It's hard to believe my baby boy is 1 year old! Time flies by way too fast!
What a special year this has been! I've loved being a Mommy so much. Elijah has been a gift from God and I want to thank you God for him!
We decided to celebrate Elijah's birthday with Indian friends first. Many knew Elijah was turning one on the 24th of August, so we wanted to do something special with them on that day. I originally planned to just have a few people come to the house for some cake, but then after praying and asking the Lord what I should do I felt like He was saying not to leave anyone of our close friends out. So, we invited them all.
A couple of days before his birthday we handed out little train invitations asking people to come from 4 to 6 to celebrate on his birthday. A total of 50 people were invited.
Neal met a brother of our friends on Eid who was a caterer, and he agreed to prepare and bring whatever food we wanted for the party, which was great. Indians, like most people, love to come together around a lot of food. This was such a blessing because it wasn't just cultural, but was also a huge burden lifted off of me (Kristen).
I'd asked one of my American friends to be at the party in order to take pictures for us and also help me to serve or cut the cake, etc. When four o'clock rolled around they were the only ones here...we weren't surprised.
Around 4:20 the two women who clean our house, along with two of their sons arrived. Elijah sees these boys everyday, so they are the ones he loves to play with the most. They came right in and made themselves at home because they're so close to us and comfortable. 
It was the cutest thing watching Elijah hold the hand of his friend.
The food was to arrive at 3:30 so that we could have everything set up when all the guess came. 4:40 came, still no food, but our landlord (left) and his family arrived. After two phone calls to the caterer and his brother-in-law, he finally shows up...the time is now 5:30...only in India.
We'd asked him to bring enough food for 30 people since he only does non-veg cooking, and 10 of our friends (our landlord's family) would be Hindu and therefore not eat meat. He decided to make enough for 50 people, just in case we had more than expected. He didn't charge us extra, so that was very kind. We were in shock though when we saw how huge the pots of food were (top right pic with Neal and the caterer you can see the size of one pot). The great thing was that we had leftovers to blessing many families with.
35 Indians ended up coming to our house to celebrate, and they were all there by 6:30 or 7 (again, the invitation said 4 to 6...only in India). It was so wonderful seeing everyone eat, talk, and enjoy themselves. Most everyone grouped themselves according to their religion, family, or class, but there was some overlapping. It was beautiful to see the gathering of these different religions and 'casts' in the same home together.
I got to share the story of Hannah in the Bible and how I was similar thinking I couldn't have children, asking the Lord for a child, and then him blessing me. I know you won't be able to understand because I'm speaking in Urdu, but you might want to hear what the language sounds like. When God led me to tell this story I didn't think I would be able to keep peoples attention, but everyone listened, praise God.
I'm telling Elijah that we're going to count and them he needs to blow out his candle. He doesn't understand how to blow a candle out, so of course I just did it for him and then everyone clapped.
The tradition in Indian is after the candles are blown out the child is to take a knife and cut the cake for the first bite. I didn't know this until the dad of the family we lived with (beside Neal in the bottom left picture) told me and insisted that that's what we do. So I got the knife and helped Elijah cut and eat a little bite. Everyone was excited and cheering, which was overwhelming to Elijah so he started crying.
Then came the opening of presents, and there were a lot of presents. It was precious to me that everyone brought a present for Elijah, especially knowing the poverty of some of the families.
Elijah was thrilled with everything he got. He got very good at ripping the paper and looking inside. It didn't matter what it was, he was excited!
In this country, and many other countries, you take off your shoes before entering someones home, which I love since Elijah's crawling. This picture is great seeing all the shoes which represent so many different people.
The kids loved playing with Elijah in his room. It's funny to watch the dynamics of each kid with Elijah. The boy in the front tends to pick on Elijah in a joking brotherly manner, while the girls in the back like to hold him and squeeze him like he's their baby doll (as you can tell). Elijah isn't so happy with the squeezing and constant touching and kissing he gets from the girls, so he doesn't like for them to hold him often.
Here's a picture of almost all the people who came to the party by family.
The picture above is our dobi and one of his sons - they clean and iron our clothes.
Left - our cleaners and two of their sons.
Right - our landlord and his wife, sister, and son. There were others in his family who came, but they didn't get in the picture.
Left - the owner of our apartment building and family.
Below - our doorman's family.
Right - the neighbor who lives in front of us. Her little boy is two weeks younger than Elijah. Below - the family we lived with.
God has blessed us with so many close friends here, and so many who absolutely love Elijah! Everyone was so helpful during the party with our cleaners helping to serve people, our landlords wife passing out the cake for me, and the dad of the family we lived with pouring coke and handing them to people while I cut the cake. I didn't expect all these things, but God is so gracious to me through these people!
No comments:
Post a Comment