Eid-al Fadr

Today was the Muslim holiday, Eid Al Fadr. For the period of Ramadan, our neighbors have been fasting during daylight hours from food and water. They honor this time as a month-long personal sacrifice to reflect on and draw closer to God (Allah). 

Now that the Ramadan fast is complete, families get together and celebrate. They decorate their homes, wear brand new clothes, and eat foods prepared with extra spices to celebrate the event. 

I enjoy observing cultures. Today I greeted our neighbors with phrases I have learned in French and fulf. In French we can say Bonne fête (happy celebration) and bonne rupture (happy breaking of the fast). In fulf I learned the phrase barka he yarude ndiyam (bless the gift of food as a loose translation). 

As I greeted neighbors I saw many in new clothes. Everyone had such good spirits today. We heard horns blowing on cars and motos. We heard children blowing bugle horns, playing with new balloons and other toys, and all the children had new clothes they were wearing. People were going from house to house greeting neighbors and celebrating together. Those who have come from out of town will likely celebrate for the rest of the week.

For all the happiness we saw, we still reflect on how fsr from truth and God's grace our neighbors are. Please pray with us that we find opportunities to share our faith with others. 

We will remember this festival for the power cut today. It was extremely warm today, 110F. At 11 this morning we experienced our power outage. We heard a main line from another contry that supplies power to us was disturbed. By 3pm it was fixed, only to discover another disturbance an hour later on a similar line. Because of darkness they had to suspend work on it. I read that a repair crew has been sent to fix the issue and will start tomorrow on the repair. Until then the entire nation is operating on 80% power supply. The power company will share power to different segments until power is fully restored. (Lesson for engineers to not plan for power needs to be equal to the supply of power)

I did get our generator running today! Then suddenly it stopped working. It starts but then almost immediately shuts off again. I will look in the morning, hopeful it is as simple as draining the fuel line. 

The kids were fitful tonight as we went to bed with no power. Our power did come on at 11pm and the kids went right to sleep shortly after that. I expect we will lose power again at some point during the night. But at this moment we are well and everyone in the house is resting peacefully.

Continuing to live one day at a time.

Thank you for praying!