Yesterday morning after my newcomer refugee class, a woman from Sudan and a woman from Burma tried to use the elevator. They came back off of it laughing a little and walked to the stairs. It is only one flight of stairs to go down but there was a problem that caused me to step in right away before they tried the stairs.

The woman from Burma needs a walker. I do not know why she needs one but she needs one. There was no way I was going to let her try to go down the stairs using a walker, so I stopped them, had them follow me to the elevator, got on with them and showed them which button to push.
The class meets in a church and elevator buttons are 1R, 1, and 2. The 1R stands for 1st floor reception. Not sure why the elevator can’t have buttons for floors 1, 2, and 3. My students had pushed 1 thinking they would go to the first floor but did not go anywhere due to the buttons being weird, at least weird to me. We used the elevator together and my student from Burma was happy.

This may sound simple and easy to you, but stop and consider that my two students come from places where there are no elevators. The one from Sudan lived in a village in a hut before going to the refugee camp that only had huts with dirt floors. The one from Burma lived in a village in a hut before going to the refugee camp that also only had dirt floors.
It was took nothing for me to help them with the elevator, but it was a big thing for my student from Burma. While we were on the elevator, I looked at her and said, “Yesu Eh Nah” which in her language means Jesus loves you. She smiled and said it to me too.
We can tend to think of big things we can do when the small things can mean so much. I love the Mother Teresa quote, “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”
Thank you for reading. God Bless.


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