Canadian Thanksgiving

 So, here at the GFM base, we have quite a few Canadians. And, October 13th marks the Canadian Thanksgiving! When asked what the reason for the Thanksgiving celebration is in Canada, the Canadians will tell you that they celebrate the big harvest, the harvesting of their crops for the year. So on Monday, the 13th we had a traditional Canadian Thanksgiving meal! It was great, the tables were decorated with 'Fall' favors and we had more food on the base than we'd ever seen since we've gotten here! There was a little bit of turkey, a little bit of ham, and a lot of chicken, sweet potato casserole, broccoli salad, some kind of noodle salad, strawberry jello, tea biscuits, mashed potatoes with carrots mixed in (apparently that's how they eat mashed potatoes...), pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pie,  butter tarts, and a traditional Canadian bar of which I have no hope of remembering the name. One of the Canadians even made a funny powerpoint "Quiz" about famous Canadians. It was a great and fun day, and a nice little reminder of home!

Mexican Church

Each Sunday, all of the Americans here on base split off and go to a local Mexican church. We are all supposed to be accompanied by a GFM staff member, but this  Sunday the staff members that go to our church couldn't make it, and neither could three of the other attendees. So, it ended up being me and one other girl and a guy who were attending church yesterday. It was a special day for our church, it was an outdoor service with a guest speaker and then a picnic! We brought some muffins and Coca-Cola. We had some neighbors from our barria (a Mexican neighborhood) come to the base and pick us up. The Mexicans are so hospitable, the parents had their four kids get out of the car (yes, car, as in seats five total, but rarely here are cars not over-packed) and had us three gringos get in, their children took a taxi to the site of the service/picnic. We tried to tell them that we would just take a taxi, that we didn't want to put them out, but, oh wait, none of us three speak Spanish! So, we graciously accepted their ride, with broken and probably grammatically-incorrect-to-the-point-of-comedy Spanish.

We arrived at the site, found seats and patiently awaited the commencement of the service (yet another Cultural tidbit, when Mexicans say something starts at noon, that means they stop what they were previously doing and start thinking about getting ready/going to the event at noon, not actually beginning the event at noon. This isn't the easiest adjustment for us punctual Americans.). So the service starts and the guest speaker begins his sermon. He spoke for 3 and 1/2 hours! It was a seemingly good sermon, I understood a few words here and there, he spoke for a while about his mother and something having to do with a time period of 8 years. The funny thing is, he would continually make eye contact with us three gringos, we think that he thought we could understand him, he constantly asked questions and pointed, and the church members (particularly the woman directly behind me) would answer by shouting, "Gloria Dios!"

After the service, the eating began. We were a little nervous, because it is offensive here to not each food which you are served, so that means if you are served pig intestine (which happens!) you must eat it-not taste it, but eat it in its entirety. Luckily, we were served black beans, minty rice, chicken, hard eggs and tortillas--astronomical portions, and of course we had to finish it all. Something else about chicken, you have to eat the whole piece chicken, the skin the fat, the gristle...everything but the bone. Luckily, I was able to finagle not eating the fat and skin and gristle, I hid it underneath my cup on my plate and quickly threw the entire think away. Aren't I sneaky? Once we were ready to go, we started making our way on foot to the main road to try and catch a cab back to base. Little did we know that cabs don't really run on Sunday, so we began the miles walk back to base, about 1/3 of the way three members from the church picked us up, so we again piled 6 people into a little car and accepted their offer. By the time we had made it home, we were gone for six hours! That's a long church service, but it was a great day and a great experience!

"Freedom Camp"

This past week, the MTS (Mission Training School) students were surprised to find out that we were to go on a camping trip in the mountains of Mexico. "Freedom Camp," as it was dubbed, lasted for a total of three days; we fasted from all food and drink (but were allowed water) and slept in tents in the mountains. It was a rough three days for me, my body didn't respond well to the deprivation past day two, but we all made it through! Even one of the staff daughters (she was 11!) made it, we were very proud of her. The camp was designed to be a 'death to self' experience, and we read Bondage Breaker by Neil Anderson and went through some worksheets to in order to find full freedom in Christ. Each  night we had a camp fire (which really wasn't the same without marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate) before bed, and we talked about how we wished we were roasting something over the fire! When we arrived back at base on Thursday night we broke our fast with Mexican Ritz crackers and Gatorade as communion and then had a meal of chicken soup. Needless to say, those were the best crackers and that was the best soup I have ever had! And although we tried not to get gluttonous that night, we gave in a little bit and ate some of the powdered sugar "donas" (donuts) from the Bimbo delivery the base had previously gotten--we all agreed they were worth it! So, overall Freedom Camp was a learning and growing experience, but one that I do not have the immediate desire to re-live any time soon :)