About eighty people from ten or fifteen families stayed three extra days at the camp to celebrate an early Thanksgiving together. It was a great time of fellowship.
In e-mail correspondence before coming to Mexico, we were told that they would be cooking the meat for Thanksgiving dinner in “a pit.”
Figuring it was some Mexican tradition, I imagined a 3 or 4 ft. hole in the ground and wondered how sanitary it would be. [smile] But, as you can see, my imagination was very wrong.
Most the pit had been dug with a backhoe. Nickie helped with that part. 🙂
Once the pit was prepared, bricks were used to create an oven at the bottom of the pit.
Gasoline was dumped into the “oven” at the bottom of the pit, and then everyone backed up 100 yards.
Fireworks were launched and bottle rocket on a zip line was sent into the pit to light a fire.
After a big explosion and more fireworks, we all walked back to the pit to see the big fire.
Since it would be difficult to put the pans of meat in there right now, we had to wait for the flames to die down and coals to get hot.
Great time for more fellowship.
Much care was put into preparing and seasoning all the different pots of meat.
Okay, it’s been several hours and now it’s 1 am. The coals should be hot and the pots ready to be taken out.
Of course it’s not easy to get the huge pots of meat down there.
After the pots were placed, the entire pit was filled with dirt again. It took a while.
And after the whole process, we came back inside, muddy and tired, and took a group picture. (Disclaimer: it wasn’t my idea to take a group picture at this point.)
About 12 hours later, right before our Thanksgiving meal, the excitement begins again … time to start digging.
As they removed more and more dirt, we began to enjoy the delicious smell….
The first pot is removed and it looks like it was cooked just right.
Pots are carried back to the camp dining area for our big meal.
Yep, that’s a whole pig in there! The other pans contained a duck, several turkeys, beef, and lamb.
The meat was so tender and had sooooo much flavor, maybe the best meat I’ve ever had.
Feast time
Yuri, Alma, and Elsa
Some of the smallest Mexico missionaries
Sarah mentioned how so many people take so many short cuts to avoid as much work as possible on Thanksgiving day. Not our friends in Mexico!!!
Wow! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw these pictures. That is definitely unforgettable! 😀
That was really neat. I enjoyed reading your post. First time I’ve commented though. Thank you for sharing your trip. I really was stunned by the size of that pit. I bet the food was great!!!
Thanks for posting… I really enjoyed reading it!
So they basically constructed a giant version of a crockpot. Nice. 🙂
What a feast! Sounds like a great idea…maybe we can try that next year. 😉
What an amazing experience that must have been, Grace! The picture of Nickie working diligently made me smile. =) And it looks like such a memorable Thanksgiving with wonderful food + fellowship. Thanks for sharing and have a blessed December!
sounds cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow! That is a crazy amount of work for a meal!! 🙂
Missing you all! Praise The Lord for this wonderful time He gave us together! Thank you so much for posting these pictures, it was nice to get to to meet you all and help in translating what a great blessing, I also enjoyed that video it is really nice! You all did a good job on it, it really brought a smile to my face when I saw Grace wearing the Mexican bracelet I gave her, God bless you all!
Romans 1:8-9