It's Fall Y'all!

I miss fall in America. Every single year, when it starts getting a little chillier, jackets come out, cute boots go on, pumpkins are bought, carved and mixed into coffee, cookies, and pies, people sit around campfires on hay-bails roasting hotdogs and marshmallows, the fair comes and goes and football season brings out the competitive in everyone. It is the most wonderful time of the year.  I just love it!!!  But y'all fall is different over here.

While America is busy making pumpkin EVERYTHING (I even saw someone making pumpkin moon sand? Really!?), Macedonians are busy doing the work of the harvest.  The surrounding mountains are painted red and yellow and orange.  Sweaters, scarves, and boots are donned, and there is a fire of some sort going on in every yard in town.  It always starts early in the morning. Mostly women sit around their outdoor stoves on little wooden stools, and the smell of their roasting red peppers fills the neighborhood.

They are making ajvar or pindjur or they may just be roasting their peppers to stock their freezers.

 They are sewing peppers together to dry in the sun.

They are also busy making compotes and jams from plums, kiwis, peaches, even watermelons. The seeds that they sowed in the spring have brought forth fruit, and they are diligent making the most of everything on the vine.

The sound of the wood chopper driving around town is heard every hour or so, and piles of wood lay in the middle of the streets or on the sidewalks waiting to be stored up and burned.

This is a season of harvest and a season of storing up for the winter that is fast approaching.  It is a time when the wise man works from sun up to sun down so that he will have warmth and food in the cold and barren winter.

There are no football games and tailgate parties, cause, y'all, 'ain't nobody got time for dat.' ;) There are no pumpkin carvings (maybe because pumpkins are mostly green (some white) and kind of deformed looking). Pumpkins are for baking and eating by themselves for a snack... with no sugar, no cinnamon, and no pie crust. And no, they do not blend it into their coffee and top it with pretty whip cream. :)

So, while I always miss the delicious tastes and smells of fall in America, I LOVE fall in Macedonia.  So beautiful. So beneficial. So rich. Every year, God uses fall in Macedonia to teach me of making the most of the fruit on the vine. Working hard to plant, so that tomorrow there will be more fruit. Being diligent and serious about the fruit that He gives. Praying that the Lord will send laborers into the harvest to work along side us in the field.  The work isn't done when the tree yields its fruit. The work has only begun.

We are so blessed and thankful for the fruit that we have seen. God has done great things here! And I am confident that He will continue to do great things.

May we be faithful with the increase that God has given and that He will give in the future. It's harvest time, y'all! Let's get to work!