Who Can You Serve?

I leaned over the counter and studied the catalog spread out before me at our local Home Depot. It's not really a Home Depot, we just call it that because it's the closest going we've got. It reminds me of a cluttered closet, one where I wouldn't be able to find anything but the worker behind the counter knows exactly where to find everything. I thought about the paint aisle at a real Home Depot where there are lit-up booths filled with paint tabs of every tone imaginable. Here I was staring at a two page pamphlet containing every color you could ever want in Burkina Faso. I picked my favorite. 

"We don't have that one." 

So I picked my next favorite. 

"There's none of that either." 

"So what do you have?" we proceeded to ask, and we selected a nice orange and brown from the options he gave us. 

Happy with our buckets of paint, the interns and I made our way to our team bureau. 

I had so sneakily snatched the keys from Rebeca earlier that morning. "Can I borrow the office keys?" I asked. "I need to drop off some things." Little did she know that we were instead going to paint and clean the office as a surprise. 

I remember one moment in particular with Rebeca. We had bought a little bouncy seat for infants, you know, one with musical buttons and little bobbers and lots of colorful trinkets. We were giving it to Michael, one of the infants in our program who is a little developmentally delayed. When I showed it to Rebeca, she said, "Wow! That is so great! Can you get me one for Gloria?" 

Gloria is one of Rebeca's children. She has 10 living with her right now, but only two are her own. She is one of two registered foster parents in our entire province. She loves children and she feels the call of God on her life to take care of abandoned children. Gloria is one of them. 

Of course she was joking when she said, "can you get one for Gloria?" because she laughed immediately after. But still, I could sense a hint of longing. She watches us as missionaries give and give and give to the poor, but how often do we really give to her? She is a single mom taking care of 10 children, and she's not rich. She, like the mother of Michael, just wants to have a beautiful toy to give to a child she loves, but she does not have the resources. 

I unlocked the office door with the keys I had snatched from Rebeca, and I wanted to give her a surprise. We have been working all summer for others. We installed two new clean water wells for villages without access to clean water. We visited Bisserke and worked in the clinic. We painted the local nutritional center. Now, we wanted to do something for our own people. Something for our team that works so hard serving others without getting a whole lot in return. 

Sometimes I think we forget to serve the people who are closest to us. We look for opportunities to serve others and we work so hard at our ministries when there are people to love and opportunities to serve right in front of us. Our families. Our friends. The people whom we appreciate but just don't tell them enough. Sometimes these are the ones we forget to serve. 

We lathered a layer of orange on the top half of the walls and then finished the bottom with brown. The colors were perfectly African. We slathered that oily paint all over the hole-filled stucco walls until we ran out. The orange didn't cover as well, so we needed one extra bucket. When I went back to Home Depot, of course they were out. We had already bought all the orange paint they had. 

We were able to finish the first room by mixing paint thinner into our empty orange paint cans in a ratio of about 15:1 paint thinner to paint. I think I mainly smeared the job until it was done, but it worked. Then, we put on the finishing touches: two Bible verses in beautiful calligraphy.

"Therefore, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16)

"Let us love not in word only, but with actions and in truth." (1 John 3:18)

The following Monday, we greeted our team in their office and saw the joy and surprise on their faces. Even though it wasn't even completely finished, they loved it. And we loved the opportunity to bless some people who are spending their lives to bless others. 

Who can you serve today?