On my first day of work I went into the kitchen to eat lunch. I prayed over my meal and enjoyed it. About halfway through my eating, one of the "warehouse guys" (as they are affectionately termed around here) joined me. I was quick to note that he bowed his head before beginning his meal as well. The gesture was not a tell-tale sign, but it was something else - perhaps his posture - somehow I just knew this man had a relationship with God. Without him ever having said a word to me.
When he did begin to speak, his English was broken. He asked me my name. He told me his. Did I have a family? A husband? Children? We exchanged casual conversation for a few awkward moments. All the while, I wanted so badly to blurt out that I too had a relationship with God. I went over it in my head ten different ways. But the whole time I didn't know if he'd understand. I wasn't sure how much English he understood. I know now I shouldn't have let that stopped me.
We were silent for a time and just smiled at each other occasionally and then, he looked at me and said in a questioning tone, "Do you believe God?"
"Absolutely!" I replied, relieved that he not only understood that I wanted to ask, but also just laid it all out so bluntly. Maybe he too sensed what I had.
"You Catholic?" he inquired deeper.
"No, protestant." working hard to keep my responses simple; still unsure how much he understood.
"Us too!" He exclaimed as he motioned toward the warehouse. "Us too!"
I cannot tell you how awesome it has been to be able to converse, at differing levels of understanding and translation, with the warehouse guys, on lunch breaks and in random passing, knowing that they too, in the words of my first friend Yaroslav, "believe God." What a blessing to be able to be such a powerful example of Christ to the unbelievers in our workplace!
Back in college, in 2004 when blogging was hardly even a thing yet, I was here. Blogging before blogging meant anything to anyone. You can look in the archives for my past writings, but it was much more like a journal in the past. When we started fundraising, I messed around with the idea of launching something new for this new phase of our journey but actually hated that idea. I am a sum of all of my life and so much of it is here already. So I'm keeping it here. At least for now.
My main focus these days is blogging about our newest journey into the bizarre and wonderful world of gestational surrogacy. Posts dated 2013 and forward will trend heavily toward that journey. I don't promise everything I write will be about though. There might be other things that sneak in occasionally.
Please come along our journey with us. As the saying goes, "The more, the merrier!"
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