I love the taste of fresh chicken and have had it prepared in more ways than you can count!  However, I have never eaten chicken feet cooked with beans.  Nor, have I watched someone slaughter a chicken in front of me and reach for the feet declaring this is a delicacy and most favored food!   

Total honesty, here.  I don’t know if I can do it.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat chicken feet and beans.  I feel guilty, embarrassed, ashamed, and most of all queasy in the stomach.  I really and truly don’t know if I can eat this particular dish that most assuredly will be offered to me while in Haiti.

I’m grieving over what to do.  My daughter who has visited Haiti several times now has assured me with delight that I will “love this food”! She said it’s the most delicious chicken she has eaten.  Well, what does she know?  She eats goats and all kinds of other strange things.  Truthfully, I think I’m pretty much going on a liquid diet while there.  Okay, I’ll eat the beans.  But, chicken feet?  I can’t…I really, really cannot do that, Lord. 

These are the thoughts that are circulating through my mind every day as I prepare for this trip.  To some this may seem silly, but to me this is major, life-changing stuff for me.   

My prayer for today:  “Dear God, I thank you for the bounty of food you have provided me all of my life.  May I feel the pain of others who are hungry so that I might know how to help.  May I be humbled as I sit among orphans and elderly and those in prison and learn to understand more of your love and purpose for my life while on this earth.  And, God, help me to be thankful for everything — even chicken feet.  Very humbly I pray, Amen.”

Only forty days until time to leave….  

Love,
Clara