.
i think the best thing from today was that we were able to lay a foundation in these peoples’ minds about americans. being they only had off opinions of us, we were able to laugh and play with them. re-directing their original thoughts. they continually invited us back and im excited for more Christians to enter into their village and share Christs’ love with them…even just by their attitude.
so after we ate, they wanted to show us around their village. we began to walk, and soon had tons of kids and people following us. i think they were still so stunned to see such funny looking people 🙂
we saw their mosque and where they prayed…
we were also exposed to the way many of the families lived. also seeing some of the ones who live in a cave…
im still just amazed at how generous they were towards us. offering all they had to show their appreciation for us visiting them. and why? they blessed us more than we blessed them!
as we were walking back from the last house, the doctor asked us to sing a song. so we asked him what he wanted us to sing…and he started to bust out…celion dion…my heart will go on. funny. 🙂
after he was finished, we decided to sing worship songs the rest of the way. everyone was amused, and although they didnt understand us…im confident that God is going to do amazing things in that village…along with in the hearts of those people.
not sure what tomorrow will hold… we will be praying about that, but through the layers of dirt and smoke in the air – this city is the home to many many people who have never heard about Christ. so who cares if we are stared down on the streets…there is a purpose for us being here, and we will keep on breaking barriers.
all my love…
(the family on the left here is homeless…)
