We have a fun game that we play on our wedding anniversaries. We recite the the various places in which we celebrated our anniversaries through the years. The various places and restaurants reflect the various stages of our lives and marriage.
Initially, the restaurants were inexpensive (cheap) and accurately reflected our impoverished financial status. As kids came along, the places reflected proximity to children as baby sitters were scarce. As I finished my surgery training and our financial status improved, the restaurants and venues became more exotic. The Mansion of Dallas, Old Warsaw, Ritz Carlton.
But then something happened. Our world view changed. We started asking questions like why do we have so much and others are starving. How can we spend thousands on an anniversary when children are enslaved by cruel slavemasters. Why are we at home in comfort when Jesus told us to go into all the world?
As we listed the venues we used to celebrate our wonderful marriage, we saw a change. We began waking up on our anniversary under mosquito nets in places like Mozambique, Ghana and Honduras. Our "restaurants" were mud huts and the food was rice, beans and goat meat.
Today is our 32nd wedding anniversary and our mosquito net now permanently resides in Thomazeau, Haiti. Our "restaurant" is made out of tin and we have no electricity, running water or a sewage system. Our veal Marsala is replaced with rice, beans and goat with mangoes for dessert.
Now, we know former slave children by name, share our food with the starving and help bury the ones who lose the battle. My surgical skills, once used to make people beautiful, now are mixed with generator repair, setting up water purification systems and providing medical care to the poorest of the poor.
Laurie traded her accounting position to run the Wound Care Clinic and the At Risk Programs. Her days are spent bandaging festering wounds and caring for those clinging to the edge of life. It thrills her to spend an afternoon going from hut to hut giving out love and bags of food.
Interestingly, as our palates have lost their appetite for the finer things, our life has became richer.
I wonder where our mosquito net will be next year?
Happy Anniversary Babe!
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