Posts Categorized: Kindness

At church on Wednesday evenings, kids have a time for choir and a time to learn about missionaries. I teach the Pre-K and Kindergarten kids at their missions time. A while back, our topic one month was missionary medical teams who were working with a people group living in remote areas, somewhere in southeast Asia, I think. With very few roads in dense forests, the people did all their traveling by river. A trip by road to a physician or clinic would take days, so hardly anyone went to a doctor when they were ill. A medical team worked regularly as missionaries, traveling by boat along a river, visiting various communities, seeing those who were sick, dispensing medication, and immunizing people against common illnesses. We had some photographs, and I was explaining to the kids about the boat.

Last May,  when I was at a writer’s conference at Ridgecrest, North Carolina, I visited the Allenstand Craft Shop, in Asheville. I was hoping to find an electrical outlet cover to match a lovely dark green switch plate, with embossed leaves and fronds, that I had purchased there the year before. When I walked into the building, glory be, there was that artisan, right there, displaying her wares.

“I’m so excited to see you here,” I said, explaining my search. She had exactly what I was looking for—the outlet cover (with one rectangular hole, instead of two roundish ones, in just the same dark green), and she wrapped it up for me to buy.

Hand-crafted switch plate and outlet covers

Then she said, “Here’s how I make them.”

In 2008, I went to New York City with my sister and her family. Her son was in charge of the camera. Lest you think this was an opportunity for a child to get some shutterbug experience, Collin was an adult, 24 years old. He took pictures of EVERYTHING.

Collin, the photographer

Natalie sitting in Hans Christian Andersen’s lap

For example, as we were walking through Central Park, we came upon the statue of Hans Christian Andersen, seated on a bench, with a book on one knee. Collin got out the camera. We sent his 20-year-old sister Natalie to sit on Andersen’s bronze lap, as though listening to him tell one of his tales, maybe “The Ugly Duckling.” ( We aren’t irreverent or inappropriate; the statue is intended to be climbed on.) Collin took several shots of her. She moved away; he kept shooting. There are distance pictures of Hans Christian Andersen, nearby pictures, and an intense close-up of the inside of his nose. The camera filled up with stuff like that.