How to Make Mexican Rice and

How to Influence with Authentic Grace

We all need friends who influence us with life-giving words, unexpected gifts, and everyday wisdom.  Even with all my travels and learning how to make ethnic foods, I still have not mastered how to make authentic Mexican rice.  Maybe it’s because I love making Indian basmati rice in my Japanese rice cooker. So, I asked our friend Eddie, who makes fantastic Tex-Mex, to share his recipe. He did the next best thing and linked me to a food influencer from the Texas border who has become famous for her straightforward and very charismatic approach to teaching authentic Mexican and Tex-Mex home cooking. With her “one eye-lash” fluttering and her strong, repeated emphasis on instructions such as “three-cups of water,” her perfect Mexican Rice recipe has gone viral. And thank you very much Eddie Aldape and Annette Freckles, I successfully made Mexican rice.

Social media influencers have taught us how to cook, dress, shop and everything else, shaping our cultural trends, behaviors, and communication. Good influencers are engaging, relatable, and charismatic.   As Christ followers, we also can be influencers through the gifts that Holy Spirit has given us to speak and serve for the good of the community and for the kingdom of God. Not only our message, but our lives must be attractive, authentic, consistent, and life giving.

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.  1 Peter 4:10 -11 NIV

Charisma and maybe a lot of engaging, creative hard work make a great influencer. And God is pretty creative as well, as the Holy Spirit gives authentic grace through the gifts given to each believer, to empower them to speak and serve for the benefit of others. The Greek word for this grace is charisma, which just like it sounds, is a way the Holy Spirit allows us to attract, influence, and inspire others in their faith in Jesus Christ. The truth is that our gifts of influence are received for God’s glory and meant to be given away to support the broader community:

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 1 Corinthians 12:7NIV (so that in all things God may be praised and the community built up. 1 Peter 4)

The term common good refers to that which is shared by and beneficial to all members of a given community. Dr. Martin Luther King taught that the common good is achieved not just through grand legislation, but through the everyday, selfless contributions of individuals. He championed the idea that greatness is accessible to everyone through service to others. Dr. King called his vision for common good, the Beloved Community, with a global goal in which poverty, homelessness, and hunger would not be tolerated. As we respond together with the call and gifts of God to go and serve, we become the Beloved Community.

How to Be a Charismatic Influencer

• Live an Ordinary yet Spectacular Faith. Get up, make your bed, drink coffee, take some moments to be still, to pray, to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.
• Offer Everyday Wisdom. Speak God’s Truth, Be Kind, and take time to call, text or however you can to give grace. And by the way a wise friend knows when to be present and just listen.
• Give Unexpected Gifts. Make everyday selfless contributions with generosity. Send a gift for no reason, show up for your people with food, gratitude, and your time.
• Influence with Authentic Grace. As the Spirit has gifted you: Lead, encourage, teach, show compassion, give and serve. When each of us does our part in service to one other, we all grow in love as the Beloved Community.

Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let it be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help. That way, God’s bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and he’ll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything—encores to the end of time. Oh, yes! 1 Peter 4:10-11 MSG

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). God himself, the giver of all good gifts, is the ultimate common good.

Eddie and his wife Macarena Aldape live as influencers with Authentic Grace in Almeria, Spain. They can be found in their kitchen making not only Mexican rice, but tamales, carne de asada, tortillas and much more. Please consider sending them a gift of support.

https://pro.gofundme.com/campaign/eddie-aldape-2/c581594