Strong Medicine
A Rose Among Thorns
A wise man knows that the goodness in his life comes from the goodness and nurture of wise and strong women. This is a story of one such woman and how they have made positive impact in who I am.
“Let me tell you what the Lord has done for me,” she said to us, a small crowd of twenty Americans who invaded her home soil nation of Curaçao for ten days of ministry. Each person on the team was white. Fifteen of us are teenagers. Our team is composed fairly closely to a 50/50 mix of male to female. We sat in front of her house, on what we might call a deck or porch here in the U.S. She simply called it "the place which God had given her."
“Let me tell you,” she said again, emphatically, “what Jesus has done for me.” As I watched the rest of the team take in her words—in English thick with Papiamento accent and with all of the passion of one in love—I saw little excitement register in the eyes of the American teens. I actually felt little excitement myself. The home in which our host dwelled was small, soot-covered and made of cinderblocks. The air around us was choked with smoke and vapor from the nearby oil refinery which captured the view front and center from her front door. We sat on broken and dirty mismatched folding chairs in a semicircle. Before us all were two equally ancient and rusty steel-legged folding tables which bore nothing, save the immaculate white tablecloths which had obviously been ironed; they were crisp and without blemish or wrinkle, and they almost glowed among the dingy soot that covered everything. We were hungry. Our last meal had been lunch, eaten hurriedly almost nine hours earlier at the noon hour. All of us Americans were still not accustomed to the rhythm of the culture. Dinner, we learned, is eaten around nine or ten o’clock. The formal festivities of diner begin around 8:00 with conversation and fellowship. It was now about 8:30, and our hunger impacted our attention span.
“Jesus has given me many gifts,” she said. And with that, she immediately disappeared into the small concrete abode to return with two large pitchers of a greenish liquid in each hand, and a sleeve of 4-oz. plastic cups tucked under her right arm. “One of the gifts my King has given me,” she said with a mix of confidence and gratitude, “is that I can make very good juices.” Each of us was given a small cup filled to the top with that green liquid. The teens didn't bother to wait for the rest of us to be served and immediately began to drink that sweet nectar. It was kiwi-lime. And to say, simply, that it was kiwi-lime is understatement. Quite frankly, this was the most amazing juice I have ever imbibed. It was refreshing. It was invigorating. It made the partaker desire more. It was amazing, and perhaps one of the greatest culinary feats of which I have ever had the pleasure of partaking. We were all amazed.
We lauded her with praise. She basked in this glory. We wanted more, and all were pleased to learn that as guests we were not being rude by requesting an opportunity to have more. The party, it seemed to us Americans, had finally started! What came next were a series of three or four other fruit concoctions which defy description. I recognized only a small handful of the fruit flavors that were poured into that small plastic chalice. With each new flavor, a brand new experience unfolded. It was rapturous! Absolutely an unbelievable and only-understood-when-experienced opportunity! And then we were invited to to sample the pièce de résistance, an all natural fruit elixir to which the claim was made that it provided purification for the liver in need of detoxifying and naturopathic healing for any other ills one might face; this, we were told, was strong medicine. And strong it was…
The first person to take a taste was one of the adult leaders on the trip. Her response and her reaction was absolute disgust. "This is the worst thing I've ever had in my life!" she said. I watched the light diminish in the eyes of our host. That comment hurt her, and this was obvious. Without even being there, I imagine that you, as the reader, can see how this would hurt. It was rude. It diminished our host. My heart broke a little bit.
My turn. My 4 ounce class was filled and I tasted… Oh my! It was truly horrible. Unlike anything else I've ever had in my life, this elixir tasted more like medicine then it did any kind of nectar of the gods. Watching her eyes which—were filled with expectation or hope, I struggled to find words to honor her… Finally, I said, "this is an incredibly unique taste! I don't believe I've ever had anything like this before in my life! You must be so proud of this." She smiled. Then she smiled really big. She scurried away from the rest of us into her cinderblock home and returned with an exceptionally large cup which she immediately filled almost to the brim and said "I am so thankful that you like it! Thank you brother!
