Pumpkin Soup/2009 is Here

I'm sitting in our kitchen listening to chatter coming from the surrounding homes (believe me when I say surrounding--if it weren't for our walls we'd all be living in the same building), and I kind of know what Haitians are doing this morning. They are eating Pumpkin Soup, a tradition to which they cling. It's an expensive meal but it's one every home prepares and if they absolutely can't, they go to a neighbor to get a taste of the traditional New Year (morning) meal. I asked one of my English students several years ago about the soup and he explained that when the Africans were enslaved by the French, the French had pumpkin soup every year but the slaves were not invited to partake. Once they got their freedom..........it became a must do tradition. I wonder how the recipe changed from the French way it was prepared to the way it's prepared today? The humorous part is that those who prepared soup for the French were none other than the African slaves, thus, it may be the original recipe.
Whatever the recipe I can guarantee you that it is done exactly the way it was learned because in Haiti, recipes are exact. They are in the heads of the cooks but if one ingredient is missing, the meal cannot be made. No garlic, sorry, we can't cook. No parsley, sorry, we can't cook. No Maggai, we definitely can't cook! Over the years we've learned to relent and quit trying to convince the cook that you can use some other spice in place of what is missing or leave it out. It doesn't work. So, each home around us this morning are eating their pumpkin soup by now as they started cooking about 3AM. Gary got up and said he would have slept fine if the pots and pans weren't banging all night. Yes, we heard our young neighbor as she worked in her kitchen (which is outside).
As 2009 begins, the thoughts of improvement bombard minds, with resolutions and renewed desires to accomplish what we failed to do last year. Wouldn't it be great if like the Haitian cooks, we'd get our sights set on the Word of God and never waver from the written word. Sick? Oh, no not me, the Word says: Healed! Poor? Oh, no, not me, the Word says: Prosperous! Depressed? Oh, no, not me, the Word says: Why so downcast O my soul, put your hope in God! That's resolve and were we to walk in it all the time, the beginning of a new year would be a marching forward, in the same mindset as before. How different life would be if we had a track in our brain that absolutely could not be changed by circumstance, conditions, news reports. Like the Haitian cook making Pumpkin Soup having to have ALL the ingredients a must; we would walk in the Word as a must have ingredient for each and every breathing moment.
The church would certainly change and as individuals change would not something we were constantly trying to attain it would happen naturally.
Everything I read outside of the Word says it's going to be dark but God spoke to the darkness and said LIGHT BE! As the light comes, may we say LIFE BE! The life of God as found in the Word of God BE from the first day of 2009 until we walk into eternity.
Happy, Blessed, Prosperous, Word Filled, New Year.......From Haiti, Gary and Carolyn