Restaurant in a box

I started this morning with a little walk and as often happens, my outings often bring a smile to my face.  People generally don’t like their photo taken here in our city, so I’ll try to paint you a word picture of my two-block journey to the grocery store. 

Right outside our apartment building gate sits a woman who has what I call “a restaurant in a cardboard box.” In her box are live coals in a small round wire grill, several long, thin loaves of French bread, a large plastic container of cheap margarine, a plastic box which she turns upside down for a stool, and another plastic container with coarse salt.  Neatly placed on top of it all is a stack of about three cartons with no tops holding 30 eggs each.  She also has some onions and a large knife.

 

As with most African women, she doesn’t need a cutting board or a countertop to cut her onions because she simply uses her hand.  She sets up every morning except Sunday at about 6:30 and sells omelets on French bread slathered with something like butter flavored Crisco.  Between customers, she sprinkles a very small amount of water on her coals, but when a hungry student walks up, she blows on them, and they quickly catch flame again.  She never removes the flaming grill from the box.  By 10:00 all of her supplies are gone, and she packs her restaurant back in the its cardboard walls, balances it on her head, and heads home.

Rounding the corner, I walk in front of our local “book mall.”  At least 6 different people display their used books on the sidewalk in front of their plastic chairs.  Their small inventory includes school chemistry books and self-help books and Christian themed books.  One of my new friends is a book seller here; I hope to begin sharing stories with her from God’s Book as soon as my language skills are adequate.  Right now, I’m working on being able to tell the parable of the hidden treasure.

One of the book sellers has the same uniform every day for work – a very faded LSU FOOTBALL t-shirt.  I think it has been his work uniform for a very long time because his purple and gold are gray and dull yellow.  I’m sure he doesn’t realize that he’s supposed to “Love purple and live gold.”

After walking past several small hardware stores, I round another corner onto a very busy street.   I step gingerly to avoid the many potholes, overflowing after last night’s rain, and I walk strategically because the cars that fly by spray muddy water from those same wretched potholes.

Arriving at the grocery store two more blocks down, I quickly make my purchases and fill my peacock shopping bag given to me by my precious friends, the Shafto Mission Group at Scotts Hill Baptist Church.

Now to retrace my steps back home…

Right outside our apartment gate an avocado seller has arrived.  The avocados here are to die for, so I quickly run upstairs and come back down with the necessary Congolese francs to get two huge, yummy, perfectly ripe ones.  They’ll go great with our taco salad at lunch.

Life here in Kinshasa is filled with such outings.  The streets are teeming with people who are living life, trying to make a buck to provide for their families.  Will you please stop right now and pray that Jay and I will see each and every person through the loving eyes of the One who created him, with the heart of the One who lovingly knit her in her mother’s womb?  And that we’ll never ever cease to be burdened for their need to know His incredible, self-sacrificing love for them? 

Kathy