Well, the shower was a hit...and so was Peggy. She won the first game, which was to guess the circumference of Özlem's tummy by cutting a piece of yarn to the size it might be. Having measured fabric for years by the length from her nose to her fingertips, Peggy knew precisely what 36" was, added another 12" and voila! She was just an inch shy of perfection, besting every one else by nearly a foot. She was then disallowed from winning any further prizes as it was determined they had a foreign baby-shower veteran in their midst! (Actually, they just wanted to spread the prizes around.)
The best was yet to come when the gifts were opened. Having been to Özlem's house earlier in the week, Peggy noticed that the baby's room had Winnie-the-Pooh curtains. Clearly a theme the new mother enjoyed. Well, again, applying well-developed shopping instincts, Peggy walked for MILES and took the tram for even more, sniffing out baby shops out and about in Antalya...until she found exactly what she was looking for: a Winnie-the-Pooh blanket. When Özlem opened it she was ecstatic. Not only had Özlem tried to find such a blanket and failed, she was struck and touched by the fact that Peggy had picked up on the theme and made what was obviously an extra-effort to find something that would be uniquely applicable and special for their eagerly anticipated son. Any baby item would have been appreciated, and would have fulfilled the socially-expected etiquette of the occasion, especially for someone just visiting from another country. Instead, the extra-mile (literally miles!) effort to bless a new-found sister-in-Christ was not lost on the mother-to-be. It was just a blanket, yes...but more than that it was a simple, yet powerful expression of our ministry...and one more way of seeing God at work in our daily interactions with the people here.
I have a feeling that this first-ever baby shower will not be the last.
Faithfully,
Charlie
