Day 14: The rice & beans devotional "A Common Meal" has been a lifeline of encouragement. This journey is greatly helped by community.
Day 15: Monday is always "Mucho Mexican" over here. Tonight we feasted on pintos & spanish rice with the fix in's. It felt like comfort food. A common meal for our family in the midst of an otherwise uncommon month.
Day 16: Half of us agreed to being hungry ALL day. It's crazy. We don't normally allow ourselves to get hungry. Our lifestyle of rich foods & intermittent snacking keeps us satisfied during most of our waking hours. I've never been so eager to make dinner on time!
Day 17: It's getting HARD to be eating rice & beans every single day... especially while living with abundant opportunities for culinary variety & delight.
It has been affecting each of us in a variety of ways. Our family Sunshine, JoyAnna, has been playing, "cooking", "serving" & imagining fun food for the past week. It has been both sweet & sad.
She eats lunch at pre-school three times a week and is utterly grateful for the non-rice & beans meals set before her. She eats EVERYthing...and comes home telling me about it. She also asks zillions of questions about "the rice and beans people" and wonders how it is exactly that our friends are helped by her not eating a breakfast burrito every morning.
She's five. There is so much she doesn't understand. She has to trust that we know what we're doing and that it is good. She tries not to complain. This afternoon she said: "I want to be grateful, it's just that I don't really like all the rice and beans that we eat."
She went to rest time and I prayed for a heart of compassion. I have compassion for my friends in East Africa, but what of the precious, middle-class princess living under my roof? God help me.
I pulled out a bowl of leftover rice and mixed and matched recipes until I had rice pudding bubbling on the stove and rice cookies headed into the oven.
When my princess awoke I told her of a God who sings over her- a God who cares for our "rice and beans friends" AND us. I told her that I think she's courageous and that I'm so proud of her for doing this very hard thing. I invited her to see the "love cookies" that I made for her.
She approved...and her brothers were pretty happy too!
India - I feel like I know you vaguely through the Lahash connection, and we have a friend in common - Serena (Haak) Werkhoven - I think you knew her from JBU? Anyway, she and I grew up together - as of January 2012 we have been friends for 30 years!
ReplyDeleteAnyway - thanks for your posts about R&B month and for your heart about it that comes through so genuinely. It feels like a similar approach to what our family takes - deciding on a limited range of options for breakfast and lunch, R&B dinners, etc. and some weekly breaks. :)
Anyway - I appreciate your encouragement! We are hanging in there. I love that my girls totally get the IDEA, which is by far the most important thing to me, and we're making progress on how we do with actually eating the food. Tonight's dinner was less than stellar - new recipe - not a keeper - and yet I heard not one word of complaint! Even a couple, "that's ok, mom" words of encouragement. :)
Glad you guys liked the lentil stew - my girls actually LOVE that, too. It's so simple but it's a guaranteed hit any time year round, they request it.
Blessings to you and your family - thanks again for this (and the other) posts!
Jen Johnson (Casey Schilperoort's sister - Portland)