Sunday, November 24

The first set of Sunday bells began ringing at 5:30 a.m., and we were so thankful that the bells waited until daylight.  Often, the bells ring as early as 4:30.  The final bell rang around 6:30, and church began at 7:00 this morning.  A sea of bodies pressed into our little concrete block church, and we filled up the wooden benches and kneeling rails, especially on the women's side.  I know to sit on the end of the bench because it has the most support.  Even my girls make the plank sink down in the middle!

Katherine had been awake in the night because she was itching so much, and this morning we discovered that both she and Benjamin had been enjoyed by some tiny sea creatures while they were swimming yesterday afternoon.  We pulled out the Benadryl and the hydrocortizone cream to give them some relief, and Katherine slept on my lap through the entire church service.

By 9:00 we were home and taking our lelenga off the still warm stones.  We had enough to share with three different friends!  As I came back from delivering a plate to Kiko, I found Grace at our door returning one of our bowls.  She had put a tuna inside to reciprocate our gift of cooking bananas last week.  She and I sat on the porch and visited for a long time while the rest of the family did the prep work for our traditional Sunday lunch of pizza.  We even used half a bag of the cherished pepperoni that we sent over in our crate.
After a while, I noticed that Grace was looking hard at something inside the house.  She finally said, "What is that?  A big flower on your wall?"  I turned and discovered that she was asking about our "thankful turkey".  I tried my best to explain Thanksgiving and our family's tradition of making a construction paper turkey and multi-colored feathers to list the many things for which we were thankful.  Grace let us know that she and her kids are going back to her home village to celebrate Christmas with her family, so we won't see them again until sometime in January.

After Grace left, our family began playing Settlers of Catan.  After church in Marulaon, we almost always set the pizza dough to rise and begin playing a family game.  I'd only just begun my strategy to win when Hilda showed up asking for change for some big bills.  She stayed a while and visited with two of her kids nearby.  Hilda is involved in all kinds of groups and committees all over the Solomon Islands.  She's very forward thinking, so it was good to hear her thoughts and feelings about education and church and sanitation and just life in general. 

When Hilda left with her change and a packet of Chinese cabbage seeds, I finished my domination, I mean we completed our game and ate our pizza.  We had hardly finished clean up when Chief Leonard arrived to talk to Aaron about compiling a book of Christmas carols in Lavukaleve.  Those two guys can story about anything and everything, I'm so thankful for Chief Leonard.  He's a good leader for our village, and he's trustworthy and hard working, too.

I walked down to the point of the island (where Grace and her family live) to check on our kids who were playing with Grace's kids for one last time this year.  Sarah was playing cards, and the other three were swimming and playing with Grace's canoe.

I made my rounds through that half of Marulaon, storying with lots of women along the way, picking up a huge papaya from Hilda, and choosing a tentative date for the next Bible story workshop with women from several Lavukal villages.  By the time I got home, kids were going through the shower, and leftovers were on the cabinet for supper.