Bit Eighteen

"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much,"
-Luke 16:10

"It's always interesting when you realize that what you thought God was going to do with you is actually different than what He really is doing with you. As a volunteer with the Refugee Sewing Society, I don't feel like I do much. Even though Cathy claims that I am such a huge help, my contribution hasn't been much more than setting up displays at a couple of events and making copies of tags for items the women are making. I spend most of my time watching and laughing as the sewers figure out what they are making and how to do it.

The other day, however, Cathy learned that I graduated with a B.S. in Business Administration. With a giant smile, she decided to hand over the financial and organizational tasks of the RSS to me since the thought of calculating money stresses her to the point of exhaustion. I gladly took responsibility of handling money at events, as well as keeping track of what products were made, who made them, what there cost is, and making sure they get their money. I even made some handy product/payment logs for her to use!

It's encouraging to know that God is finding me capable of handling more, and He's providing me with opportunities to do more of what I enjoy!

Bit Seventeen

One easy way to tell if you are becoming friends with someone who speaks a different language is by seeing how often you make each other laugh. This is something I have discovered in my conversations with Zahrah. Mostly due to her ease with the English language, there have been several times recently when one of us has made a joke about something we were talking about, and we both have laughed about it.

I have noticed a similar progression in my moments with another Muslim friend, Dr. Ahmed. Every Thursday morning, I spend an hour visiting with Dr. Ahmed (not his real name). Born in Somalia, Dr. Ahmed has seen the fall of his native country from beauty to chaos. (Currently, because of civil unrest, the entire country is without any organized form of law and order.) He grew up in a part of Somalia which was colonized by Italy, so once he was ready to pursue a higher education, he moved to Italy.

Dr. Ahmed spend 10 years in Italy. So, each Thursday, Dr. Ahmed and I meet to speak in Italian. Having only spent 9 months there three years ago, our sessions are more of a lesson for me than a time to chat. However, he uses part of this time to practice his skills in English conversation as well. Our conversations range from what we did over the past week to political events around the world.

Many of our moments of laughter are created because of my clumsiness with the Italian language, but there have been a couple of times when we have chuckled together at cultural differences between America, Somalia, and Italy. For example, the word "parenti" in Italian is used to refer to one's parents, but includes all other relatives as well. We laughed at the thought of an English person introducing their entire family as their "parents."

I guess it all chalks up to the fact that everyone enjoys laughing, it's a universal language!