Why me?

Why me? Why has God blessed me so abundantly? Why do I get the amazing thrill of being part of this incredible worldwide family, to share in their lives and in the celebration occasions? I cannot answer these questions but I do believe what the Bible says in Psalm 86 verse 5 "You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you."

So I've just left Bangkok where I was with the YFC family at the International General Assembly, held every three years. 555 of us from 70 nations! It's 70 years since the beginning of YFC. Billy Graham was the first employee - good start! We have lots to celebrate. YFC is now in 133 nations and growing all the time.

Our motto: GEARED TO THE TIMES, ANCHORED TO THE ROCK

We met in a tropical paradise about 2 hours from Bangkok, for a week of great Bible teaching with Ravi Zacharias, who was converted at a YFC rally in India as a young man. We also enjoyed fun and fellowship, deepening of old relationships and making new ones, sharing cultures and stories, learning about each other and new ways of doing life and ministry. I came away feeling filled up with good and with God.

 

 A couple of real highlights for me were meals with two groups of people very close to my heart.

 

There was a team of 20+ from YFC in Rwanda, some of whom I have known since Mal and I were there in 2007, some I met in 2011 and others I hadn't met before. But for me Rwandans will always hold a very special place in my heart.

You can see the white face in amongst all those beautiful black ones. Everyone shared what they are doing now - studying, volunteering or on staff with YFC, perhaps married now with babies. We joined hands and prayed together at the end of dinner, committing each other to our Heavenly Father.

And remember when I spent 3 months in Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2012 learning to teach English and helping to lead a new program to train young YFC leaders? It was called Embark. 8 young women have been through that program and four of them were there plus the three of us who have been in leadership. It was a VERY special time of reconnecting, sharing what has happened for each of us since Embark, sharing plans and dreams and praying together at the end.

Another very special highlight for me was the night we all sang 'How great Thou art' together in English and then someone followed in Cantonese. That set up a chain of people wanting to sing it in their languages. What a treat! We heard this wonderful old hymn sung in Arabic, Russian, French, Kinyarwanda, Spanish, Thai, Korean, Hungarian, Bangla, Danish, German and Dutch. A feast!

I am so privileged to share in the lives of so many exceptional people with a passion for sharing the love and message of Jesus Christ with young people around the world. I'm looking forward to GA in the US in 2017.

Plov

Plov is a traditional meal from nearby Uzbekistan. It is now made all over the former Soviet Union. We know it as Pilau, Pilaf or Pilav. We ate Plov a number of times whilst we were in Kyrgyzstan and this is a photo of the first time we experienced it with our friends. Although I am vegetarian, the Kyrgyz people don't 'get' vegetarian and so I often found myself eating meat. This was one of those occasions.

It's pictured here along with lepeshka, the bread in the background and a commonly eaten salad of tomatoes and onions and a big pile of black grapes picked fresh from their vine at the side of the house.

I decided that I'd like to learn how to make it the Kyrgyz way. I asked a friend to teach me how. She told me that her mother made 'the best Plov in Kyrgyzstan'! So I asked her mother to teach me. She agreed. But on the night of the Plov lesson her mum couldn't come because of illness in the family.

and so.......

 her mum sent her friend whom we had met before, and her friend's granddaughter as translator.

She's a gorgeous woman and we had a great time in our Plov-making lesson. 

First we poured 250ml oil (yep, not a typo!) into the cooking pot to get nice and hot and ready for our meat. Next we chopped up 1kg of beef into big chunks at least half the size of my fist. Don't ask me what cut of beef it was because I can't read those Russian words and the girls in the shop just put the correct meat into my hand. My teacher didn't look at it strangely. The chunks of meat went into the pot to be browned on all sides.

Then we chopped up1 kg onions and put them into the pot with the meat to brown. While they were browning we chopped up 1 kg carrots into straws. These were added to the big pot when the onions seemed 'ready'.

I had bought too much meat so we had to divide our Plov into two pans.

(The reason there are no photos of the earliest part of this lesson is that I forgot! Sorry about that.)

While the meat, onions and carrots were stewing away in the oil, we prepared 1 kg rice. Apparently I had bought low quality rice which needed cleaning - the downside of not being able to read the language. I wonder what else we ate because we couldn't read what the label said! 

We washed the rice and my teacher was fastidious about making sure everything that should be gone was gone. 

Now it was time to add the rice to the pan with 1 litre of boiling water along with 'the flavourings'. I had bought all but the flavourings because it was her responsibility to bring those. And so what were they? Chili powder and mono sodium glutamate! Yep, you got it! In it went! On went the lid and it cooked slowly away for 30 minutes.

Then more of the family arrived to join us to eat our delicious Plov. It was fun. I think I can do it again but I'll be leaving out the msg and finding some other 'flavouring'.

This is my last post for a couple of weeks. I fly to Bangkok again in two weeks for the YFC General Assembly and I expect to blogging again then. Enjoy the break.