Thankful: Day 17

embarassing cultural moment
In a single moment today, I now have the story that will surely be the most embarassing moment in Turkish culture for me to tell when I return home.  Thankfully, it is equally as funny as it is embarassing and I have been laughing about it from the moment that it happened.  This afternoon, we were fixing to sit down and eat lunch with our Turkish neighbors and I was trying to practice Turkish hospitality by serving drinks, a choice of cola or water…not hard.  I was successfully able to ask in Turkish what each person seated at the table wanted to drink and proceeded to begin pouring the drinks…until my Turkish friend across the table begins laughing and pointing at the small red pitcher that I am holding in my hand.  I immediately looked down and everything unfolded from there as I realized, much to my dismay, that we had chilled water to serve in a pitcher that is designed to be used to flush water down the asian squatty pottys.  I understood everything that was being spoken to me in Turkish and quickly ran to get the other pitcher of water!  Sufficiently embarassed (though laughing the entire time), I continued to pour the drinks.  Oh the difference that a single water pitcher can make in an entire meal!!!
(today also marks the one month, 30 day, mark until I go home to America…how quickly my time here has flown by)

thankful…
I am so thankful for the joy of the Lord that He has filled my life with!  It is truly by His grace that I can experience His joy in all circumstances!  Being in a place where I am one of four believers on an entire island has quickly changed my perspective and makes me incredible thankful for the grace of the Father in my life.  All of my new friends this week have such an appreciation for the simplicity of life and laugh and are wonderful examples of men and women and children who truly love life…the only thing that could make their life better would be for them to experience the joy of the Lord! I cannot even imagine the joy that would explode from them if they could just experience true joy!