“Whoa”, I thought, as I tried to hide my surprise behind bulging eyeballs. I was stunned, what had I just filled my belly with? Delight sparkled in the eyes of the spry little grandfather of 4, a smile beaming broadly across his face, exaggerating the creases in his weathered leather face. I wonder what he read in my countenance, my poker face sucks.
I quickly realized what this 66 year old in the Mao hat was having for breakfast, and I wondered, should I warn the rest of the team?
We had stayed over night in this man’s house, in the mountains in the middle of nowhere (wish I could say it) China. Our translator was never around and it didn’t really matter because she didn’t even know the language of this minority group. We communicated by smiles and nods and pointing, and we trusted God that simply our presence and prayer did something, meaning that we hoped we were not wasting ‘our’ time.
It was another cold dreary day, we hadn’t seen the sun for days, and we were determined to choose joy (and joy is a choice, a gift from God and it is our choice to receive it each day). Rusty and I shared a room with a guy from California named Ryan who is 24 and this was his first mission trip. Ryan loves to talk and was born to preach, a gifted preacher…and without being allowed to preach, he was struggling. And I was struggling because we were the only available audience for his preaching. I constantly asked God for help to be loving, and constantly battled the urge to debate or make off the cuff comments just to relieve the pressure building up between my ears. I have always had a tough time sitting through monologues, but I am sure this was an educational experience for us all. We shared a room and spent a lot of time talking as men, and we were determined to choose joy. Oops…another tangent, sorry, back to the story.
I held the bowl away from my face, and tried to smile and tried to decide what I would do next. Do I have more? Do I pass it on?
We were seated in mini chairs, knees to our elbows, eating with chopsticks around the mini table (and Linnea, who is left handed kept having her elbow bumped by me, which she found quite irritating and I did not do this on purpose, kind of). Set before us family style, in the smoke filled room was bowls of vegetables, tofu, and chunks of pig fat. Those were the recognizable foods, there were bowls of stuff that was spicy and yummy and a mystery. The pig fat tasted like bacon or spare ribs, but without the protein and tasted better each meal, because we were hungrier at each meal. Tofu and veggies don’t satiate a lardo like me, and the pig fat started sliding down easier and easier, in fact, by day four the fat was totally transparent, shrunken, and smelled funny and crawled down my throat under its own power (after meals the left over food would get covered by a cloth to keep the cockroaches off, I guess, and then saved for the next meal).
We were on a tour of villages, visiting houses and practicing this theory of MOP, or ministry of presence. Simply being an ambassador for the kingdom…trying to live love and joy. We would enter people’s houses (praying for peace and blessing on the family) and they would pull out their mini seats that my butt didn’t even fit on and we would sit around the fire and rub our eyes and talk about life and our experiences, christian dating, and how much we were looking forward to being home and where we thought life was leading us (does the path rise to our feet as we walk?). We would smile and nod, we would ooh and ahh as we were told how many children and grandchildren our hosts had, we would make up the rest of their story and we would eat the food they put before us, because we were building relationships and the biggest mistake we could make was to reject the hospitality offered us (I hope we didn’t make any other biggies).
In one home, the old woman brought out her hidden stash of cookies and we felt bad about taking her best and then I proceeded to eat way more than my share, because they were good and that is another one of my bad habits, how can I say no to sweets?
In some houses we saw the chili peppers smoking over the fire and every where we went the chinese marlboro man was smoking and offering us cigarettes and I think that any christian who wants to do missions but can’t quite kick the butts, China is the place for you. Everyman smokes and that would be an instant connector and all month I wished I smoked and probably would have except for the whole stumbling block thing, which I screw up all the time anyway. So we would have to explain why we don’t smoke, lungs and health and all that…and then we would roast chestnuts over the fire with the ladies.
In one house that was decorated with posters of Bruce Lee and My Little Pony, we had roasted peanuts and the tiny little old woman made a drink for us out of what we assume was ground sugar cane and hot water, and on that dank day in the smoky room, that was truly the nectar of God and I was so grateful and once again overindulged (I could get type II diabetes in a third world country). This drink was so hot and sweet, a red liquid in a glass, and we passed it around the room and everyone sampled it and loved it.
So this was what I thought was being passed to me by this town elder, a bowl of red steaming sweet drink and I greedily put it to my lips, tested it, felt that it would not burn me and I gulped it down. A short pause and a fire warmed my belly and spread to my body, even my toes, and I could feel the blood rush to my face, I could not hide my surprise and I was not sure what to do next…do I pass this on, do I tell people what it was?
I told the team quietly what was in the bowl as bombs went off in my stomach and I told the man that he is too tough for this chubby american. I am not used to whiskey for breakfast, and I watched him finish it chased by some chilis and he was off to work in the fields.
