new rice festival = thanksgiving.

A couple Saturdays ago, October 27, we went to a "new rice" festival in a Akha hill tribe village. It was the same village that we visited about a month before. It's time to harvest rice, and for Christian villages like this one, time to thank God for the rice. The girls and some of the women dressed up in their traditional hilltribe attire and sang and danced. This is them hanging out after the dancing.It was very similar to a church service...except longer. A lot of people spoke, we sang Akha hymns and it was held in the church. Afterward, they went and had a big feast. They had chunks of what i thought was bananas and turned out to be pig fat, and pork, bowls of very oily substances and new fresh rice in a banana leaf. You just scoop the food on your rice, then eat with your hands. I love it. This is the Thanksgiving table we sat around.


How rad is it that God gave me a desire to eat rice with my hands over a year ago?