When Strangers are Kind

It was pouring.

(photo credit to Ben Rumeau)

Such that by the time I crossed the three (small) parking lots between Panera and Aldi, my shoes were soggy and squeaking and my pants were drenched well above my knees.  I went past all of the people who were watching the rain pound down from the shelter of the overhang and zipped through the aisles to grab my two bags of oranges and two bags of carrots and hamburger buns.  (See?  I did buy something that wasn't orange!)

I checked out, loaded up my trusty backpack, and still had about twenty minutes before my bus was due.  I may be willing to wade through a embryonic flood zone to get groceries, but I'm not quite so masochistic to want to stand in chilly rain for twenty minutes waiting for a bus.  Particularly when it's the type of rain that seems to be determined to ignore my umbrella and soak me anyway.  So I took a seat on the bagging counter.  (Don't judge me too harshly.  Several other people were doing the same thing.)  I remembered that I still had half of a sandwich and pulled it out to finish it in the dry store before venturing back outside.

As I sat there, munching my sandwich and listening to the pounding rain, one of the cashiers came out of their break room.  Over the past year, I've gotten to semi-know a few of the cashiers, since I'm in Aldi a few times a week.  We said hi and discussed the crazy cloudburst and she asked if I was walking home or what, since I was obviously waiting.  When I said I was taking the bus, she asked where I lived.

The lady (mid-60's?) who was at the counter next to me, bagging her groceries, looked up when I said and asked where exactly, so I told her which apartments.

After a moment, she said, "Oh, I'm going to the bank on the corner up there anyway-- if you'd like a ride with me, you're more than welcome."

Let's pause to consider this offer and how I answered.  My options:

1) Wait in Aldi till the rain stopped and then catch the next bus.  Since that was anyone's guess, there was no way I was planning to just chill there.

2)  Go outside and wait for the bus and get more drenched.  Hope that the bus came more or less on time.  Ride the bus, get off at the bank, and then walk back to the apartment.

3)  Ride with this lady, maybe have an interesting conversation, and walk back from the bank.

Any guesses?

Of course I chose option 3.

As she started driving, we made small talk.  She told me what town she lived in and I admitted that I had no idea where that was, I've only lived here for a year.  Yeah, I moved here.... from China.

Very interesting, she said, and I could hear wheels spinning in her head.  But you're not from China originally...? she asked after a minute.

So then we talked about Pennsylvania and it turns out that her husband went to college there and knows a lot of people in the town where I went to college.  We chatted about teaching because she was a teacher too and about what she's keeping busy with now in retirement.  She asked me again where I live and I told her, and she started telling me about a woman who her church is helping who lives right around there.  The conversation spun around to persecution in the Middle East and I wondered how it got there, why it got there.

I hadn't mentioned that I'm a Christian.  I said I was teaching English in China.  I had said where I went to college, so maybe she knew it's a Christian school.  I'm also wearing a star of David necklace, so maybe that was a clue?  But I'm not sure.

We talked about world events, about the role of US in international politics... and then we were to my apartment.

"My name's Joyce," she told me as I get ready to hop out of the car with my backpack.

"I'm Hannah," I told her, and thanked her again.

As I walked off and she pulled away, my heart was singing.  It makes me so happy when people are kind, and it makes me even happier when I find Christians being kind to strangers.

Years ago, my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be --" she always called me Elwood -- "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well for years I was smart.  I recommend pleasant.  You may quote me.{Jimmy Stewart in Harvey}

Isn't it funny how God doesn't say that the world will know us by our intelligence?  By how smart we are, how quickly we can respond with witty comebacks that will make everyone laugh, by how many facts we know?

Instead it's by our love.  How we love one another, how we reach out to others in loving ways that simply don't make sense.

Like being kind enough to take the drenched stranger in Aldi home.

Unexpected Opportunities for Ministry

What comes to mind when you think of ministry?

To give you fair warning, I considered titling this post "I do not think that word means what I think it means."

August 2012

I sat in a large room in a hotel in Beijing with my fellow students/teachers-in-training, listening to Amy warn us about ministry.

shenanigans while waiting for class to start

Whoever you think you're here to minister to, whatever you think your ministry will look like -- you're wrong! she told us.  And because she's Amy, she told us stories that illustrated her point.

