MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! I hope you guys are all having a good time with you’re families and such. I’m goanna be honest, I thought I would be a lot more homesick than this, but I’m actually not. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas here, so I don’t really feel like I’m really missing out on anything. Actually, the people group that live in the village that we’re in (the mongo) celebrate new years on December 24 according to the lunar calendar.
Their new years rituals are a little different than ours, actually, a LOT different. At the beginning of every year, the people make pledges to the spirits saying: if the spirits give them this or that, then the people will give the spirits a pig or a cow or something, so through Dec. 24-26, the people sacrifice their animals to repay their pledges to the spirits. They do all sorts of spirit rituals, calling demons to the village to help them, and calling their ancestors. At the same time the church spends the night in prayer for God to send out all the demons and spirits so it’s a time of spiritual warfare for the area. It’s weird because back at home, the whole spiritual realm, and calling demons and stuff, sounds so bizarre, but here its part of their every day life. Some of the people are designated to call the spirits and will do rituals until they are completely demon possessed.
Another interesting little tradition the Mongo people have during these three days is that any single guy can find any single girl that he likes and take her away and then they get married. Does the girl have any say in this? Nope, none at all. If she notices that she’s being followed, she can run away, but if the guy gets her, and is able to get her home, then that’s the end of that, there hitched.
So anyways, I suppose I should give you an update of what I have been doing for the past two weeks up in the mountains. Getting here was something special that’s for sure. Our vehicle was packed so full of stuff and people that we barely made it up the hill. There were times when we had to get out and push the truck. Plus the roads are full of potholes, and there are places where half the road is gone because of land slides, it was an adventure to say the least.
We live in a house with five bedrooms, 13 people and one bathroom. Thankfully the shower has hot water because oh my goodness is it ever cold up here, especially at night. We’ve got a little fireplace in the living room, but threes so many holes and open spaces in the walls and stuff that it only helps if you’re sitting right next to it.
Most of the work that we have been doing up here so far has been gardening type stuff. We do a lot of weeding, and planting and watering. The people that we’re working for are a missionary couple that has been living here for 18 years. They’re married and have four kids. Their main source of income is their tea. So we’ve been weeding and trimming in the tea fields as well as heating the tealeaves and packaging them as well. We also planted a whole bunch of coffee seedlings. Lots and lots of coffee seedlings. J
Lets see, what else has been interesting here…. Oh ya, we slaughtered a pig. 7:00 in the morning we were over at the house where we watched the pig get killed and then we watched then burn the hair off and then slice it open and gut it. They use basically every part of the pig for something. They made sausage with some of the meat that they ground up and put it into the small intestine as the sausage casing. All the fat is used for oil and lard and then of course there are all the normal cuts of meat. I’m not goanna lie, I was extremely disappointed when our house smelled like delicious bacon, and then I came around the corner only to find it was deep fried large intestines… not really what I was hoping for.
Now even though the Mong don’t celebrate Christmas, it doesn’t mean that the people on this outreach team don’t. I would say we have successfully Christma-fied the house. J We have a Charlie Brown style tree. Now you see we don’t have much for decorating, so most of our stuff has been crafted out of pop cans some how. Although we do have a little tinsel and some legit ornaments. I even made a little nativity scene out of pop cans. Also, last night, we each hung up a sock by the fireplace and Santa came so we all got something! Haha (It’s possible that there was more than one Santa this year and that I may have been one of them) haha.
So far everything has been good though. The team has really been getting along and we’re having a lot of fun. It’s weird to think that we’ll only be out here 5 more weeks, then a week back at the base and then DTS is over! Thank you for all your prayers for the team, I can tell you from personal experience that God is hearing them and blessing this outreach.
I think that’s about it for now, again, I can’t make any guarantees as to when the next time I’ll have internet will be, so this is Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you again. J
Today’s Fun Fact:
When Thai people have kids, they give them Thai names, but as the kids grow up, whatever their nickname is, becomes their name. Which can be cute but some of the names they end up with I'm not so sure I would be thrilled with. Here's some of the names of the people from my base and the meanings of them:
Bow- As in the bow in someones hair
Mai- Silk
Gai- Chicken
and my personal favourite
Uan- Fat
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