Thanksgiving Day #2

We awoke on Sunday morning a bit late. The roosters let us down this time; I didn't know much until about 6 a.m. After doing this a few times throughout the past few months, I'm really starting to be ok with the cot. I still wish it was a tad wider, but it's not so uncomfortable these days.

To say I was excited about this day would be an understatement. I had not been to a village church service since the first year we were here, and even that was not a regular Sunday service but a building dedication. The first service started about 6:45 with the morning devotion. You can hear the bell ringing telling everyone it's time to start, and everyone starts walking. I was running a bit late because I had heard it started at 7:00. :)

After we finished the devotional, we headed back to the house to eat breakfast. While there, we heard the bell announcing the Catholic services. There are Christian, Catholic, and Buddhist families all living in this one village. When Pawn's parents first moved back to this village (it's her father's village), they were the only Christians there. Now they have about five families at that church, the Catholic church has about the same, and I'm not sure how many Buddhist families there are.

After we finished with breakfast, it was time to walk back and have Sunday school and then worship.

I guess Pawn knows that every good lesson starts in Genesis...and goes to what Jesus did for us on the cross. The kids (and adults who stayed) really enjoyed seeing the flannelgraph and enjoyed the lesson.The night before the pastor had asked Rusty to preach, and he said Pawn needed to start practicing translating. I'm guessing she did a good job. Haha! She was translating into a language I don't know, but I thought they both looked good up there in their Karen outfits.They gave us Karen bags as tokens of appreciation. We really like having these to use as Bible bags on Sundays.I liked this view of the Karen ladies walking back to their houses after services. The married ladies are the ones on the left, and the unmarried girls are on the right.
Pawn standing at her parents' house in her Karen dress. Too bad she's not wearing her head scarf too!I think we're missing a couple of brothers in this picture so I guess we'll call them our send-off group. It was sad to say goodbye, but we were so thankful to share this time with them.