making a difference

A few months ago, Bentley, another missionary in the DR and good friend of mine, talked about a young Haitian man, Johnny, who never failed to come, sometimes still with his cart of frozen popsicles, to Bentley's free English classes. You have to understand, these guys sell them for 5 pesos each, or $0.15 and cannot be making more than 200 pesos ($6USD) a day (on a GOOD day) in net profit. Four days a week, every week, Johnny came to the class.

When Bentley talked about his class, I assumed it was like mine, with at least 15 students, sometimes upwards of 30. This, without a doubt, is making a difference in many lives. I have had about 80 students this year and have felt good about my work.

Yet, when I went to Bentley's English class that he hosts punctually with energy FOUR days a week for the last 6 months or so, I saw--Johnny. And THAT was the class. It had started with a handful more, but the rest had dropped out, and for a while now, Bentley has been preparing lessons and giving daily time to ONE student.

And I watched, and I listened, and Johnny ate it up--EVERY word, EVERY flashcard. He knows over 60 words now and Bentley (ingeniously) places pictures (because Johnny is not completely literate even in his native language) consequtively to make sentences. (He tended to place 'pretty' and 'girlfriend' together a lot. Can you tell he's getting married soon? :-)

Anyone who says that Bentley hasn't made an incredible impact in that young man's life is a liar, plain and simple.

And so that applies to the rest of us. My Bible study has dwindled to 4 people on average--but it's still FOUR people. Almost half of the kids in my 6th grade class didn't turn in more than 1/2 of the homework assignments--but that means that more than half DID. I only know two families here intimately well and one still refuses to ever come to church--but the other has come on several occasions now. One by one, little by little.

So next time some little kid comes up and asks a random, hard-to-answer question, or you feel like you're spinning your wheels because some project isn't catching on well enough, remember the ONE. Surely we each think our own, one life is important--so is the one life of another.