Guyana: land of many waters (especially in rainy season), many many musquitos (also known as the national bird of Guyana), ALOT of jungle and ALOT of sand...
Overall Guyana was one of my favorite countries so far. Guyana is like a little India in Africa but situated in South America. The beauty of the jungle is something you only dream about or see in movies. The people: le-gen-da-ry. Just to give some insight into this statement. One day our faithful mode of transportation, an old school bus, failed to start and we needed to be at the pastor's village in the middle of the jungle. Without any effort the pastor organised one of his friends to get his truck ready and take us to the village. So his friend stopped at the church where we were staying, took some church benches out of the church, strapped the benches to the truck, and loaded the 15 of us onto the benches. We sat on church benches on a truck and drove through the amazon jungle in tropical rain... One of the best days of my life.
Our main point of ministry in Guyana was basically centered around food. The people from the community literally showered us with food and meal invitations. We had a lunch/dinner appointment almost every day. If I had to invite 15 people to my house for a meal I would go for the easy option and make peanutbutter sandwiches or hotdogs (which would in fact be a very popular choice in our group as well)...Our various hosts however spoiled us with delicious traditional Guyanese meals which probably took them hours to prepare. Fried chicken(better than KFC), cook-up rice(a very popular Guyanese meal made from rice, split peas, lots of coconut and chicken), and my absolute all time favorite: roti with chicken curry. Around the table we heard their stories and we shared ours.
Because we were constantly eating, we spoke and thought about food alot. This made me think about the significance of food on earth. God could have made us without the need to eat to survive. But He didn't. I think Frank Viola hit the nail on its head with the following piece out of his book From Eternity to Here:
According to the Bible, Jesus Christ is food. Jesus Christ is drink. He is also rest. And we are summoned to consume Him. The pleasure and strengthening that we derive from eating physical food, the invigorating and refreshing that we receive from drinking physical water, the energy and rejuvenation that we receive from physical rest, are God-created portraits of what happens to us spiritually when we consume Christ. If food could speak it would say, “Think about how much you depend upon me. You think about me throughout the day. You come to me and partake of me numerous times each day. I am the most important thing in your life. You need me to live. You need me to survive. Without me, you will die. I am your enjoyment. I am your sustenance. And I am a part of you.”
What a picture! The real food, Christ, says the same thing to every human being. God put physical food on this earth to show us what Christ means to us spiritually. Every time you sit down to eat, your food screams this one message: I am an image of your Lord. Physical eating furnishes us with physical strength. Spiritual eating furnishes us with spiritual strength. God created physical food to depict His Son, the one by whom we live. When we eat physical food, it becomes part of us. When we eat spiritual food, which is Christ, He grows in us. And we become conformed to His glorious image.
John 6:53-58
“Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will be fit and ready for the Final Day. My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you. In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me. This is the Bread from heaven. Your ancestors ate bread and later died. Whoever eats this Bread will live always.”
At first I thought it was very funny that Guyana has so many billboards with the saying: ''We are Guyanese''. After only 3 weeks in Guyana, I understand why they have these boards and why they are so proud of their beautiful country and their beautiful people.