Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: CANDY (04/28/16)
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TITLE: Kitul Jaggery - Palm Sugar | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lisa Enqvist
05/04/16 -
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Six-year-old Sandra ran down the gravel lane to the tiny shop by the main road. She was excited. She didn’t mind the sharp stones hurting her bare feet. It was the first time Mother had chosen her, the youngest and shyest, to go on an errand.
Sandra was usually afraid to speak with adults, but she had been to this shop many times with her mother. Mother promised that she could buy a cent’s worth of the tiny sugar-coated fennel seeds as a reward. She loved the taste and smell of that candy.
Sandra’s family had moved back to Kandy, after having lived one year quite far outside the city limits. Their third year in Ceylon involved moving to a third home. Their new home was close to Sandra’s school and to their previous home, so much was familiar. She could walk to school. She only used shoes for going to school, for church, and town visits.
Sandra’s mother seldom had any extra money to buy sweets. She had to count each cent and rupee so there would be enough food for her five growing children.
Sandra longed for something sweet each time mother took her along to the market. She knew there was never enough money for extras, but still she begged, “Please, can’t you buy just one small piece of jaggery”? Sometimes mother relented.
Jaggery is not widely known in western countries since it is rarely prepared there. Jaggery is predominantly made in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Besides tasting very good, it has many health benefits.
Jaggery is palm sugar, hardened like candy, by boiling down the sweet liquid tapped from the Kitul palm’s flowers. (Caryota urens – fishtail palm).
Much later Sandra learned about the difficulties farmers had in producing her favorite candy. When the kitul flower was still young, the farmer climbed the palm, and with a very sharp knife, he cut a slash in the flower and then tied a vessel underneath to collect the sap or palm honey from which the jaggery was produced.
The candy that brought pleasure to her as a child now gave her new insights into the experiences she had gone through.
God's search for her, not giving up until He had reached His purpose was similar to the farmer's arduous search for the palms which would give the sweetest sap.
Cutting the flower at the right moment; tying the vessel to collect the sap reminded her of the pain of leaving her friends and her lovely hometown, Kandy.
Finally boiling and stirring the liquid for hours on a fire that needed constant tending was a picture of God's patience with her while he was working out his plan in her life.
“The Lord is God, shining upon us. Take the sacrifice and bind it with cords on the altar. Psalms 118:27
But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 (NLT)
Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. Ephesians 5:2 (NLT)
Based on reality
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