(I originally wrote this story only in an email to supporters, but after receiving such a positive response to it, I’ve decided to post it here; also sorry for the mostly irrelevant pictures)
If you remember, in Bulgaria my team ended up doing several service projects for a lady from our church named Lili Yanka. We called her “lili” because that means “grandma” in Bulgarian, and she did indeed become our Bulgarian grandmother for the month.
One afternoon, my team decided to stop by Lili Yanka’s house to see if there was any sort of work we could do for her there. She was at work, but her husband mentioned that we could clear out a very small section of weeds from the edge of her garden. That job only took half an hour so after we finished, we looked around for other ways to help.
We noticed that her strawberry patch was being completely swallowed up by weeds and thistles. Lili Yanka presumably had little time to tend to the patch because she was always cooking at the restaurant, so we decided to weed the patch for her and surprise her with it when she returned from work that afternoon.
And so, in the heat of the afternoon, with nothing but our bare hands, my team took to pulling weeds and thorns out of Lili Yanka’s strawberry patch. We pulled and dug and dripped with sweat, but even after an hour of working it seemed that our efforts made very little difference. The weeds created such a thick blanket over the strawberries that saving the patch seemed futile.
Just as my hands were starting to get raw and my hope for the patch was rapidly shrinking, Lili Yanka came out into her garden. We all looked up from the weeds suddenly, each of us surprised to see her. She seemed quite confused and possibly a little angry that six Americans were sitting in the middle of her garden. We greeted her and tried to explain what we were doing, but her complete lack of English and our complete lack of Bulgarian made it quite difficult to communicate.
She continued to speak at us in Bulgarian, motioning to us and then to the strawberries, seeming to speak with frustration. Despite our continued efforts to explain our good intentions, Lili Yanka got so upset that she started to cry.
At that point, each of us stood to our feet and we were beginning to slowly back out of the strawberry patch. Seeing our favorite little Bulgarian grandmother cry at the edge of her garden was too much for us to handle. But as we started to apologize for our mistake, Lili Yanka said through tears (and with a thick accent), “Tank you… Ohhh, tank you verdy much.”
It turns out that Lili Yanka wasn’t upset at all. She was actually just so overwhelmed with gratitude and disbelief at our service that it moved her to tears.
As I stood there, up to my knees in weeds, my hands covered in dirt, watching little Lili Yanka weep with appreciation, I knew immediately that I would never forget that moment.
Sometimes as a missionary, one gets to work with an established and renowned organization that trains missionaries and focuses on formulaic mission work and well-planned programs based on strategic theories of missiology developed after years of research. But other times – most times – mission work is really quite simple. All it takes is a willing and obedient worker to notice the needs of others and respond to them, no matter how basic or boring that response might seem. No act of Love is small, trivial, or unneeded. Any act of Love is an act so great and powerful that, despite any illusion of insignificance, it can change lives.
So let us act and serve with great Love.
(Little Lili Yanka down in front)
