I Only Drink Beer in Africa

A huge part of my job and life in general is to be a good example of how a man should live day to day.  One can't counsel and admonish the homeless about poor lifestyle choices when you participate in some of those same choices yourself.
Further, as a Christian, I'm guided by my personal hero, Paul of Tarsus: "Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble." 1Cor 8:13.  I extend the "food" issue to include alcohol, drugs, loose women and all the other things that this world offers to put us in jeopardy of loosing our health/wife/immortal soul.
I enjoy a cold beer on a hot day.  God provided all the materials to make beer, even the intelligence to develop refrigeration.  It's all from God!
However, if I'm seen drinking is that a good witness to the men I counsel?  Not really.  Therefore I don't drink...except in Africa.


I've made four mission trips to Africa.  I visit and stay with a friend who has been working with orphans and disadvantaged children in the QuaQua Province of South Africa and across the border in Lesotho.
We usually start early in the morning transporting food and building materials to the villages that have allowed my friend to establish a feeding system for the children.  It's satisfying work and you feel good at the end of the day.
One day on my last trip, my friend and I were heading back home after a hot dusty day in the mountains.  We drove past this small town with a combination food store, cafe and bar all stitched together in what could only be called "rural African late 50s architecture".  The place was standing but that issue could be in doubt if a strong wind blew through.  My friend spots the place, looks at me and says: "Fancy a cold bier?"  "Well", say I "A bier would taste like nectar right now" and laughed.  With that, he wheels the big Rover off the road in hits the brakes, stopping about three feet from a table full of dubious locals.
"What are you doing" I ask, whereupon my friend says: "I'm getting a cold something.  I'm not sure what, but I'm getting something."
We walk in the place, open air accommodations of course, and sit down.  The only white men for miles and all the talking had stopped.  The music continued, but other than the sound of 80s Motown, there wasn't a word spoken.
A large woman walks over and asks for our order.  My friend slips into fluent Sotho and she smiles.  I open my blatantly American mouth and order...a beer.  It just came out.
I rationalized the next few minutes waiting for the woman's return that I was 10,000mi from home.  There was NO WAY a former homeless guy from eastern PA was going to walk into that building.  The doubts and trepidations continued until that cold sweating bottle of "who knows what" beer showed up on the table.  I took a long pull on the bottle (one NEVER drinks from a glass in the hinterlands of Africa) and felt that poorly made combination of God's providence and bounty claw its way down my throat.
It was heaven.