Baba had the day off so Biana took the motherly responsibility of cooking for all five of us. Breakfast was scrambled eggs with tomato and onion along with toast and jam. It was really good and got us off to a good start. Jon and Kristen went to church at 6 this morning (I thought American churches start early) so while they went back to sleep Biana and I headed off to United Baptist. The fellowship there is always great and I’m sure it was a great message today but the pastor who spoke is so hard to understand I wonder if the locals even know what he is saying. I know the message had to do with what is means to be created in God’s image so I listened in to what passage he was using and did some of my own soul-searching. The coolest part of the service came at the end when they brought up a very bashful young couple who had been married this weekend. It is tradition in the Nigerian Church for brothers and sisters in the congregation to celebrate a couple’s marriage by taking an offering to help them start off on the right track financially. The music began to play, everyone started clapping, and people danced their way up to the ushers to bless these two people with a few naira. What a sense of community!
Biana made tuna for lunch and we enjoyed hearing more of her life stories. She shared stories about living in a tent doing reforestation projects in Wyoming for a year, sneaking out of church services with Martha to get soda from the market and making it back in time for closing prayer, growing up with a Slavic mother and Italian father, raising a family in an intentional community in Kerman, lots and lots of things I have never heard! It has been really fun to learn about the lesser-known side of this woman, I can tell she hasn’t changed much over the years.
The rest of the afternoon was very relaxing. Adrie and I caught up on e-mails, I started reading Dry by Augusten Burroughs (because memoirs make the best reading material), did a pilates video (and remembered how flexible I USED to be), and took a bucket bath by lantern light. Dinner was an amazing leftover stew and the five of us spent a couple of hours together eating, cleaning dishes, doing some chores, and sharing funny stories. Somehow accordions popped up in conversation so we had a good time sharing about Grandpas and family reunions and polka weddings. It is always a good time with our little group. We miss our families so much, but God is showing us that we don’t need to worry because we have our own support group right here: Mother Biana with her two children Adrie and Caitlin along with Auntie Kristen and Uncle Jon who live right around the corner. What an unexpected blessing.
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