Saturday, May 9, 2009

Mother's Day Weekend in a Compound

How does a family celebrate Mother's Day when living in a training center where such a huge portion of our time is scheduled? Well, tomorrow we have house "church" in small groups. It isn't really church because we don't do church stuff like the Lord's Supper, baptism, or tithing. It functions as a time for us to worship, fellowship, and get in the Word, though. I've made a request that we go somewhere for lunch so we don't have to fight the girls in the cafeteria on Mother's Day. I'm hoping for somewhere with a playground so we can relax some. (I know, we're big spenders, but who wants to wait four hours?)

We'll have a restful afternoon. Last year I read The Bell Jar on Mother's Day. Yes, that's right. I read about a crazy lady all day on Mother's Day. I'm just sentimental like that.

Tomorrow evening we have cultural worship. The culture of the week is Brazil. Last week was African (sub-Saharan), so everything was in Swahili. We ended the service by shaking every one's hand. In the middle of a viral outbreak. Hey, you gotta go with the culture. (We washed our hands thoroughly afterward, and no one got sick. See? Culture isn't so bad!) Tomorrow night the service will be in Portuguese. It's pretty odd not being able to understand what's going on, but it's fun, too. The most "interesting" part is the lack of childcare, something that we're going to have to get used to because it's pretty doubtful that any church we go to will have childcare.

The most important way that we'll celebrate Mother's Day is that we'll talk to our mothers, hopefully with video through Skype. We love you, Mom's!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love you too. Hope you have a great communal(is that a word?) Mother's Day!!! We are going to Bham tomorrow afternoon. We will talk to you about a time to skype. Mom

Marian said...

The "church" services sound so interesting...what an exciting way to learn different cultures!! Happy Mothers Day to you!!