Thursday, June 29, 2006

Peek inside me Weekly

A CheerioButt idea
This weeks theme:
a FIRST MEMORY of your hubby or whoever is the love of your life
(This will be a fun one , and I hope many others will participate so I can read all these "firsts", PLEASE PLAY! If you do, let me know so I can check it out.)
I was a missionary before I was a wife. Working at a school for the deaf in Mexico that receives a lot of visitors. Usually the people who come a) are family or friend to a student b) are family or friend to a staff member or b) with some visiting group C) using the RV campsite across the street. In fact I can't think of a time when this wasn't the case - except once:
A fellow staff worker and I were walking towards the playground when saw a man on his hand and knees all by himself on the basketball court. This stuck us a a bit odd.
Here's the dialogs as best as I can remember it:
Questions from us: Hi, what'cha doing?
Filling in the cracks in the cement. [cualking]
You a friend of Luke? [the school director]
no
You visiting with someone?
no
You here with a group?
no
Do you know a student here?
no
So your just down here by yourself working and you don't know anyone?
yes
How long are you gonna be here?
I think to Sunday
Who you staying with?
no one, just in my truck
And he started to show up every other weekend. Just working on whatever needed to be done, usually involving plugged up toilets. We'd see him outside a window working, or hear that he was working on something because he usually didn't (as other working groups would) come in at meals and hang out with the kids or staff. He would just come down, work, leave. Very unusual!
This impressed us all very much. This impressed me. Then I asked for a light switch to be placed at the front of the classroom to be able to get the deaf children's attention by flickering the lights on and off. So here he comes, working with the wiring while I was in there grading papers.
I saw him looking up at the loose wires, look down into a book, look up, look down . . Repeat.
I asked - "Do you know what your doing?" (subtlety is my middle name!)
"No, but I'm learning, and we'll soon find out if I got it wrong"!
When I asked him later what motivated him to come down every other weekend all by himself for no applause, and for no fellowship -just.to.work.! He said that when he came down with his church for a visit God really spoke to his heart to use his skill as a"handyman-or-I'll- learn- it" to help others. Put his skill into God's service. He continues doing that to this day.

3 comments:

Theresa said...

What a wonderful story! I'd play but I'm single now unless I tell the story about my boyfriend. Would that be okay?

sarahgrace said...

Great story! I think I may just have to play along with this one...

Anonymous said...

That's a cool story. Yeah I would have fallen for his type too. strong, silent and hardworking.
Thanx for playing.