Yesterday will be a day I would love to forget. Not that teaching a Muslim woman and her children in a room full of noise and cockroaches is not worthy of being on that list, or teaching a woman who was brought up Muslim and now is a Jehovah Witness can be left off the list, but dinner last night has reached the very top.
We had an appointment with Eugene (Ester's son and Grace's brother and if you remember Grace and Ester were baptized a couple of months ago.) Eugene is planning on being baptized but I believe has some real problems with depression. I can understand however because he is afraid of leaving the house for fear of being deported back to Africa. His mom and sister are here legally but he is not. He comes to church on Sundays but is a nervous wreck taking public transit.
When we got there, Eugene was asleep and was allowed to stay in bed. Mom and daughter had prepared a "meal" for us and could hardly wait to feed us. We could not come up with a good reason to decline and did not want to hurt their feelings. "Wrong Move" We should have run for our lives. The meal consisted of some sort of concoction that looked like rice, or scrambled eggs or something. We did taste some kind of fish (Ben hates fish) and enough hot peppers to set the place on fire. Ester told us she used very very little but we had flames coming out of our ears. Along with that they served some kind of African Potato or Yam that was partially fried in some kind of oil. (I did not want to ask what kind) The idea is that you eat the potato chunks with the egg dish. I thought I would just hurry and swallow down the whole thing and get it over with. Wrong.... Never eat anything hot in one gulp. You nibble small bites carefully and drink a ton of water in between. Talk about clearing out the sinuses. I think my breathing and my heart stopped for a long time. With tears in our eyes we thanked them for their hospitality without loosing it on the way out. Ben waited until we got home to loose it but it stuck with me all night and boy what a night. I bet the reason for all the hot peppers is that whatever bug might be in the dish will not survive and therefore no sickness right?
When John comes over to eat he seems to like what I fix and always takes second and third helpings. Is he just being nice or is he just very hungry? He always jumps at the chance to come and have dinner and will eat anything but chocolate. I am sooooooo. grateful our mission call was not to Africa. (In South Africa they speak a form of Dutch)
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