Hosting During the Fast

“Hosting During the Fast” …..Its a complete oxymoron – especially with all that hosting usually entails over here.  It has been quite the challenge for me, requiring a lot of grace from my friends.

For the last 10 months I have been trying to learn all that I can on how to properly host my cousin guests.  I’ve tried to have plenty of nuts, fruit and baked goods on hand to sufficiently fill the table at a moment’s notice.  I need to be ready with hot tea and break the flat bread once they have a seat.  Well, this last month of Ramadan has sufficiently thrown my whole system out of whack.  During this lunar month, depending on how devout you are, you are not supposed to eat or drink anything until around 10:45 PM.

During this last month, whenever my friends have come over, I just don’t know what to do with myself as I am not to offer any food or tea!  Since it is about 100 degrees outside some will want water but for the most part our table is empty as we chat…which just feels so weird.

Another aspect to get used to is that all dinner invitations are for 11:00 PM meals!  Now, when it was just Josh and I we had no problem with the late evenings but Jaden goes bonkers when he misses his bedtime.

We have been extremely fortunate to move next to some very nice neighbors (again!).  They are devout but have had an open door to us since the day after we got here.  Our second day in our new home we met them outside and they invited us to dinner the next evening.  They have two daughters (6 and 13) and are watching a friend’s baby kitten (this is important because Jaden LOVES the cat!)  We planned for dinner around 8 which made us really curious how it would all work.

Well, that evening they still filled their table…just for us!  The girls broke their fast a little early since we were special guests but the husband refrained from eating and drinking until after prayer that evening.  Jaden filled up on all the snacks because we ended up eating dinner after 10 pm.  He couldn’t even eat his favorite rice dish!

Jaden had the time of his life with the girls.  He knows the youngest by name and refers to her often even when we are not with them.  (She has made it to his P-list)  For the last three nights we have gone over to visit and Jaden has had so much fun running around and just being silly with his new friend.  Since we are “good friends” now, they do not break their fast until the proper time but will give Jaden and the youngest snacks.  The night before last, I taught them how to make pizza and she called every neighbor she knew to come and try some!

We are so grateful to the Father for providing us with such wonderful local friends.  After our first meal with our new neighbors, she came by our house to see what we had done with the place.  I showed her and explained all the cleaning I had been doing.  We talked about how dirty it was and I showed her how I couldn’t clean the walls around the sink sufficiently.  The very next day, she came by with some contact paper that she had bought to cover my dirty walls with!!

I ask that you keep this family in your thoughts.  As they finish their month long fast this week there will be much celebration.  We hope that our relationship with them can truly grow into a wonderful friendship with eternal results.