Random Acts of Kindness - by Robin and Lisa

We all know what they are... RAK for short. That time when someone, out of the kindness of their heart, goes out of their way to do something nice. They don't occur often, and when they do, you feel blessed to be touched by someone else's kindness. In Guatemala, in these gritty little villages, Random acts of kindness aren't so random. The beautiful people here are always willing to lend a hand, without thought or question. Even though we have a huge language barrier, I think they understand our desire to serve them. Sometimes, when you are a witness to such an act, it places such an imprint on your heart, words cannot quite describe how you felt. But here's our best attempt.

Yesterday, we went to the village of Santa Maria de Jesus to begin looking around, and doing some prep work for the medical clinic. We needed to set up the examine room, which was cluttered with debris, and heavy metal cabinets. And 200 eggs. Yes, that's correct... 200 brown eggs. There was a group of men from the village working on a roofing project, also in preparation for this week's mission. They all jumped into the clean-up crew, and within 20 minutes, all of the debris had been cleared away. Maxine and Lisa noticed that the shelving units for the meds were in bad shape. Worst of all, they were filthy. They asked several of the women there if there were any rags, cloths, whatever to wipe the shelves. One of the women said that they would go to the store to buy some. They don't have money to do that, so we, of course, said "No, that's OK." Unknowingly, they were already on the way. In the meantime, the men who were helping out brought us their shirts, machete in hand, ready to cut their shirts into strips for cleaning cloths. Again, we said, "NO, please don't do that!" They decided to forego cutting their shirts apart, and said, "That's OK, we will wash them."

Not wanting to offend their efforts, we reluctantly took their shirts, probably one of the few shirts they owned, and used them to wipe the shelves. When the men saw what we were doing, they understood completely what we needed done, and they all jumped on the cleaning train. They actually outcleaned us---even doing the windows, inside and out.

In America, the land of plenty, what does it take for a shirt of yours to make "the rag box?" I guess you would have needed to be here to feel the same about this moment in the village. But we hope you can understand how this RAK helped to remind us of the work that we are called to do.