Grillfesten!

We bought a BBQ grill as we set up our house.  It’s not a big grill, by any standard.  Actually, we were amazed as we shopped around to find so many varieties and so many sizes.  Gas grill.  Charcoal grill.  Disposable grill.  Gas grill for 2-4 people.  Gas grill for 100 people (okay, not quite 100, but there were some major grills out there!)  We were pretty happy with our small size grill, and were all set up and ready to grill and have many people over to our home this summer.  We even knew where the closest halal butcher shop is so that we can invite our friends over, even at the last minute.

And then the forest fires broke out across Sweden.

At one point, there were 80+ forest fires raging across Sweden.  None of them close to us in Malmö, where there really isn’t much forest.  But because it was so dry (we went for 3 months with no rainfall), and the risk was so high for fire, there was a ban on grilling.  It started as no grilling in public places.  And absolutely no use of disposable grills.  Then it went to include no grilling even in your backyard.  So….no grilling for most of summer 2018.

We quickly learned there were other ways to hang out with people this summer when we couldn't grill together ~

Resurrected the ping pong table in the church basement.  Lots of good fun and physical exercise as we played in several languages ~

 

But when the grilling ban was lifted, we ran as fast as we could to the butcher shop, invited all our friends from Språkcafé (language café) and had our kick off grill party.

The preparations...

Another table has been set!

But it rained!  And rained!  And one friend even texted and asked if we were cancelling the BBQ.  I quickly wrote back and said absolutely no way to cancel.  We had invited too many people to come and we had no way of getting in touch with most of them to say “hey, a little bit of rain (actually a lot of rain) is going to cancel our party tonight”.  Plus we had way too much food all ready to go.

The weather forecast at 5:11pm...our guests were coming at 6pm!

So we grilled!

All 27 of us hung out between the back patio, (where it was raining but someone needed to grill), and our living room, where it was nice and dry.  Lots of laughter and smiles.  Lots of good food and treats from around the world.  Kicking off the new season of language learning and inviting our friends to go further in conversations about Jesus. 

All the halal and soja sausages that you might want....burgers followed!

Dessert sweets from around the world!

It was a great evening!