I feel like I’m with my family

So, what do 4 friends from the Mid-dle East, together with 2 American friends, eat for dinner in Sweden, you might ask???  TACOS!!!!!  We all giggled as we sat down to dinner last night, recognizing that the world was literally represented at our table.  Tacos, a.k.a. Mexican food (which our Mid-dle Easterner friends all knew and recognized and have eaten even back in their homelands) is such a popular food here in Sweden, go figure!  The Swedes do all kinds of things with tacos and taco ingredients so the materials are readily available in the grocery stores to put a taco dinner together.  What you need to know as you read this:  Sweden is experiencing a heat wave like they have never seen before, complete with raging wildfires (76 at the moment) spread out across the country.  So putting meat on the grill was not an option for tonight.  It was just too hot!  (And I’ve lived in Africa for many years, friends…..this is hot!)

There are some activities that have been easily transferable from refugee ministry in Belgium to refugee ministry here in Sweden.  One of those activities, we discovered today, was baking cookies together in the kitchen. During our years in Belgium, baking cookies together with the moms in the refugee center was always on the schedule the week before the Sinterklaas party in December, so that we had enough cookies for the kids and their families to enjoy.  It was recreating a fun activity in the kitchen today, but this time around we weren’t in the kitchen at the refugee center.  We’re in my kitchen, and I’m helping them through the instructions in the recipe book.  Complete with extra tips that I’ve picked up over the years from my good friend, Bonnie, who is a professional baker and author. 

Now, did I mention that it’s been really hot here in Sweden?  So, baking cookies might not be your first idea of how to hang out with new Swedes in your home.  Our church is participating in an outreach event sponsored by our local community at the harbor located about ½ mile from the church.  And we need cookies for fika, that all important Swedish tradition of taking a break in the day when you have a cup of coffee (or tea), and a sweet and chat.  We’re putting up a tent right there in the harbor, offering Swedish and English lessons at various points in the day, and of course there will be fika.  Good church fika.  Which means strong coffee and cookies.  So, bake away ladies!

Success in the kitchen ~ oops, guess a few of them got too baked....just made for some cookies for us to enjoy with our afternoon fika!

We had so much fun! It didn’t even feel so hot in the kitchen.  I suppose that you turn off the environmental distractions when you’re having fun.  We baked an almond cookie, and it was super fun to watch my friends putting together an American cookie recipe.  First time for them both!  They became artists when the cookies had been baked and cooled and needed to have a little bit of frosting just drippled on them.  We talked a lot about how they bake cookies (“sweets”) back home.  My hope had been that we could bake an original recipe from one of their homelands, but I was quickly told that it takes too much time.  They’ll go to the Arab-ic stores in Malmö and buy some cookies.  They even know which ones are the best ones to taste.  Bonus!

Our finished products, with some Mid-dle Eastern treats to add to the fun!

A couple more friends joined us after our baking adventure, and it was taco night at the Swansons.  As we were cleaning up at the end of the evening, one of the women came up and said to me “Barbara, I feel for the first time like I’m with my family.  Tack så mycket (thank you so very much) for today.”  Followed by a big hug and kiss.

Okay, my taco evenings never looked this good!  Artists in the kitchen ~

Brothers and sisters.  How many times is that written in the Bible?  We are to be family to one another.  How that rings true for us here as we hang out with many who, like us, are far from their biological families.  But as followers of Jesus Christ, we are brothers and sisters united in our love for our Messiah.  Even when baking cookies in a hot kitchen.  Even while eating tacos in Sweden!