For more information about PILAS and my short-term missions trip, please check out my prayer letter. You can also support PILAS by donating online on my fundraising web page.
Only two more days to go and I think I’m starting to get used to black beans and rice! I did make my second batch without the onions and garlic, only salt – funny how much difference an onion can make. The taste was a little blander, but not bad – and I’m still impressed by how filling black beans can be. No wonder it’s eaten so widely in the villages. Of course, I’ve cut out all my normal physical activities, so even though my energy is low, and I’m completely wiped after a full work day, it hasn’t been as bad as I thought. I can’t imagine doing this and going to school and doing manual labour! I’m in awe of the village kids!
If you’re wondering where I got the idea to do this Guatemalan Life Challenge diet, it started when I went to Sumpango last year – but I think I was inspired even before then by my friend Alan’s annual “Live Below the Line” challenge in support of http://www.raisingthevillage.org/. The idea of “Live Below the Line” is to eat only what you can buy for $1.75 per day – which is all that people who live in extreme poverty can afford. That’s hard enough, but among Alan’s supporters, I read this comment: “You know, choicelessness is a great mark of poverty. I’d challenge you NOT to have too much [food] variety for an even more authentic experience.” And they linked to this site: https://urbana.org/blog/eating-alongside-poor-lent
This really resonated with me, and contrasted with my idolatry of food – e.g. my love of expensive tasting menus, fine wines, and ice cream. The fact that I can satisfy any food craving I have, anytime, anywhere (in Toronto) – is yet another privilege that I enjoy. Before this week, I’ve never experienced the sacrifice of not being able to eat when I was hungry. Sure, I’ve been hungry – but it was always in anticipation of an upcoming meal, or purposely not eating because I was going to a buffet that night. If you’ve never tried it before, I encourage you to try fasting for a day, or even just skipping two consecutive meals. When I experienced extremely uncomfortable hunger this week, I had to remind myself that millions of people live this way everyday.
Tonight when I was making scrambled eggs, I found myself carefully scraping every bit of raw egg I could into the frying pan, and then scraping every bit of egg from the pan into my bowl to make sure I ate as much as possible. I never cared this much about scrambled eggs before! Boy do I ever have a new appreciation for how precious food is and how careful we should be not to waste it!
Thank you all again for your uplifting support. I’m so grateful for all your prayers and encouraging messages, and for God’s grace in helping me through the week, especially as I’ve been having long and busy days at work each day. Thank you, dear friends and family!