Sukkot

Sukkot was once again a wonderful eight days of rejoicing before our loving Heavenly Father.  We go by the sighted New Moon as seen in Jerusalem, so our Sukkot started on Monday, October 1.  We had a couple of families who wanted to Sukkot with us who go by the dark of the moon, so they arrived on Sunday.  Also, we had three of the families in our congregation come over on Sunday to help us finish preparing - mowing the yard, fencing in the chickens, pulling the last of the weeds, setting up tents, putting up tables and chairs, and fixing food.  It was a lot of fun working togther!

Monday began the real excitement with everyone arriving.  That evening as the sun set, we had our annual opening Thanksgiving style dinner.  Since the first Thanksgiving was either a Sukkot celebration or based on the concept of Sukkot, we have taken that back and made it a "new tradition" for our group for the past three years.  Momma fixes her turkey and dressing, and each family contributes a dish to go with it.  We then had our opening session and enjoyed lots of good fellowship.

By Tuesday, we began to establish a daily routine.  Get up, enjoy breakfast and fellowship for a while, watch a Hebrew Lesson by Jeff Benner on DVD, fix and eat lunch which was our main shared meal of the day, enjoy a rousing afternoon midrash, dance before the Lord in our Davidic Dance class, pull out some leftovers for supper, and then have an evening teaching session.  We often closed out the night with a movie such as Flywheel, Fireproof, and Courageous. 

On Sunday, we had Aaron and Tricia Leu who recently wrote the book Love Awakened join us and share their testimony which is a very touching story of Yahweh working mightily in someone's life.  Monday morning was our "Breakfast Brunch" which is where we feast on eggs, turkey bacon (which we ended up naming "Turkin"), pancakes, fruit, hashbrowns, and fruit pizza.  The children also enjoyed some special activities and crafts just for them like a making a banner which said Sukkot in Hebrew letters and decorating it. 

Throughout the week, I most enjoyed the teamwork and fellowship as well as the many Scriptural discussions.  I also took quite a few pictures which you can view by clicking here.  Hag Sameach!