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A Dozen Cereal Boxes?
My wife and I have resided in a senior apartment for about 7 years now. We had received ‘brown bag’ items for about 5 years every week. About 2 years ago it had changed to bi-weekly receiving instead. I do not know the exact reason, but I think it is because they needed more people to help, or the amount of food being received had become shorter?

Last Wednesday (15th) is the time I receive my by-weekly ‘brown bag items’. The group helping low-income group and elders, called the Second Harvest gives out vegetables, fruits, bread and cereal along with pasta or oatmeal in a brown bag. Despite being bi-weekly, it is such a huge help for our lives. I especially like the days when I receive tomato or onions in large amounts. The reason is because I eat stir-fried tomato and onion as a main meal because it helps prevent prostate cancer and other male related diseases that can set in old age.

There isn’t much for the flavor, but it has been like this for 13 years. I am still amazed and wonder how I am able to keep this way of eating for so long.

For protein, my wife and I eat chicken once a week. In the brown bags, occasionally there are chickens and eggs but there are so much that sometimes we have to eat it in 2 different times.

Sometimes we get so much food that I share with other pastors as well. Just like I have done, I went to the Fellowship Plaza in front of the office around 9:20AM to gather my brown bag of goodies. This time however, I had received a lot more unlike the usual. Unlike the normal vegetable, fruit, or chicken I had received medium sized box of oatmeal (2), boxes of pasta (3), and 2 large boxes of cereal box. It was a day that I had received many more unusual menus of items. I had gotten a cart to carry out the goods when another elderly Chinese gentleman who happened to live in the same building smiled and gave me one more box of cereal. When I went to gather the goodies, all the receivers had taken everything, but there were still large amounts of cereals leftover.

 think there were much more cereal to give out than normal. I usually declined when I receive more than one box cereal as that was usually the only amount we needed. I see that my wife was eating the cereal deliciously, but I do not because of the sugar. I know from normal cereals that are produced tends to have a lot of sugar if you look at the nutrient value chart in the back. But this time it was “100%Whole Wheat” and “Original Shredded Wheat Cereal” were all written in the front of the box in large letters. It was like meeting a long lost friend.

After I had retired from my ministry, I was working as the associate pastor of a local church out in New Jersey (2004); I was in Los Angeles to attend a seminar. Around lunch time, my family doctor called. The call was to discuss about my medical exam I took before I went to Los Angeles.

Apparently I had to watch for my blood glucose level. It was a bit of a shocker the fact I never thought and imagined such thing would come to me. I asked how to I avoid the glucose from rising, the doctor recommended to exercise twice as much as I do now, decrease the amount of rice, and not eat anything that had high sugar snacks or fruits in content. I had always said, “The 2nd strongest being besides God is the Doctor”, and listening to his advice, I decided to follow his instruction and finished the seminar and came home. I had thought carefully of how I almost became a diabetic. I think it was because as we had moved into our son-in-law’s place to take care of our first granddaughter, our meal pattern had changed drastically.

Knowing I needed at least some sort of grain meal, I had found whole-wheat ground cereal. But at that time period, it was very difficult to find such cereal as most of them were very sweet. It is still hard to find sugar-free cereal. There is always some small amount of sugar included. As I write this, the cereal brands I mentioned earlier were part of the meal plan that helped cut down the blood sugar. After about6 months of sugar free cereal with onion and tomato, my blood sugar level had dropped to normal again.

My body weight had dropped over 20 pounds. The doctor was so surprised that he suggested I write a book about it. My wife had taken care to organize the contents within the brown bag. After a short time, my wife heading outside to throw away garbage, said “There are so many boxes of cereal next to the door!” in a loud voice. I was also surprised and saw the boxes my wife was handing at me. There were at least 8 large boxes of cereal along with several boxes of oatmeal and pasta.

Who had put those in our place? But seeing that they are my favorite type of brand of I put them inside our apartment. After saying this was strange, we were about to head outside for our daily morning exercise my wife said, “Dear, someone left more!” and saw there were 4 more boxes of cereal, pasta, and oatmeal again.

My guess, knows that I do not eat anything that has sugar, many of the neighbor had sent the boxes of cereal after hearing from through my wife. But most of the Korean people usually knock on the door and tell my wife as customs would have it.

Or it could be the neighbors from the 2nd floor (Mostly Chinese, Russians) who do not enjoy cereal, and seeing that I am skinny and wants to see me be livelier? Most of the residents take whatever they want in the brown bag and leave most of the unwanted things in the apartment lobby, or next to the window near the garbage can.

At any rate, after having received 12 boxes of cereal, it was as the Israelites gathered the manna that God had rained from the sky. It was such a curious event. Most of the expiration date is set to next year of May. Seeing that I only eat about 15 pieces daily (the cereal are 2cm by .5cm like a cracker) in milk, I do not need this much of cereal.

I think I shall share with some of my pastors.

I hope some of them would like a sugar-free, somewhat coarse cereal…

(September 17th 2017)
Number Title Reference
79 ​Why?
78 In My Final Residence ((寓居處)
77 eSA (Extended Stay America) Room 210 (5)
76 eSA (Extended Stay America) Room 210 (4)
75 eSA (Extended Stay America) Room 210 (3)
74 eSA (Extended Stay America) Room 210 (2)
73 eSA (Extended Stay America) Room 210 (1)
72 ​T. J. Max
71 ​Of 3,000 Manuscripts
70 In Two Weeks
69 A Dozen Cereal Boxes?
68 Hand in Hand 2017 Campaign
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