Monday, May 19, 2008

More on Mother's Day...

My last post failed to reflect the lighter side of Mother's Day weekend that was celebrated here in Peru, and I decided it needed to be reflected as well! Mother's Day is a very special holiday here in Peru and is widely and well celebrated. In addition to the significance of honoring one's mother, this holiday is a time to honor the Virgin Mary, which is a very big deal in a Catholic country like Peru. Peruvians don't let an opportunity pass by to party with fireworks, so for three days we heard explosions going off throughout the day and night. Local churches led marches through their surrounding neighborhoods to honor the virgin and shrines were covered with flowers and candles.
The men of our church did a wonderful job planning a special Mother's Day weekend for the ladies. They reserved a restaurant downtown for Saturday night and treated the women of the church to a wonderful dinner. We have quite a few single mothers in our church and each of them received a special invitation from the church elders to come to the dinner as special guests of the church. One of the elders gave a short devotion and then the men took turns expressing their thanks to their wives and the women of the church. The next morning we had a special Mother's Day church service and the men presented each woman with a gift they had prepared - a mug filled with candy and other goodies. I was impressed with the planning that the men had put into the weekend and I think each woman left feeling honored and appreciated. An interesting note - here all women are celebrated on Mother's Day because they have the potential of becoming mothers! So I was included on the festivities of the weekend, but not without being asked about 50 times when a baby Bolos may join us... My response was that for now we're just focusing on the 50 kids that have been entrusted to us. : )
A belated Happy Mother's Day to all of you mother's and mother's-to-be!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful posts on Mother's Day! I am so thankful that God had entrusted the 50 children to you and Tony at this point in your lives! You two are perfect!

I am having fun knitting the 1st blanket and saw Cindy yesterday at Knit Knack. She found a couple more gals that want to crochet blankets. Yayyy! Hopefully there will be a dozen blankets to have in the movie room or common areas for them to share!

Love you,
Aunt Nachaele