I found myself obligated to consume somewhere in the vicinity of 20 ounces of one of the most noxious beverages I have ever encountered. And during the entire event, I did my best to smile, glow, and give thanks. Somewhere around 15 or 20 minutes later, a more full impact of my beverage begin to take root. I asked my new sister, “Is there any alcohol in this last juice? "
"Of course there is, "she said. "How else did you expect to cleanse the liver?"
“Let me tell you,” she said again, emphatically, “what Jesus has done for me.” As I watched the rest of the team take in her words—in English thick with Papiamento accent and with all of the passion of one in love—I saw little excitement register in the eyes of the American teens. I actually felt little excitement myself. The home in which our host dwelled was small, soot-covered and made of cinderblocks. The air around us was choked with smoke and vapor from the nearby oil refinery which captured the view front and center from her front door. We sat on broken and dirty mismatched folding chairs in a semicircle. Before us all were two equally ancient and rusty steel-legged folding tables which bore nothing, save the immaculate white tablecloths which had obviously been ironed; they were crisp and without blemish or wrinkle, and they almost glowed among the dingy soot that covered everything. We were hungry. Our last meal had been lunch, eaten hurriedly almost nine hours earlier at the noon hour. All of us Americans were still not accustomed to the rhythm of the culture. Dinner, we learned, is eaten around nine or ten o’clock. The formal festivities of diner begin around 8:00 with conversation and fellowship. It was now about 8:30, and our hunger impacted our attention span.
“Jesus has given me many gifts,” she said. And with that, she immediately disappeared into the small concrete abode to return with two large pitchers of a greenish liquid in each hand, and a sleeve of 4-oz. plastic cups tucked under her right arm. “One of the gifts my King has given me,” she said with a mix of confidence and gratitude, “is that I can make very good juices.” Each of us was given a small cup filled to the top with that green liquid. The teens didn't bother to wait for the rest of us to be served and immediately began to drink that sweet nectar. It was kiwi-lime. And to say, simply, that it was kiwi-lime is understatement. Quite frankly, this was the most amazing juice I have ever imbibed. It was refreshing. It was invigorating. It made the partaker desire more. It was amazing, and perhaps one of the greatest culinary feats of which I have ever had the pleasure of partaking. We were all amazed.
We lauded her with praise. She basked in this glory. We wanted more, and all were pleased to learn that as guests we were not being rude by requesting an opportunity to have more. The party, it seemed to us Americans, had finally started! What came next were a series of three or four other fruit concoctions which defy description. I recognized only a small handful of the fruit flavors that were poured into that small plastic chalice. With each new flavor, a brand new experience unfolded. It was rapturous! Absolutely an unbelievable and only-understood-when-experienced opportunity! And then we were invited to to sample the pièce de résistance, an all natural fruit elixir to which the claim was made that it provided purification for the liver in need of detoxifying and naturopathic healing for any other ills one might face; this, we were told, was strong medicine. And strong it was…
The first person to take a taste was one of the adult leaders on the trip. Her response and her reaction was absolute disgust. "This is the worst thing I've ever had in my life!" she said. I watched the light diminish in the eyes of our host. That comment hurt her, and this was obvious. Without even being there, I imagine that you, as the reader, can see how this would hurt. It was rude. It diminished our host. My heart broke a little bit.
My turn. My 4 ounce class was filled and I tasted… Oh my! It was truly horrible. Unlike anything else I've ever had in my life, this elixir tasted more like medicine then it did any kind of nectar of the gods. Watching her eyes which—were filled with expectation or hope, I struggled to find words to honor her… Finally, I said, "this is an incredibly unique taste! I don't believe I've ever had anything like this before in my life! You must be so proud of this." She smiled. Then she smiled really big. She scurried away from the rest of us into her cinderblock home and returned with an exceptionally large cup which she immediately filled almost to the brim and said "I am so thankful that you like it! Thank you brother!
I found myself obligated to consume somewhere in the vicinity of 20 ounces of one of the most noxious beverages I have ever encountered. And during the entire event, I did my best to smile, glow, and give thanks. Somewhere around 15 or 20 minutes later, a more full impact of my beverage begin to take root. I asked my new sister, “Is there any alcohol in this last juice? "
"Of course there is, "she said. "How else did you expect to cleanse the liver?"
