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The Day I Learned to Fish, For Real

Several of us from the Peruvian Amazon village of Grau took a trip one day in a long, tall, peke-peke canoe to visit a friend about an hour away. About halfway there, one man suggested we fish so that we would already have food to cook once we arrived. Assuming by “fish” he meant climbing on top of the tall canoe, balancing ourselves high above the water by gripping our toes around opposite edges of an already rocky boat and casting and dragging in an enormous net over and over again as I had seen him do, I said, “Hmmm…” with my eyebrows raised.

I said I wasn’t sure I knew HOW to fish. Everyone looked at me as if I were kidding.

“Estrecha la mano, no más,” the man who suggested we fish said to me. “Just stick out your hand, that’s all.”

He explained that because we were in the rainy season, the river had risen and would be much fuller of fish than normal. So I just stuck out my hand as the man said and one fish after another literally jumped right into my palm. I barely had time to throw each fish onto the floor of the peke-peke before another one leaped into my outstretched hand.

Is this your rainy season?

 

“The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands…” ~ Deuteronomy 28:12

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sherry Boykin

Sherry Boykin helps Christian women transform their lives through the perspective-shifting power of story.

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