From My Kitchen Window- Ramadan Nights

This is the month of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.  For 10 days most of our friends and neighbors here have been fasting from all food and drink from around 3:45 am to about 7:50 pm each day.  The purpose of the fast, for Muslims, is to focus their attention on God, to earn His favor, and they hope, to be forgiven of their sins.


One interesting pastime, is to monitor the activity from my kitchen window, to gauge what's happening in the city.

7:51 pm  
Just after the call to prayer goes off, it's time for iftar, time to break the fast.  Not a single car moving on the street.  Everyone is home eating.  Any car you do see is speeding madly to get home to eat, and who can blame them, considering they've been fasting for 12 hours!  If we stand out on the balcony, it's eerily quiet, except for the sounds of forks scraping plates that we can hear through our neighbors' open windows.  Looking at windows in several homes, you see families gathered around tables, some dining outside, as the families break their fast together.  Most stores and businesses are closed at this time, and it would be IMPOSSIBLE to catch a cab.

11:59 pm

The streets are packed as everyone goes out to visit with friends. 

12:41 am
... still packed...

2:46 am
Some people stay up most of the night, and sleep most of the day.  It's not uncommon to hear very young children outside laughing and playing at 2am!
The cars parked together here belong to several "shabaab", young men, who are hanging out and visiting  in the street together.

3:16 am

Still pretty busy...  Many of the restaurants in town are open at this time serving "suhor" or breakfast.

In order to get through each day, most people get up very early and eat this large meal before the 3:45am call to prayer.  In many neighborhoods a "public servant" comes through the neighborhood at about 2:30am, beating a big drum and yelling to the neighbors to get up and eat before the fast begins!  We were so fascinated by this, we had to get up and take a video of the fellow.

At the end of Ramadan he goes house to house, asking for a donation for performing this task for the community.

11:54 am
"He who hoots with the owls at night cannot soar with the eagles in the morning."

The mornings are quiet with a lot less traffic.  Those who do work during the day are known to be a bit groggy, and sometimes irritable, as they fast from food, water, and smoking all day.  Many people try to be more diligent with their 5 times daily prayer times.  Men pray at the mosque, while most women pray at home.  It's not uncommon to see men on the side of the street on their prayer rugs, on their faces in prayer, seeking God the only way they know how.

Pray that Father would speak to many of His TRUTH during this time of Seeking Him.

Easy Bake Queen

For Christmas last year K asked Santa for an Easy Bake Oven.  Although he tried his best, Santa was not able to find one in this area.  So K received many others gifts that were in her letter to Santa (like getting to keep her kitty, Teddy!) but she did not receive an Easy Bake Oven.  Recently, K remembered this fact and was asking again for one for her birthday.  Although Mom tried to play the EBOven down, "Really, Honey, it's just a light bulb in a box!  You can bake with me anytime in the real oven!" :-)    (Nice try, Mom!)   K wasn't convinced.  Finally, I told her, "They just don't sell them here, Honey.  I'm sorry, but you need to let this one go.  I've looked everywhere, but this one is impossible!" Disappointed in my answer, K went off to play, but she later told me she prayed and asked God for an Easy Bake Oven.

THE NEXT DAY... I saw an email about a multiple family garage sale in the area.  And what do you think was on the list of things for sale?  An EASY BAKE OVEN!!!  But unfortunately, the sale was 8:30 Friday morning (The beginning of the weekend here), and we had a 8:15 baseball game.  I had doubts that I could get the family up and ready for a day at the ball field and make the sale on time and be there the moment it opened, which was when I was certain the oven would be claimed.  It was still seeming pretty impossible!

BUT THAT NIGHT was date night, and one of the couples we had date night with casually mentioned she was selling stuff in a garage sale on Friday.  Did she know anything about the Easy Bake Oven?  "Why, yes!  My friend is selling that... Are you interested, cause I could have her hold it for you?"  Are you kidding?........

So here is K with her new Easy Bake Oven.  I couldn't wait for her birthday.  It even came with a bunch of mixes.  But we've been making lots of brownies with a little brownie mix, mixed with Pepsi, which works great, too.

I love that God loves this little girl even more than I do.  I love that our heavenly Father loves to give good gifts, that He loves to indulge us some of our "wants" along with meeting our "needs".

Nothing is impossible for God!

 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"  

Matthew 6: 25-27