To Eat or Not Eat An Iguana

With Or Without Salsa?
I have been promising a buddy that I would investigate and share my new found information about the benefits of eating iguana. After moving to the coast I became a watcher of iguanas; the fact is I am a fanatic of iguanas. I now have a file of photos that I am taking of iguanas. (I still hate geckos.) The first place we lived in Las Peñas had a very high cement wall around the property, and close to the bottom of the wall were crevices and holes large enough for creatures to crawl into. Iguanas lived there. It became an obsession to watch out the windows for iguana activity. I enticed them out of their holes with food. I discovered that they love cantaloupe, tomatoes, and have seen them eat hibiscus flower petals.

Anyway, let's get on with our topic ... to eat or not eat an iguana. Almost as soon as we moved to this area, people began to entice us, provoke us and gross us out with their of eating strange foods: armadillo, turtles, snakes, crabs and iguanas ... anything that crawls. I became really interested in the eating of iguanas and their use for medicinal purposes. People actually drink the blood of the iguana. It is given to people who are very weak due to a long illness. A few drops of the blood are mixed in with coca cola, and you drink it immediately. According to those with whom I have talked about this practice, you fall into a deep sleep for hours afterwards. Supposedly it is full of vitamins, minerals and anything else that is good for you. So you go to sleep while your body absorbs all of this reptile nutrition, and you wake up a few hours later with scales and cold blood. Ha! Ha!

My Experience

One Saturday afternoon during the rainy season and while Billy was still gone, I got a call from Roxanna here in Playa Azul to come for lunch. Iguana was the main course of the day. I was lonely and bored and thought, "what could it hurt?" So I went. Great preparations were being made to serve up this special meal. First of all, the kitchen is on the outside of the house with a two burner stove hooked up to a cylinder butane tank. The sink is a place where you wash clothes by hand or your dishes, clean fish, or skin an iguana. A large pot was on the stove and its contents were boiling furiously. My friends were chopping the ingredients for a green salsa. Fresh tortillas were brought in to the table along with a red salsa and an aged cheese that is rather dry and crumbly to munch on with the tortillas as we waited for the good stuff ... iguana!

It was raining again ... I was cold, wet and thinking I had made a serious mistake as I took in all the preparations. Finally the meal was served and much to my surprise it was very good. The tail is very meaty as well as bony. It reminded me of eating chicken neck. Are any of you middle age folks remembering eating chicken necks? The thing is, after awhile I began to feel very strange. I became very cold, very sleepy, and my skin began to itch. I had a craving to eat hibiscus flowers and crawl into a rocky crevice. Gotcha! After I got over my initial shock of the whole event, I had a great time and will probably eat it again.

Church News

God continues to bless us in Lazaro Cardenas and Playa Azul. We have begun a new small group in the office of Yessy and Rigo. We meet on Saturday evenings at 6:00 p.m. We are using the book that Billy has written "Living in the Heavenly Realms" as a study to see how it works. The group is enthralled with it so far.

The group that has been at Malcolm and Tammy's house is now meeting at Salvador and Gina's home. Both groups are growing in maturity and number. Sundays we are fluctuating between 25 and 35 people. Plans are being made to attend the music seminar in Morelia next month.

A group of students from ACU are arriving to our house this very night, fifteen in total. They are coming to do a service project in Playa Azul. It will be interesting because this is the beginning of Holy Week, and this place is filling up fast with tourists. They will be painting the sports park. I will post pictures later.

Prayer
It has recently become so vital to me to experience the power of prayer and to have others linked with me that have experienced the same joys and struggles. Our little Noah has been having some eye problems, and that has triggered tons of tests. Some of it has been scary. When folks have asked for prayers for various things, I am always willing to pray for them. But when you experience the fear and pain of what someone is asking you to pray for, it becomes a completely different experience. Empathy ... to walk in someone else's pain ... to feel what they feel ... to go before God with a different heart for the suffering. I have learned so many things because of my own sin and suffering. So I am saying this to say this ... when you ask for me to pray for you know that I will do so with a different heart, one that has suffered and one that knows what it is to be so filled with gratitude for what God does for me on a daily basis.

Prayers

• I ask you to pray for Noah. We don't know exactly what is the problem with his eyes, but apparently there is something.
• Please continue to pray for Billy and his recovery.
• Please pray for Tammy Pointon and her family. Her dad recently died. He lived a victorious life in Jesus.
• Please pray for those families suffering from the disease of addictions and alcoholism that aren't getting any help.
• Amberlee's pregnancy and that our new grandson will be born healthy.
• God's continued blessing upon this work and the "Vision" of planting multiple churches up and down the Pacific Coast.

May God's richest blessing be upon each of you.
Belinda and Billy Moore