There is this saying: “I complained about the holes in my shoes, until I met the man with no feet”!
I think the same can be applied to food. Comfort food? Food, period. Any food. Just as long as there is food.
Of course I like my Christmas stollen and hazelnut cinnamon star cookies. I love sitting with family, particularly in Switzerland, where the memories of white Christmases, the smell of my mum’s cooking and baking, and the singing of Christmas carols both at home and at church come flooding back. Silent night, holy night. Love, peace, joy! And abundance! Utter abundance of presents, of food, of too much of most things.
And then there are all those whose plea for the provision of “our daily bread” is a stark reality.
Many years ago, my family decided that because we already had everything we ever needed and most things we ever wanted, and way too much of what we didn’t want anymore, we would not spend our money going forward on buying presents for each other, or on indulging in excessive food and beverage purchases.
Instead, we would pay it forward to people who were not blessed with the privilege of birth in a safe and wealthy country, with shopping centers stacked to the brim with 20 different brands of bread, or cookies, or ice cream varieties. And so we started supporting an orphanage in Burma/Myanmar.
The kids there have nothing we would value. They are motherless, fatherless. Their worldly possessions fit into small boxes. They have two meals a day, consisting of rice and a condiment, and their food is grown by themselves. Good harvest, enough food; poor harvest, struggle.
But, they are happy. They have each other. They have play time. They have shelter. They have education. And they have house parents who love them and care for them.
A house parent’s income is $2 a day. The entire orphanage, 60 to 70 children and the six married couples who look after them, live on $5000 a month – food, shelter, utilities, school fees and everything else included. Provided by International Children’s Care (ICC).
It’s not enough for even the basic maintenance needs, home improvements, infrastructure builds, clean water, steady power etc… Which is what we took over. Rather than more under-appreciated Christmas presents, we now buy solar panels, paint, piping, concrete, rice harvesters, sprinkler systems for the veggie patches, water bores for clean drinking water, roof replacements, communal kitchen building, playgrounds, visits to the beach, etc…
We try to coordinate our annual visits to around Christmas time, when each child and adult gets an amount of money in accordance with their age, and we all go shopping. It takes three of four trips each way, to ferry everyone to and fro. Most kids buy either clothes or grooming products or school bags or sports equipment.
Then we go out for their one and only meal outside of the orphanage, at a restaurant, where the only instruction from us to the restaurant is to “not run out of food,” so that the kids can experience abundance, at least once a year – eat as much as they desire, without any restrictions.
The highlight is ice cream on Sabbath after church. The first time we did it, the kids had never tasted ice cream. There is nothing more heavenly than seeing the kids, from youngest to oldest, coming back for seconds, thirds and even fourths, and to see the hesitation first (Is this for real?) being replace by excitement, and to have them experience abundance to the max – filling their bellies with ice cream until it hurts.
For me, there is no better Christmas food than ice cream offered to the kids at the orphanage each Christmas. If you’ve ever wondered what heaven sounds like, it is the sound of the children singing their hearts out at nightly worship after ice cream Sabbath. Silent night, not so much. But holy night? Absolutely!
Sabbath Ice Cream
Ingredients:
Six tubs of ice cream (vanilla, strawberry, chocolate)
Instructions:
Step 1: Take a motorcycle and ride into town
Step 2: Buy 6 tubs of ice cream (vanilla, strawberry, chocolate) at the only store that sells it
Step 3: Have the ice cream delivered on a motorized rickshaw, packed in dry ice
Step 4: Scoop out ice cream for an hour, with hands so cold that it hurts
Step 5: Sprinkle the ice cream with various garnishes
Step 6: Sit back, and watch the kids indulge, with a smile at least as big as theirs
Step 7: Give thanks to the Creator
Stephan Herzog is the executive director of both the American and International Boards of Lifestyle Medicine, and a health evangelist.