World's Biggest Chocolate Bar

That's right.  Yerevan, Armenia is the maker of the world's biggest chocolate bar!  On September 10th, 2010, Grand Candy celebrated it's 10th birthday and to celebrate, they made a huge bar of chocolate!  On October 16th, they had a big celebration downtown and gave pieces of the big bar away.  We went to check it out.  Pretty exciting.  And completely crazy!

They wanted to give away their candy bar so they broke it up and loaded it into some of their Grand Candy trucks.  Then they parked the trucks around the sides of Republic Square and opened the doors...  Everyone raced to the doors and tried to get chocolate.  Kev said it was something like a planned riot.  Everyone was just grabbing and pushing and shoving.  Needless to say, we did not get to the front of the masses to get ourselves a piece of the world famous chocolate.  We snapped a couple pictures to show we were there to celebrate and then we bought a plain ol' bar of Grand Candy chocolate on the way home!  Heh.  We still got ourselves some chocolate.  (And the next day we heard that there were some fights that broke out downtown!  Good grief!)

Kev kept trying to figure out the best plan to fix the situation!  Heh.  If they had started lines with enter and exit spots or people were shown to to go through in a clockwise direction, at least...  Everyone pushing forward and the people in the trucks yelling to get back - that didn't really work.  There were even military guys there pushing people back.  We thought - get a line!  Organize this thing up a bit!

But lines aren't really an Armenian thing.  Really.  In the US, we practice being in lines from the time we first start going to preschool.  As a preschool teacher, that was one important thing I taught the kids their first year of school.  To work in a group you need to learn to wait your turn and stay in line.  In Armenia, if you are strong enough and courageous enough...  you get to the front!  Or sometimes if you're old, you also get to cut to the front of the group.  That's cool, too.  When we first came to Armenia and had four little (tired) kids with us in the airport, they took us right up to the front of the window to get our visa stuff worked out.  So in that case, it wasn't a bad thing for us to be able to "cut".  It could be considered polite, even!  That's not always something that happens in the US.  In the states, most people figure you can keep your place in line and be patient.  That's what we're trained to do.

As I talked about that with the kids, they remembered times when they got to be "line leaders" in school. Or when they got to be the important caboose!  That was alright, too...  They told me that most of the kids tried to get in right behind the line leader so they could be second in line!  Heh.  If you can't be first, be second?!  Maybe we all have a compulsion to be at the front of the line...  at the head of the group...  the leader?

Today I heard Elijah's reaction to his paper airplane come in last in their contest...  At first he was sad about it.  The he rememberd:  All the losers get a crown!  (~taken from Audio A.'s Get Down)  Heh!  :)

Matt 23:11&12 The greatest among you will be your servant.
For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Whether you push to the front or hold your place in line, Jesus asks us if our heart is humble and if you act like a servant.  That's where the reward will be in the end.

Whew...  what about chocolate now?!  :)

Just to let you know, in case you were super sad that the kids didn't get any of the world's biggest chocolate bar, today our friend came over and brought some for us!  Her son got some through his school and the shared it with us!  The kids were Thrilled!

Shnorhavor, Grand Candy and Yerevan, Armenia!  You made the biggest bar of chocolate, until the Swiss decide to outdo you to get their name in the book as the best...  Hummm...  :)