More Than Enough

I really, really wanted to complain tonight. I'd spent two hours in the kitchen baking bread for tomorrow and cooking dinner for tonight (this after the exhausting trip to the Bode for the ingredients, and the task of disinfecting every piece of produce and refilling the water purifier that I use for cooking and cleaning the veggies).

I really, really wanted to take advantage of the fact that my kids were outside and say some of my favorite four letter words as my non-self-lighting gas oven decided to have a mind of its own and shoot up to 400 degrees, thereby burning aforementioned bread. And just yesterday, it would barely get up to 300.

I was going to have a little pity party about how, even after spending such a long time in the kitchen, one or more of my sweet, beloved children would certainly find something in the dinner that he didn't "care for." Someone would ask, ever-so-politely-as-he-has-been-warned-to-do (sub-text: threatened with immediate bedtime or other drastic punishment), "Mom...um...how much do I have to eat??"

Before I could oh so justifiably hit the red button on my full-scale pity party, I had an inconvenient memory.

I remembered a day last summer when my family and I went to the village of Santa Maria de Jesus, just 20 minutes away from us.

I remembered watching as the women in the local church there served a hot lunch to over 100 small children, many of whom were enjoying their only hot meal in days, many of whom had brought two or more siblings along with them and were feeding them before they ate their own lunch...many of whom had orange streaks in what should have been jet-black hair, indicating severe malnutrition.


I remembered feeling like I should help cook or clean up, and going to the back of the church, to the pastor's home, only to find that these women had cooked for over 100 children with no stove. No sink. No counter. No food processor. No visible appliance of any kind. Just an open fire, backbreaking work for hours, and an intense desire to physically feed and spiritually nourish the children in their community.

There is a great accountability in knowing. Once you have seen and known, you cannot pretend that you don't know. You have a choice to forget, to shove aside what you have seen, or to remember and choose to be incredibly grateful for what you used to take for granted. After nearly four years here, there are too many things to begin to count for which I can never complain about again. And while yes, sometimes that is annoyingly inconvenient, in reality it is a gift. I don't want to be the same as before.

So, tonight, as my family sits down to (what I think is) a delicious dinner of pasta and salad and then wakes up to warm pumpkin bread, I will remember that there is a woman out there, just up the mountain, who is cooking over an open fire a very simple meal for her family. And I will choose to be grateful for my beautiful kitchen, the laughter (and yes, arguments) of my children, and the reminder that I have no need to worry about tomorrow. I have more than enough for today.