Road to Rwanda----Serving Meals

 You know I did not start to cook until I was almost 60 years old.  I have no idea how I raised 4 children to maturity.  I remember at one point in Taiwan when they were young that I had to put my foot down and tell them they could only eat out once a day.  Paul (our eldest), being the social creature that he is, learned to cook so he could feed his friends in Taiwan (1988-1995) when they came over....I always made sure I had expensive boxes of Hamburger Helper on the shelf for him to use, but I personally usually did not even fix that much of a meal.  Purity from about age 4 on, would get up in the middle of the night and fix herself a tuna fish sandwich and eat it all herself because she could not stand the thought of any of us touching her food.  Peter existed on fruit, whole boxes of kiwis, etc.  Because of her CP, Peace had to have soft textured foods or she could not chew them, so I remember making her scrambled eggs. In Senegal (2003-2010) I tried to fix a Sunday noon meal, which never varied from mashed potatoes with hamburger gravy, green beans, and kool-aid.  (I seemed able to manage that particular meal for some reason.)

However, this all changed when all of the children were out of the house and we moved to Panama (2010-2016).  For the first time pretty much in my adult life I had two things.  1.  The kitchen utensils that made cooking easier, like good knives, peelers, blenders, choppers, graters, mixers, rolling pins, crockpots, 2. Foods to buy that were somewhat pre-prepared, like canned Cream of Mushroom and Cream of Chicken soup, pasta, canned vegetables, cheese.  Way back in Zambia days (1976-1980),if I wanted to make lasagne, first I had to make the noodles, then the cottage cheese.  Then go out and pick and process the onions and tomatoes.  Then parcel out my precious little bit of cheese.  I always said the only thing I did not have to do was kill the cow.  Lasagne was  a 3 day process.  These two things changed in Panama.  I also had more time and energy and fewer demands for things that tasted like food after the children were out of the house.  I would get up every Saturday morning and prepare about 3 things that we would eat on the rest of the week. I would share half of these things with some friends who also did not cook, and would take us shopping to Price Smart (like Coscos) every Saturday noon. I slowly learned what I could and could not cook and what we liked.

So, I started to cook, and even venture into serving meals to other people (without overwhelming panic).  In the last week and a half I have had 4 sets of company.  The first  set was Tuesday and consisted of 14 people. They are children and traveling companions to our close, close friends here and I wanted to meet the friends' chidren and also lighten the load a wee bit for our friends.  The second set was last Saturday and  consisted of  9 people that were fellow teachers and their children.  We had spent the morning planning for grade 10 opening next school year, and I knew particularly the family would have a hard time making it home and then preparing lunch for their children.  It was easy because I had frozen the left over rice and curry from Tuesday's meal, and just added coleslaw and a package of chocolate chips cookies which I had included in my luggage a year ago and never used.  (The only hitch was that our communication got a bit mixed and I hurried home to finish prep after the meeting to find Rick heating the coleslaw in the microwave, rather than reheating the rice.  Did you know that heated coleslaw works fine?)  The third set of company was last night and was about 13 people.  It was a repeat of the children and companions of our friends. I wanted one more chance to talk to them and decided last minute that when we were done with our halfday professiona development on Friday that I could hurry home and get supper on the table by 5.  This time was chili in the crockpot, delicious green beans and rolls our household help made, cucumber salad the friend contributed, and sugar cookie bars.  Today I will have a dear older friend over. She is even older than we are (77....you are never too old to come teach) and she is leaving Rwanda after about 10 years of heading up the preschool.  I will recycle the green beans and the rolls.  I have sweet and sour chicken in the crockpot, and she will bring the dessert. 

I know it is a bit strange to share menus like this. (I feel a bit like my mother who in her 34 years of writing me letters every Sunday afternoon would often tell me what she and dad and were eating...maybe just to fill space because what else were they doing?)  But I want you to know that this is definitely part of service.  This is what God blesses one to do.  Even when I am not exceptionally gifted in that area, he still provides the energy and support (Rick is really good now at getting things set up for company, the gaffe with the coleslaw not withstanding, and my household help one and a half days a week keeps my house clean and does some cooking,)  If this is what is needed, then this is what one does. I am so so thankful that I have the energy, resources, help and time to be with people like this!!