Memory #4: The most delicious flavor on earth
The “Pork Pit” in Montego Bay, Jamaica was the first place I ever tasted jerk pork and festival. Jeanie and I had traveled with Courtney to scout out his homeland for future long-term ministry opportunities. That sultry, salty night air; that perfect charcoal and pimento smoke aroma; the sea breeze; the rhythms of reggae and dancehall pulsing in the tropical air—we sat on stone benches and I took my first beloved bites of a spicy island delicacy. I wouldn’t want to guess how many pounds of searingly delicious jerk pork served in brown paper with no plastic wear (all the world’s best foods must be handled with one’s fingers) I ate during the two years we lived in Jamaica.
When we ruminate upon the land we called our home, we remember the people, the sights, the smells, the sounds. Jamaica has to be experienced with all the senses to be known. And our taste-buds will never forget her.
Memory #5: The most beautiful sound in the world
On that same first ministry scouting trip to Jamaica, we spent most of our time in the sauna that is Kingston in early August. One day, with no excursions planned, I was out on the veranda reading a book, when I heard in the distance a familiar sound. The shrubs and wall surrounding the property blocked my view of the road, but the sound was unmistakable. A siren song—irresistible. I wandered to the end of the drive and heard voices before I saw the three young boys, pounding a basketball on the pavement, making their way up the road, and now toward me.
We had come to Jamaica to see whether or not we might begin a kind of mentoring and mentor training ministry to try to reach young men. I was interested to find out if we might start a ministry utilizing the vehicle of basketball, but was told that in Jamaica, Soccer was king. Cricket and athletics (track and field) were beloved as well, but nobody much played basketball.
This day was the first I had seen a basketball, and I had seen no basketball courts anywhere we had traveled. Of course I asked the boys about their ball. They said they had been playing in the street just down the road on a makeshift hoop nailed to a tree—until the hoop had broken down a few minutes before.
“But Jamaicans don’t play basketball,” I ribbed them with a smirk.
“Ya mon,” chimed in one of the boys. “Wi luv da game.”
They explained to me how for the first time just a few months prior, one of the two local Jamaican television stations had carried the entire six game series of the Bulls and Suns in the 1993 NBA finals. My eyes must have bugged out of my head.
The “Pork Pit” in Montego Bay, Jamaica was the first place I ever tasted jerk pork and festival. Jeanie and I had traveled with Courtney to scout out his homeland for future long-term ministry opportunities. That sultry, salty night air; that perfect charcoal and pimento smoke aroma; the sea breeze; the rhythms of reggae and dancehall pulsing in the tropical air—we sat on stone benches and I took my first beloved bites of a spicy island delicacy. I wouldn’t want to guess how many pounds of searingly delicious jerk pork served in brown paper with no plastic wear (all the world’s best foods must be handled with one’s fingers) I ate during the two years we lived in Jamaica.
When we ruminate upon the land we called our home, we remember the people, the sights, the smells, the sounds. Jamaica has to be experienced with all the senses to be known. And our taste-buds will never forget her.
Memory #5: The most beautiful sound in the world
On that same first ministry scouting trip to Jamaica, we spent most of our time in the sauna that is Kingston in early August. One day, with no excursions planned, I was out on the veranda reading a book, when I heard in the distance a familiar sound. The shrubs and wall surrounding the property blocked my view of the road, but the sound was unmistakable. A siren song—irresistible. I wandered to the end of the drive and heard voices before I saw the three young boys, pounding a basketball on the pavement, making their way up the road, and now toward me.
We had come to Jamaica to see whether or not we might begin a kind of mentoring and mentor training ministry to try to reach young men. I was interested to find out if we might start a ministry utilizing the vehicle of basketball, but was told that in Jamaica, Soccer was king. Cricket and athletics (track and field) were beloved as well, but nobody much played basketball.
This day was the first I had seen a basketball, and I had seen no basketball courts anywhere we had traveled. Of course I asked the boys about their ball. They said they had been playing in the street just down the road on a makeshift hoop nailed to a tree—until the hoop had broken down a few minutes before.
“But Jamaicans don’t play basketball,” I ribbed them with a smirk.
“Ya mon,” chimed in one of the boys. “Wi luv da game.”
They explained to me how for the first time just a few months prior, one of the two local Jamaican television stations had carried the entire six game series of the Bulls and Suns in the 1993 NBA finals. My eyes must have bugged out of my head.
As we spent days after this asking questions about basketball, come to find out the little island had gone Michael Jordan and basketball crazy as a result of those televised games. One pastor told us that there were hoop like iron rings nailed to nearly every telephone pole in his ghetto neighborhood, and the children played basketball, barefoot, with anything that might serve as a ball (tin can, rolled up t-shirt, deflated soccer ball) for hours upon hours outside his church property.
And I had my call from God. His voice is most beautiful, I must tell you--it sounds like the pounding of a basketball on hot pavement.
And I had my call from God. His voice is most beautiful, I must tell you--it sounds like the pounding of a basketball on hot pavement.
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