Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS (Don't write about the song) (04/16/15)
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TITLE: When East Met West | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marlene Bonney
04/21/15 -
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Two blocks away, Arianna glanced up at the same sky, lamenting its day after day sameness. The maple tree in the backyard kept dropping leaves that promised to be a nuisance again, costing her time and energy—not to mention the accompanying thumb blisters from hours of raking. Then, she’d have to nag Ryan to bag them up and cart them away. The bright noonday sun was sure to scorch the carefully maintained, professionally manicured grass, and she resented another bill from their automatic lawn service provider. Like a prophet of doom, she could not see the light for the shadows.
Laura and Arianna’s clashing paths would cross one day, but not before a thousand strands of disconnected incidents merged, to eventually create a tapestry of blended harmony. Initially as knotty as the back of a pioneer child’s first sampler, over time it would become an object of beauty.
“Who would like to participate in the church’s mission trip to Bangladesh?” Pastor Ray challenged one Sunday morning; Laura, along with several others, raised their hands at this golden opportunity to help those less fortunate in a hands-on, tangible way. . .
“You’re being transferred WHERE?” Arianna screeched at her husband. All she could see in her mind was primitive living conditions, starving children, women hand-washing laundry in a contaminated river, and witchdoctors chanting in the background.
“It’s just temporary--nine months, tops. It’s good for our company’s image to dig the wells, a politically correct thing to do,” Ryan placated, “think of it as a learning experience to share with your ladies brunch club afterwards.”. . .
Laura’s and Arianna were bargaining for the lowest price on fresh fish, caught only hours previously by the locals, at the town’s dusty market. Both were perspiring in the climate’s normal scorching heat; Arianna, cranky and impatient, despised the distasteful odor of unclean bodies contaminating the produce, evident by her deep frown, her face screwed up like the wrinkled day-old fruit she was now examining. Laura stood opposite her, smiling at the vendors as she exchanged greetings with them in her broken Chakma, a dialect she had not yet mastered.
“Oh, dear, I think I just said ‘latrine’ instead of lettuce,” laughing, while Arianna had recognized a fellow American in the God-awful place.
“Hello, FINALLY someone here I can understand,” Arianna approaching her with outstretched hands.
The two met regularly after that, astonished to find out they were neighbors in their native-born country.
“Don’t you just love the people’s dress?” Laura commented during one visit on market day, “Like God lifted out one of His rainbows and splattered it all over them!”
Arianna took a longer look at the tattered, mismatched clothing that she usually disdained and a tiny smile erupted on her, usually long, face.
“I see what you mean,” inwardly chuckling at Laura’s imagery.
The more these two young women were together, it became apparent that positive, loving Laura was rubbing off on negative, self-centered Arianna. It wasn’t long before they were working side by side, sharing the Gospel as they helped provide unmet needs of these hurting people. Even as they shared material blessings with the people, Arianna gained spiritual insight into living out the Christian life she had previously only given lip-service. She learned to study the Scriptures daily and prayed more regularly, getting to know God on a personal basis, until she was becoming more and more like Jesus. Ryan, impressed by his wife’s transformation, soon followed as they attended the church staff’s weekly Bible study. Even as his professional team dug wells to provide physical water for these third-world country’s inhabitants, Laura’s ministry group was quenching their spiritual thirst with “living water.”
They vowed not to take for granted the many blessings of their native country so scarce in Bangladesh. This insight, along with Laura’s constant positive spirit, metamorphosed Arianna’s previous “half-empty glass” mentality into “half-full glass” perceptions!
“Will you just look at the stars? It’s as if God mined His diamond crystals and threw them up on a black velvet blanket!” Arianna exclaimed the night before they returned to America.
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