Orange Juice

So for the longest time I never drank orange juice because I don't like oranges. Therefore, the juice would be yucky right? Well when we were in Kenya, they packed us sack lunches that always included juice and more often than not it was OJ. I was normally super thirsty and probably tired of drinking only water so I would drink those tiny orange juice juiceboxes like there was no tomorrow. That time in Kenya was the ONLY time I've had orange juice, ever. Until this morning.

I helped with the youth group at my church this morning and we had pancakes(it went along with the lesson...) Two of us leaders were supposed to act really hungry and really thirsty(I was the thirsty one) but the lady speaking, Heidi, wasn't going to give us what we wanted. She served everyone pancakes and made me serve the juice, but we couldn't get what we wanted. Eventually she felt generous and served us up and connected it to the verse that says (rough paraphrase) "When I was hungry, you fed me. When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was an outsider, you brought me in." As I finally was given something to drink(I had actually become quite thirsty from the pancakes so it was no longer acting haha) I had orange juice. And the last and only time I had it was in Kenya. What a weird feeling. For those of you who drink OJ nearly every morning you probably think I'm crazy. But for me it took me back to those times of eating peanut butter and nutella sandwiches in the hot bus in the middle of Maasailand, or eating three apples in an empty lot in the middle of a slum as children climbed up the side of the bus, to eating potato crisps (chips) in a large room surrounded by orphans eating only a small plate of beans, and lastly to a time of watching baboons steal my friends lunch as I was sitting in the safety of our bus.

It was weird being brought back to it all again so suddenly. I didn't even think of the fact that I was drinking OJ until I took that first sip and thought I should be sitting inside the bus with the windows down as I stared out at muddy streets full of people who filled me with so much compassion and love.
All from a tiny glass of orange juice.