Fasting with Peter
[Adventures in Faith: Pakistan; 1992] At a hostel, I met a man named Peter from Uganda. He was a vibrant Christian believer who fasted continually on a very simple diet.
The massive Aeroflot plane had just landed at Jinnah International Airport. I was now in the seaport city of Karachi, in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
For being the largest international airport in Pakistan, it was pretty underwhelming.
It was cheaply constructed. It needed paint. Badly. The concrete floors were unfinished. There was no forced-air ventilation.
The customs area had no semblance of officialdom.
Instead of restaurants and vending machines, the lobby was filled with strolling merchants.
Outside of the smallish building, hordes of aggressive taxi drivers swarmed around us, fiercely competing for our fares.
Where would I go? On a map, I found a Youth Hostel.
At random, I selected a taxi driver. I showed him my map and asked him to take me to that hostel. It was located on Mirza Adam Kahn Road.
As he drove me there, I could see that Pakistan was not like India. Sure, Pakistan and India were twin brothers, as Mohandas K. Gandhi put it, being born from the same mother of India.
But I could easily see that Pakistan was years ahead of India, in its commercial development.
India’s roads were filled with scooters and three-wheeled taxis, whereas Pakistan’s streets were filled with modern cars.
Pakistan’s air was fresh and clean, whereas India’s was filled with suffocating smog and nauseating stenches.
Instead of its sidewalks filled with crowds of homeless people milling about, Pakistan’s sidewalks were filled with sharply dressed Muslim men hurrying to their destinations.
Instead of India’s hand-painted signs and billboards, Pakistan was filled with professionally prepared works of art.
Pakistan’s roads and buildings were clean and maintained and modern.
Finally we arrived at the Hostel. It was a cheap place. I was assigned a cot in an open-bay room that housed ten men.
One of those men was from Uganda. Even before we first conversed, I felt a kinship with him. Inwardly, I sensed him to be a Man of God.
It turns out that he was indeed a Christian believer. By denomination, he was Catholic, although that wasn’t the most important thing to him.
All that seemed to matter to him was that he was identified with the Lord Jesus Christ.
His name was Peter.
He was excited about the faith. And articulate in it. He had great confidence about spiritual things.
His godliness reminded me of my Pentecostal friend Latoya Briggs and the people at her storefront church in Chicago.
Peter was fasting. He fasted on a very simple diet. He ate bread and butter and salt. He drank water and coffee. He put sugar in his coffee. I got the sense that he mostly lived that way.
At one mealtime, he invited me to “break bread” with him.
He cut tiny slices of bread from a loaf of cheap bread. He spread some butter on it from a single stick he had just bought. He sprinkled some salt on it, for taste, and handed it to me.
I received it from him as if it were a miraculous gift from the Most High God.
Later, I thought about Peter’s fasting. I recalled the many Scripture passages that call believers to fast.
The great figures in Christian history that were known for fasting came to mind, such as the Russian Orthodox man known as the Pilgrim.
I remembered devout Hindus I saw in India, fasting for days at a time, out of love for God.
I remembered my friend Zayan and other Muslim acquaintances, all of them fasting for the Holy Month of Ramadan.
For the rest of my time in Pakistan, I adapted the fasting custom of my new friend from Uganda. I lived almost exclusively on bread and butter and salt. For beverages, I drank only distilled water and coffee.
But when I was walking around, exploring the city of Karachi, I drank carbonated sodas. They were the purest filtered beverage available.
But in the coming days, I became sick. Really sick. I was in a great deal of pain. By the time I left Pakistan, I was a gaunt 130 pounds. That despite being almost six feet tall.
My intentions were fine. I was imitating the diet of a genuine holy person I knew. But it made me very ill.
Decades later, I would be told that my body is highly reactive to wheat.
ADVENTURES IN FAITH
NOTE. Names, dates, and locations may have been changed.
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