We arrived in Leptokaria about 3:30 and went down to the Mediterranean (Aegean) Sea to check out the water. What an wonderful time of rest and enjoying God’s creation. The water was wonderful – many rocks on the beaches, but they were very smooth and fairly easy to maneuver through.
At around 4:30 we headed to the camp – just a few hundred feet down the beach. We began by cleaning up the dining hall and preparing it for food and games. About 30 minutes or so into our work, a woman came in asking for help. There was an 83 year old Greek man who was tasked with the job of putting up all of the “tents” for the missions conference. Tony and I jumped at the chance to help, and headed off to help the man. Here is where the life lessons just compounded…
The task would have taken Tony and I alone about 1- 1 ½ hours to complete. But the man had his own way to do it. We could not really communicate with him, and he would not let us do anything without his instruction. Seriously I felt like a 6 year old helping his father change the oil in his car. “Yeah, you can help, but don’t touch anything unless I specifically tell you to touch it.” “Put that down.” “Place this over there – no not there, over there… yeah there… now… yeah, put it down…” You get the picture. What does one do? What was the real problem?
Well, my first problem was the guy in charge doesn’t seem to know what he is doing, and clearly I could do it better – IF, he would just get out of the way. Well lesson number 1 – if you are not in charge, submit yourself to the person in charge – do it their way, whether you like it or not.
Second problem, here I stand doing nothing, what do I want to do, mock the man who is in charge – especially since he cannot understand me. Lesson 2 – it is irrelevant whether he can hear me, understand me, or knows that I am mocking him, servanthood is submitting yourself to others not just in action, but in attitude as well.
Third problem, it seemed like Tony wasn’t even remotely bothered by this extremely annoying situation. Is he really enjoying this? I even left to check on the others (and to get away from my mental anguish) and when I returned I gave Tony the opportunity to leave as well – and he didn’t take it!! What is wrong with this guy. I wanted so badly to pass on to Tony my great understanding of the foolishness of following this old guy who was clueless. Lesson 3 – When serving others, and having the right attitude, your words and behaviors will cause others to want to serve as well. If my actions are saying I am serving, my words are saying I am serving, but my presentation to others does not encourage them to serve, I am leading others away from true service.
There is much more that could be said about this – needless to say, we worked until 7:30 and didn’t finish the job. Costas just informed me a few minutes ago that the man was thrilled with our help and would appreciate it if we could help him finish the task before noon tomorrow… Lord help me have a servants heart – a true servants heart like Jesus did.
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