pizza party

Ah, the joy of the Lord truly is our strength...and God continues to shower that joy upon us through the guys at the seminary. Two months ago we decided to have the fourth year class over for dinner to say good-bye before graduation. With so much going on the next 2 weeks, we set the night for tonight. For the past 10 days, these men have talked about little else, going on and on about how much they were going to eat, how many days were left, and how excited they were to eat with their "godparents."

I decided not to bother cooking a full Haitian meal that would never be as good as the Haitian food they are used to, so instead we took an American approach. Most Haitians will not eat salad (Why would you eat leaves? I have heard...), so we made coleslaw, pizza with all the toppings, and brownies.

In typical fashion, they were 20 minutes late and dressed up in well-ironed clothes. Before we could eat, they sang us a few songs, prayed, and made a short speech. We made our appropriate, "we are blessed to have you in our home" speech, and then they dug in. Most of them had never had pizza before, nor did they know what the mushrooms were (Dad brought us a few cans last time in). Nonetheless, they ate it all heartily, generously forking the coleslaw directly on top of the pepperoni, pineapple and peppers and cut their pizza with a knife and fork. No matter what we said, the guys all insisted on eating the coleslaw ON the pizza, which IS how other Haitian food is eaten (pile everything on top of the rice). They were SO happy to be with us, and ate SO MUCH food :)

For almost 2 hours we all told riddles, jokes and stories, and when I broke out the camera, they all continued to clink their coke glasses together, until finally someone said, "Wait, this isn't a wedding."

Matt and I just laughed through the whole evening, which ended in another speech about how we are truly a family, another song, and a time of group prayer. They headed out into the night for study hall after many kisses, hugs, and handshakes, and Matt and I found ourselves quite full of love and thankfulness.

We had not expected, not even for a moment, to find ourselves so in love with these people God has called us to. We had not expected to have brothers we cared so deeply for so soon, nor did we expect to find such joy admits such hard work.

"We hope you do not have trouble with others at home or here because of your great friendship with us and because you live among us," one of them said as they were leaving.

"Anytime in Scripture that people did what God called them to do," Matt immediately said, "there was difficulty and at times, opposition. But they were doing what God called them to do and God blessed that."

There have been a lot of times this past year that we have felt the difficulty and opposition, but not the "blessed." But tonight was another one of those nights that all you remember is the joy.

There are a group of men down here who love the Lord, "love the pizza", and LOVE learning about the Bible...We are sure that at times there has been difficulty in your life because of your involvement in these mens lives and ministries, and we know keeping us working here isn't cheap. But we also know and trust and pray that the Lord will continue to bless you, as He is blessing us.

When we all get to heaven, we'll have pizza and laughter together.