More Than Dollar Signs

Our kids playing by some moringa plants.

Last Saturday I was reminded of some of the harsh cross-cultural realities of living here that haven't faded with time. The older kids had just gone to the pool with their father and I had a mile long to-do list. I had just put the baby to sleep on my back and I was ready to tackle the list. Then I heard the knock at the gate. There were 4-5 girls from our church all close to A-Delight's age. Sadly, the bridge to friendship has been a difficult one with most of them. Immediately they were eyeing our fruit trees. Can we get a drink of water? Yes, of course. After what seemed like forever with each of them taking a long drink of water and their still not talking to me, just eyeing the fruit trees (which are bare this time of year), like a very poor missionary, I said, "well, I have lots of work to do. See you later." And I opened the door for them to leave. 

I then spent much of my working time thinking about how terribly that went and wondering why it is so hard to make friends with these girls from our church. I really feel like a worthless creature when they visit. They are only stopping by to try to get fruit from me. It doesn't feel like they see me as a real person. Living here, consistently ranked as the least developed country in the world by the UN, the need and want is overwhelming and sometimes it would be nice to disappear from the eyes that only see us as one big dollar bill sign. So how do we become real friends across economic disparity?  My acquired instincts tell me through vulnerability and shared neediness.  But that's difficult to practice in a busy life.

And I realize that life is just getting all the busier. There isn't as much time to spend standing in silence or playing a game with these girls. Overall we are very popular with the children outside the gate. Children that I think we have never seen before often greet us by name. But the time that we have to spend with them has decreased as our amount of church work, children's schooling and number of children have increased.  We pray for strength to show more than just our dollar signs as we pass by.

-- La Maestra