The Lent I Ate with the Marginalized

It was Lent 2009, and I was in Kolkata, India as a member of the Elder board for a ministry called Servants. This organization sends workers live as servants and neighbors to those in urban shantytowns.

That Lent I was undertaking a fast designed to mirror the meals that the poor ate in cities around the world. After all, Jesus was born into a poor family, and I believe he is present in a special way with those that our world has pushed to the margins. I wanted to stand with Jesus as he stands with the bottom billion of our planet, so during this Lent I chose to eat in solidarity with the under resourced.

One week I ate meals similar to those in poor Guatemalan communities– two meals a day of tortillas and beans. Another week it was the food of the marginalized in places like Egypt; pita bread, sliced cucumber and a bit of fuul. But the week I was in Kolkata, I decided to eat two meals a day of rice and dal.

One night, the ministry had set us up to eat in the homes of some local friends. I would actually get to physically eat alongside someone experiencing poverty in Kolkata.

Shujeta worked for a business that Servants started for young women in difficult circumstances. She made sari blankets and was able to help her family manage with the additional income. I got to share a meal with Shujeta, her mother, brother and baby sister in the tiny, sunbaked brick home that has been in the family for generations and will likely house Shujeta and her family when she marries.

I don’t think I was prepared for what I experienced at that meal.

Of course, the hospitality was over-the-top. I’ve come to expect that in many places I travel. The under resourced are among the most extravagant in showing hospitality. What I wasn’t expecting was a multi-course lavish dinner. Dish after dish was set out, consumed, and cleared away to make room for more. Just as I thought the meal was over, another round of amazing Bengali cuisine would appear. I thought my heart and my stomach might burst.

I spent nearly that entire Lent experiencing hunger, except for the day that I was fed by a poor Kolkata family. The rich can never out give those living in poverty.