A Little Love - Without Crying

I am always amazed at the ways God answers our small prayers, even the ones we forget praying.

While I was away last week I was feeling low and I prayed, "Lord, please just send some people to show me your love, but I don't want to cry." (I'm one of those weird people who cries when people are nice to them...)

I went about my day, checking on breakfast being made and was happy when someone brought out wheat chapatis to eat (as opposed to the corn chapatis and rice which we had been eating for 3 days.) I grabbed a chapati and sat outside before getting in line (we were a team over 30) to get some breakfast. The sister-in-law of the man at whose house we were staying came up behind me and gestured, come here. She said: In a little while come over to my house and I'll feed you some desi* eggs. Oh, just come over now.

So, I and my chapati went over to her kitchen and sat down while she made eggs for me. Her husband's cousin came in, who is a nurse and she made special eggs for me since I was sick with a cough (desi medicine). As the cousin cooked she shared that she was struggling with marriage problems - an arranged marriage where the husband was still in a relationship with his girlfriend from before marriage. The girl's face who made the egg was swollen and the blood vessels in her eye were burst from where her husband beat her. They'd only been married a year.

I listened to her story and ate food from her hand and realized later that God had answered my request for someone to show me his love - without making me cry. I think I am most comfortable in a kitchen and it was nice to just sit and cut the vegetables and watch the eggs fry, listen to women-talk and feel compassion for someone else.

Desi Chickens in a tree.

*desi - anything truly Indian. In this case - village chickens give village eggs (more expensive and, apparently, more healthful than city chickens. Nah, just kidding, not city chickens - chicken farm grown chickens.)

Desi Chicken

Indians have this thing about "desi chicken" which is basically just the skinny chickens you find in villages. It's better for health or something.

On Monday we returned to Chicklee Village and then went 20 km further on Tuesday for a meeting at a church there. The meeting was great but it's the desi chicken that came afterwards that is blogworthy.

By the time lunch came around I was starving. They fed a whole bunch of us in the church. I was the first one to get my plate. On it were three (3) pieces of chicken skin and a knuckle. I also had a small portion of raw mango and onion salad. This was served with a side of chapati (The whole wheat flat bread.)

Well, I was starving so I sopped up the chicken juice and ate all the mango on my plate. Then I ate O.'s mango. Then I ate the onions (which I initially avoided to save myself stinky breath). It was a generally unsatisfactory meal and it inflamed my stomach so I hurt all afternoon.

Apparently fasting is the best thing for gastritis. I'll be starting on a fruit fast today.