Marco Polo is one of my favorite apps for keeping in touch with friends back home. Usually, it’s updates on life, or funny anecdotes we share back and forth… but when I opened one from this particular friend back home, I was met with a different kind of message: “So actually, I am randomly this semester teaching sociology, and one of the things I’m talking about is culture! I’m wondering if there would be an evening where any of your students would be willing to do a video call and talk to my sociology students?”

At first, I wasn’t sure… would any of my students want to do this?! It felt like asking them a huge favor to spend their evening on a video call with random students back in Michigan… then the magic word hit my brain: food.

They say food is the love language of the students here. I didn’t really get it until this past Sunday. I don’t usually eat at the cafo- maybe once a week, so when I do, it’s usually on the days of the better meals… I can afford to be choosey. Sunday afternoons, it’s been tradition for me and some of my friends to eat cafo food and enjoy fellowship together after church! Last week was no exception… the exception was however, was that the meal was inedible. On paper it sounded good- lamb, rice, gravy & applesauce. I loaded up my metal cafo tray and headed over to our typical meeting spot, only to ponder all of my life choices. Or at least the choice I had just made. The applesauce was mostly cinnamon, very little apple, and seemed to decompose into liquid on my plate. The lamb was more like venison, very tough and very gamey (not a flavor I’ve ever loved) and the gravy was flavorless. My first experience of ‘true’ cafo food, which leads me back to my point: the students here feel most loved when you feed them. So feed them I did.

I sent an email out to about a dozen junior girls with the subject “Favor for Food” expecting maybe half of them to respond. Six felt like a good number of people to be on a cultural interview panel! Welp. Pretty quick, the “yes’s” started coming…

Tonight I hosted 12 junior girls for a lasagna dinner.

My inside worker (essentially, a housekeeper who does anything and everything including but not limited to cooking- Gladys is one of my favorite people here at RVA!) spent the day cooking for me yesterday! I left out my mom’s recipe for lasagna and pulled a yummy bread recipe from my baking cookbook for some garlic rosemary bread. Gladys washed and cut up my broccoli, pineapple, cabbage and scallions! With her incredible help of doing 90% of the leg work- I turned on the oven, then pulled out chairs, plates, cups and silverware after getting home from school today.

Girls showed up on my front porch around 5 as we pulled chairs from my neighbors house and poured fresh limeaid into glasses. I passed around dessert (because it just seemed right to eat dessert first since dinner wasn’t to happen until after the call) and I opened my computer to a video call with my friends’ sociology class.

We had a list of about 25 questions we worked our way through about school, life, and culture. The sound on my computer turned up to 100 didn’t quite drown out the lawn mower working his way through my neighborhood and the wifi glitched occasionally, but what can you say, we live in Africa! My girls lined the edges of my porch, standing up and popping into the view of the camera and the range of the mic to take turns answering questions.

Random bursts of giggles and joy were quieted with a quick “SHHHHHH” as smiles and laughter filled the air. Looks of puzzlement cycled through as my girls thought deeply about challenging questions. Heated debates broke out when questions about “if 63 is cold, what temp do you consider hot” and discussions of the “cool” animals that live around us were asked. Shared groans erupted across continents when first period start times were discussed. Jealousy filled eyes as we shared about our 90 minute lunch period, and when they shared about ending school at 2:30 pm instead of 4pm. Shrieks of glee were in perfect harmony when my girls were shown the snow out the Michigan classroom window.

Adrenaline pumped through my veins when a question about food was asked and I remembered the broccoli I had roasting in the oven. Crispy was the new adjective for our dinner vegetable as I turned off the oven and took out the broccoli, leaving the lasagna inside to stay warm until we were ready for it.

My girls thought they were sharing about culture, but they were really sharing about themselves. I heard pieces of how they see RVA. I learned about some of their experiences in small glimpses of what it looks like to live in Uganda, Tanzania, Rawanda- in their parents ministry contexts. I learned what it means to be a TCK (third culture kid) when the question, “How different is your life now from what it was before you moved?” was met with shared glances and confusion as to which “move” was being asked about… “Like, from Uganda here to RVA? From Korea to Tanzania? From the US to Kenya? I was so little when that move happened…”

Or when asked “What is your favorite culture?” and a dozen voices instantly replied in some form of, “You can’t ask that question. It isn’t fair.”

Or simply how the conversation began with introductions…

“I’m American, I live in Uganda, I go to school here in Kenya.”

“I’m Kenyan, and I lived in the UK until I was 7, but now we’re here back in Kenya.”

“I’m Korean, live in Tanzania, and am here at RVA now.”

These girls experiences are powerful. Their stories are powerful. Their voices are heard.

An hour after it began, we ended the call with a group picture and pulled the lasagna out of the oven for celebration time. My heart was filled with joy as student after student shared the love they felt from this favorite meal of mine. “You have no idea how nice it is to eat on a real plate.” One student remarked. It seems like a strange comment until one remembers the heavy metal military grade trays from the 1940’s they eat off of three meals a day. “Wow. This broccoli is amazing.” said another. I kid you not- it was burned to a crisp… but somehow… somehow it was just what they wanted! The pineapple was perfectly sweet. The cabbage salad, enough to feed an army. Two giant loafs of rosemary-garlic bread? Gone. We laughed together for another 45 minutes until the 5 minute curfew bell rang for them to be back in their dorms.

And the school year is only halfway done. I am so thankful for the opportunity to get to know these 12 girls that this “favor for a friend” became. I thought I was doing this for her, but really, the Lord was doing it for me. A chance to love them- a chance to know them more, a chance to continue to build into their lives, and hopefully, to continue to point them to be more like Jesus each and every day. Maybe meatloaf next week? 😉

Prayer Points

• This term school has been hitting the grind! I’ll post the chronicle of our crazy start later- please pray for joy and peace in the midst of the mundane & stress, both for my students, staff and me.
• Pray for more opportunities like this, which can lead to more impactful relationships with my students who are literally amazing! ❤