She had come to China to minister to students -- and ended up with bacterial meningitis, being ministered to by these same students.

Another year, a team of younger teachers came to visit her team every weekend.  She hadn't gone to China to mentor them!  But they kept showing up.  She laughed as she told this story, because one of those "younger teachers" had gone on to become director of the program that all of us new teachers were in.

July 2014

My mom texted me that a guy from their church had invited himself over for a birthday party (which my family was going to be throwing for him, obviously.)  I think this was a pretty wise choice on his part (my family does have a history of doing birthday parties well; over the years there have been themes from Barbie to Pilgrim's Progress to Mud to Olympics to Pirate to Umbrella.

And it made me think again about Amy's words: that ministry does not look like what you expect it to.

This has certainly been true in my family.  My parents planned to adopt before they were married, but they didn't plan for our home to become an outreach-to-social-workers center.  They made the plans to homeschool us, but they didn't know that two of us would spend months overseas, pouring into the lives of people who they had never gotten to meet.

one joy of having a huge, crazy family 

is seeing how we get to minister together 

to a wide range of people

There are so many things that we don't know, yet it's so easy to dream up expectations.  When I move to a new place, start a new job, make a new friend, I immediately being imagining possibilities.  More often than not, I'm wrong.

part of my team's ministry in China was to another North American family.

not what any of us expected, but a huge blessing to all of us!

And for that, I am grateful.  God's plans of how to use me, to use my life, are far better and more consequential and more exciting than my own.

I've found it to be a helpful premise to keep in mind when life throws curveballs -- when people ask questions that I wasn't expecting, when people ask for things that I wasn't planning to give, when I get to know people who I didn't think that I would.  Ministry does not look like what I expect it to.

no one expected a lasting friendship to grow out of a few hours together.

Here's what Proverbs 16:9 has to say:

The heart of man plans his way,but Yahweh establishes his steps.

And here's one of my favorite verses for guiding how to live in a way to seize opportunities for ministry, even when they are unexpected.

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,when it is in your power to do it.(Proverbs 3:27)

As God has been so generous in not withholding good from us, even when we were His enemies, shouldn't we imitate Him?

Thoughts about Loving

It was early morning and I was setting up the food line at Panera, listening to a few last songs on my mp3 player as I woke up, before we opened the doors to customers.  Scraps of thoughts floated through my head.

Did I see music in here by a group called Everyone You Love Will Be Happy in the End?  (It's actually "Soon" not "in the End," and an album, not a group.  Oh well.)

That's kind of creepy.

What if it was true though?  What if I really was sure that everyone who I loved would be happy in the end?  Would know and love God?

That would be awesome.

But maybe then I'd just be lazy and be like, cool, well, everything will work out fine.

Or.

Or maybe....

I'd try to love everyone.

To really love them.

And that thought has been haunting me a bit ever since.  Because I love many people, but there are many who I don't really love.

And they are all image-bearers.

And I long to love better.

The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.  Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. [1 Peter 4: 7-8]

Images

I take a lot more pictures since I got an ipod touch.  It's easy to pull it out of my pocket and snap a shot. They aren't the best quality, but I like the assortment that accumulates over time; little pieces of my days that give a feel of how they go and what's important to me.

So here are a few.

Spices.  I love how the colors and textures blend even before we get to the taste and smells!

This.  Cracked me up.  I had to send it to some friends, reminiscing about the time we found opium scented candles in China.  

Wedding cake after David and Alexandra said their vows!

So.... mayyyyybe my sister Abbie knows me pretty well.  She brought this lovely glass clock back for me from Italy.  Please note: colorful.  Deciduous tree.  WIN.

Living somewhere flatter than PA leads to getting to see a lot of awesome skyscapes.  

Like mayyyyybe it's actually worth getting up before 5 to go to work so I get to see this sort of thing.

Also, I have awesome friends.  I asked for a quiz book... and I received.

So learning how to do henna-type doodling has been vaguely on my to-do list for a while now.  Sunday I realized that my shirt had designs on it, handy for the copying and playing with.