“Fresh Lettuce” yelled one, “the juiciest tomatoes!” sang another, “a sale, a sale!” rang a third. It’s not known as Good Friday here, its Great Friday. The vendors of fresh vegetables hawked their wares from every side as I walked the street and market, along with thousands of others. Everyone shopping hard and buying up for the long Easter weekend.
I was flowing with the crowds when I hear someone yell, “komshe!” (neighbor!) at me. I looked up and indeed it was my closest neighbor. He motioned for me to come in and around, behind the produce stands that lined the market end to end. I have never been on this side of the stands . . . it was a very different perspective of the community. Then a more interesting thing started to happen . . . those that know me within the community were startled to see me sitting on the vendor’s side! It was interesting to see the various thoughts flowing across their faces.
Anyhoo back to my neighbor. He told me to sit down with him and have a coffee and we did . . . talking about our kids (our oldest two are very similar in ages). Then we began to talk about Great Friday as it is known here. It was sad to discover that he knew little about the meaning of Great Friday and even less about its significance. Pray that we will have more opportunities to sit and drink coffee and unpack the significance of Great Friday. Will you? It has taken almost three years of trust-building to get to this point where we can sit down and have a coffee as friends. As I have commented before time is view quite differently here, and as a foreigner it takes even longer. It’s hard to have enough patience . . . I want to tell him everyhting now!
I was flowing with the crowds when I hear someone yell, “komshe!” (neighbor!) at me. I looked up and indeed it was my closest neighbor. He motioned for me to come in and around, behind the produce stands that lined the market end to end. I have never been on this side of the stands . . . it was a very different perspective of the community. Then a more interesting thing started to happen . . . those that know me within the community were startled to see me sitting on the vendor’s side! It was interesting to see the various thoughts flowing across their faces.
Anyhoo back to my neighbor. He told me to sit down with him and have a coffee and we did . . . talking about our kids (our oldest two are very similar in ages). Then we began to talk about Great Friday as it is known here. It was sad to discover that he knew little about the meaning of Great Friday and even less about its significance. Pray that we will have more opportunities to sit and drink coffee and unpack the significance of Great Friday. Will you? It has taken almost three years of trust-building to get to this point where we can sit down and have a coffee as friends. As I have commented before time is view quite differently here, and as a foreigner it takes even longer. It’s hard to have enough patience . . . I want to tell him everyhting now!
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