This Is For You

I recently moved in with a family from church. I have been blessed in several ways through this, one of which is the fact that several members of church and the youth group that I've been getting more involved in live on the same street or the next street. They're really close and have basically invited me into their group of friends. I am amazed at how both the gringo body of Christ and latino body of Christ have been so actively loving me during the last few months.

Several of the youth were at the pastor's house playing the latino version of Guesstures (a lot like charades). The pastor and his wife even participated off and on as they walked through the living room to do other household tasks. Near the end of the evening, the pastor entered the room with a huge butcher knife and said something in Spanish as he walked towards me like "This is for you!" Whoa. What was happening? Why did he want to give me a knife? He seemed confident and friendly as usual.... He passed by me to the back door, exited, and returned with a large green plant. It turns out he had chopped off part of an aloe plant outside for me to take home. Not only is aloe good for skin, apparently it is good for intestines if you drink it. He showed me how to prepare an aloe drink in the kitchen and told me if I run out, I can always come back to his house and get more. What a kind man! I have also seen aloe sold in bottles in liquid form to drink. I almost bought one at a Chinese supermarket I found in downtown San Jose when my friend Joy from NMSI came to visit. There was all kinds of interesting things there from rice noodles, to bean paste, to turnips, to jellyfish, to ham flavored cookies, to tofu. It's been a while, so I don't remember all the more exotic things, but it was fun to look through the isles and discover them.