1) The Good Samaritan - A few weeks ago (mid-October) I walked out from my room into the main lobby at FDLM to see about 40 children tearing open a christmas gift. Perplexed by this evening extravaganza I probed as to the origin of these boxes. Emblazoned on the gift wrap of each gift was the logo "Samaritan's Purse." I had never been on the receiving end of such a venture before and immediately got excited for each of the children. Each child received a shoebox specially wrapped. Each shoe box contained a random assortment of various things the donor thought the child would like. Each box was denoted by age range and gender.
What was most fascinating was the children's response to much of what was inside of the boxes. One girl got an entire shoebox full of candy plus a giant tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush. Another child got school supplies. Javonta got a gift too - a giant Batman battle tank. Among the squeals of delight rose questions such as, "do I eat this?" and "Rachelann, what is this?" As darkness blanketed the land the children began retreating to their dorms to store their stashes. I was amuzed a bit later when out of the darkness came a strange swirling light coming towards me. As the light approached I realized it was a lightup twirling ballerina doll being used by a girl as a flashlight. Another interesting encounter was when one of the teenagers bit into a plastic necklace thinking it was candy. It is sure interesting to think about the cultural differences and about what people in different cultures enjoy or think others will enjoy. All and all it was an interesting experience to behold and the children ended up all happy and grateful by the day's end.
2) You want what??... In our new home our gardener, Moses, was preparing a charcoal stove. Lighting these suckers is always a challenge since it takes a lot of heat to set the charcoal ablaze. Moses asked us if we had any parafin as this would help light the charcoal. We wondered how parafin wax would help light charcoal since it is not flammable. Rachelann produced the candles and handed them to a confused Moses. He mentioned that it wouldn't work. We all just kind of stood there perplexed until Moses realized he wasn't going to get anywhere with us and went back to lighting the charcoal.
About one week later Javonta and Moses were in town and we called Moses and told him to pick up some parafin. 30 minutes later he and Javonta came walking in with a liter of some strange liquid. Javonta remarked that the parafin Moses was requesting was actually pure gasoline to use as ligher fluid. So in this case: Parafin = Gasoline.
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that's really interesting! My good friends head up the samaritans purse shoebox thing at my old church every year. I participated at least one year and I think I just knit a hat and maybe gave a notebook with pencils and stuff like that. I'd be interested in hearing what you think would be beneficial for those boxes?
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