I had a cool experience the other day. I was inside the school overseeing Bible School, when a girl from the community came in and said the trash guy outside needed help loading the trash in the truck, because there was so much. I, with my spectacular management and delegation skills, quickly scanned the room to see who I could send. After several minutes of scrambling to find help, I realized I was the only person around to help. I put on a pair of latex gloves and headed for the bags that had been stewing in the hot sun all week.
When the trash guys saw me coming, they started laughing. I said, "You asked for help, and you got me...so lets get to work!" About that time I picked what looked to me like the heaviest bag around and with a grunt sent it flying up and into the back of the truck. The men looked at me with a sense of amusement and began hauling the bags with me. While my new friend Robert and I hauled the trash he told me that he didn't think a girl would get dirty like that and want to help him do his job. The whole time we hauled trash, we talked. I learned Robert had been the city trash guy for years. I learned about his family, his life, and gained valuable insight into the community. After about 15 minutes of slinging trash in the hot sun, I had trash juices dripping down my legs and covering my shirt. I smelled like a 5 month old banana, raw chicken, rotten watermelon milkshake. Delish!
Robert and I continued to talk for a bit when we were done working. Two people from totally different backgrounds, united through rancid bags of trash. I was no longer the Bible school lady, and Robert was no longer the trash man--we were two unlikely friends no longer separated by circumstance.
Proverbs 22:2 says "Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is Maker of them all." My beautiful Jesus loved Robert and I so much that he brought us together that day to begin a friendship. Before Robert left I brought him a glass of lemonade and thanked him for everything he did and told him how valued he was. After he sipped his lemonade, he lifted his head with a grin and said "that is the nicest thing anyone has ever told me. Most people just see me as a trash man." "Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is Maker of them all." I would have been covered with trash juices five times over to be able to affirm someone's value like that again. Every time I see Robert now I wave and smile and thank the Lord for him, and thank Jesus for teaching me a valuable lesson that day.
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