Lessons from our Househelper

One of the cultural things we have had to adjust to is having a househelper. Things take quite a bit longer to do here than they do in the States. Instead of just mailing in a check to pay for your electric and water bill, you actually have to go to a location where you can pay. We have a side-by-side washing machine, which means that almost everything is manual. We can't just put to clothes in the washer and they come out clean and spun. It's a lot more time consuming. And we don't have a dryer, so we line dry our clothes and then a lot of them need to be ironed. Many American foods need to be made from scratch. You can't buy them ready-made at the grocery store like you can in the States (for example, floured tortillas). Things are a bit slower here as well. If we go to the grocery store, we have to leave the house, walk a few blocks to where we can hail a taxi (sometimes it takes awhile to get a taxi). The taxi takes us to the mall, where our first stop is the ATM (Everywhere you go, you have to pay in cash. There are hardly any places that take credit cards and debt cards). Then we have to go to 3 different stores: the main grocery store, the meat store, and the bread store. Then we have to hail a taxi to get home. I could go on and on, but you get the idea, things take longer here.
So, needless to say, as both Rob and I are teaching, it is the culture here to have househelpers, not only because it takes a lot of time to just do daily activities, but also because it gives someone a job (this is the BIGGEST reason, in my mind, we have a helper). We have recently hired a new helper in the past month, whom money is very hard to come by. I pay her weekly so that she can buy food for her family that week. On Monday, I had her pay our water bill and there was some change P100 (about $2.50 USD). I was not at home when she was there, so she left me this note:
"Maam Johnson I take advance of P100 because I don't have money for our supper today. I'm sorry that I did this because my husband left us and had work to Cagayan 2 weeks ago and I am the one to feed my kids. Please forgive me to do this. I hope you won't get mad. Just deduct it on my wage on Friday. Thank you."
She works for us on Monday and Friday afternoons and Wednesday all day. This was on Monday that she left this note. So when she came on Wednesday, I left her a note that said it was ok and that I understood. I gave her some canned goods and a kilo of rice. She left me this message, "Maam I don't know how to express my gratitude of saying THANK YOU SO MUCH. You don't know how happy we are and my kids of what you have given to us." She was so grateful for a kilo of rice, $2.50, and a few canned goods. WOW! How much more should we be thankful for all those things that we are blessed with everyday. There are people who don't know where their next meal will come from, and we have our fridges and pantries full. Be grateful today of all the blessing the Lord has given you, even down to the fact that you could eat breakfast this morning.