Divali and Esperanza

Divali season has arrived in Trinidad. Divali is the Hindu Festival of Lights, and is a major public holiday in Trinidad & Tobago. Hinduism is the second largest religion in the country, after Christianity. About a quarter of the population here is Hindu. In the area where we live, the percentage is even higher. In fact, the main Divali festival for the entire island takes place only about a mile from our apartment at the Divali Nagar grounds. While the day of Divali isn't until next Saturday, the 17th, the celebration began already this past week. Starting this past Thursday, the Divali Nagar grounds have stages of music, dancing and other festivities every evening until Divali. There are also many booths that sell various Indian products and foods (all vegetarian). While we have not yet had the opportunity to make it down to the big celebration, we did get invited to a smaller neighborhood celebration. But I'll let someone else tell about that. . . .
~Richard

One of the reasons American church workers are invited here is because there are not enough local Mennonite pastors to tend all the churches. One of the main goals for the churches is to train pastors so that there will be enough for all. One local pastor has been pastoring two churches now for some time. He will take a sabbatical in January. At that time we will fill in for him at one church. At the other, Esperanza, a new local pastor hopes to begin. This pastor and his family were part of the Mennonite Church of Chaguanas. But they have now been coming to Esperanza in hopes of stepping into the pastoring role. But their relationships at MCCh are still strong. For instance, this man's wife has been very involved with a women's group there. She decided that she would like to start a women's group at Esperanza also. So rather than leaving one to join the other, she invited them to form a new, joint group. And she invited me to come be a part of it and bring a devotional.
Like all church activities here there was lots of singing, tambourine playing and food. They asked me if I knew how to make pumpkin pies. They said they only get good pumpkin pies when missionaries come. So, I made some. Thank goodness for recipes on the internet. I also preached at Charlieville Mennonite Church this morning. So my week was pretty full with classes, sermon and devotional prep and pie baking. That's where I was yesterday afternoon until the Divali celebration.
~Barb

As was mentioned earlier, our family got invited to a Divali celebration. You see, I have a friend at school who is Hindu, and so on Thursday, I was asking her about Divali just because I was curious. So, she was telling me about it, and when she realized that I had never been to a Divali celebration, she invited me to come and bring the rest of the family to the Divali celebration in her village.
On Saturday night, after picking up Mommy from the women's thing, we headed over to my friend's house. After her brother rode his bike around trying to find us, but didn't, and we went down the wrong street which was a dead end and spent a while trying to figure out how to get back, my friend herself got the bike and came to find us. Then we followed her to her house. Her house was right next to a big savannah (savannahs are what we'd think of as parks). She introduced us to her family, including aunts and uncles and cousins who were there. Then she disappeared for a while to get ready. During that time, we talked to her mom mostly, and got to see her cow. When she was ready, she took us over to the savannah and we got some food. Then we sat down and watched the program. There was a stage and lots of folding chairs. There were 6 contestants to be the "Divali queen". Right as we sat down, the first one was introducing herself. After each contestant said a little about herself, there were some dancers. Then the "queens" were each asked a question, for example "If you could go back and change a moment in your past, what would it be and why?" The judges scored them based on their answers. Then there was more music. All the music, though was in Hindi. My friend's brother played in a tassa band. Tassa is a type of drumming. After we heard her brother, it was almost 10:00 already and we headed home. We never got to see who won the contest for being queen. But, I thought it was very interesting. Even now as I'm sitting here and typing in our apartment, I can hear music from some sort of Divali celebration, I think, and firecrackers too. There's a lot of things going on during this week for Divali. Someone even put Hindu flags all along the road right next to our house.
~Olivia

This evening, Olivia and I took our turn at Esperanza, meeting with their youth group (which I have called the Hope youth group also; the church goes by either name). Another youth group we have been meeting with (the one from Carlsen Field) has already started working on their Christmas play, but at Hope they are working on another play that will be performed at the end of this month before they start work on the one for Christmas. It seems like the youth groups here like to do a lot of dramas, which is something Olivia and I have enjoyed and also felt like that is something we can connect with! The youth group has also been planning to take a trip to a water park at the beginning of November, and instead of asking everyone to raise their own money, the offering they take goes towards that. It's amazing how active these youth groups are!
~Roxy