The pastor at the church I use to go to in Bellingham use to say this at the end of every Sunday service and I always thought it was a really great reminder that the blessings in our life are meant to overflow to others and what has been given to us is meant to be shared. God blesses us so that in turn, we can be a blessing to those around us, sharing the love of God with other people in both direct and indirect ways. The more we realize that God has given us what he has for a purpose, the easier it becomes to find the opporunities to bless others with our blessings. This is my story...
When you walk out our front door here, you look directly at the front side of a little apartment complex. One of the guys that lives there is a 29 year old African named Sam from Sierra Leone, the second most underdeveloped country in the world, only slightly better than Somalia. Joe and Anthony use to strike up conversation with him when they would play baseball outside, and when Sam told them he had never played before, Joe taught him how to play catch for the first time. Sam is always looking out his little window, giving candy to Anthony whenever he sees him, bringing African food over to the house to let us try and he always greeted me with a smile when I would come and go from the house. I really wanted to get to know Sam because he reminded me of Theo and I was curious about his life story and why he was living in Germany because he had mentioned to Joe that he was on some sort of government funding to be here.
One day when I got home from a run, Sam was standing at his window so I went over and talked to him for a little bit and I gave him my phone number and told him to call me if he wanted to hang out sometime. The next day he knocked on the door to say hi and I asked him if he wanted to walk down to the local soccer match with me and Anthony for a little bit. So that was the first day that I started to get to know him and I picked up on a few key pieces of information that led me to realize that he carried the load of a very difficult past and that he didn't really have many people here to help him. So from that day on, even though I knew very little about his life, both past and present, I have done all that I can to be a friend to Sam and to be a blessing to him.
What started out as one simple goal to be a friend to someone in need has honestly changed my life. Sam has inspired me to be proactive about helping people and to live my life serving others. I think it would be impossible for someone to know Sam and not be impacted in a similar way. This is just a sliver of his life story to help you understand the circumstances that have shaped who he is today. When he was a little six year old boy, his mother could no longer afford to take care of him so she abandoned him in the streets and he was left to raise himself. He would go from place to place, person to person every few days finding someone who would take him under their wing and protect him. Although he knows a couple of family members, he never grew up with a family. When he was 15 years old he was sat down in front of a woman he didn't even recognize and told that it was his mother. The mosquitos in his country were so bad that he got malaria TWO times a month, causing him to be more sick than you and I can even imagine. Right when he would start to get better, it would attack him again, leaving him so weak and without an appetite. When I asked him what the best part about being in Germany was, he said not getting sick. Sierra Leone also went through a terrible eleven year civil war between 1991-2002. For those of you who have seen the movie Blood Diamond, this war sets background of the movie. As Sam describes, "terrible, terrible, terrible things happened during the war." And now the people in Sierra Leone are living in even more poverty than before, which if you research it as I have you will find out just how sad it really is.
I honestly cannot think of a life that would be harder than what he has described to me as being his childhood. Aside from all of the suffering, sadness and poverty that he has been through, however, Sam has something in his life that has brought him joy through all of the trials, a relationship with the Lord (a unique mix between Christianity and the Islamic religion...I'm still slowly learning more about his faith). About a week ago, Sam and I took a train ride into a city called Kaiserslautern about a half hour from here, and we got on the topic of his childhood and he was telling me about his life on the streets and how he recently sent money back to this old blind man in his country who had taken care of him for so long. Along with the money, he sent a letter asking for this man to pray for him and for his new life here in Germany. That comment led me to ask him about his relationship with God. Sam started going to a Catholic church when he was little, and he really liked the idea of Christianity, but he didn't feel like the message was really reaching him in the way that he needed it to. He became a muslim (Sierra Leone is a predominantly Muslim country) because when he went to the Mosque he said that they taught him over and over again not to steal, not to commit crimes, not to hurt other people, etc. Maybe these are not things that we think of as being the most important part of a sermon or message, but when you put things in perspective and understand that he was trying to live a Godly life in a culture where stealing and killing were an everyday occurance as people did whatever they could to survive, it becomes easy to understand why he would choose to dedicate his time to a church community that stressed the importance of putting your trust in God and staying away from these evil things. He found the love and support he needed at the Mosque, where he would go five times a day to pray (a very important part the muslim religion). God has proven to keep his promises to Sam and has provided for him in ways that he never imagined. His strong faith in God and positive outlook on life regardless of his past has taught me SO incredibly much in just the short two weeks that I have spent time with him. He has rekindled a perspective on life that was introduced to me once before when Theo told me of his life in Africa and the awful conditions that he had lived in.
When you meet these kinds of people in person, the reality of their situations become so real and it's something that no one could ever understand by just watching movies or reading about them in books. It's absolutely HEARTBREAKING. The government here is somehow paying for him to live in Germany (I haven't quite figured this out yet), and hopefully it will become a permanent situation for Sam, but right now it's on a year-to-year basis whether he can stay or not. He has only been here for a little less than one year now. They give him just enough money to get by, so he doesn't have money to really go out and do anything. Until last week, he didn't have a work permit either so he had found a job working for 1 euro/hour (about a dollar an hour), under the table just to have something to do to get him out of the house. Sam and I went to his first carnival here last weekend and I took him on some rides which was a completely different experience for him. He was scared to death on the ferris wheel and the rollercoaster, he had never been up so high other than on the plane ride between Africa and Europe which he had been terrified of. He loved it though and he was in awe of the fun things that kids get to do in other countries...things he never knew existed. Last night I taught him how to carve a pumpkin, he had never heard of Halloween. He really hasn't made many friends here yet, except me and another 51 year old American military man. He told me last night that he is so blessed to have me as a friend because before he knew me, he would just sit at home and "have so much stress", which he told me means that he would just sit in his apartment and think back on his life in Africa and all of the suffering that he went through.
I have been blessed to be a blessing here for Sam. I think that as much of a blessing as I am to him, however, he is even more of a blessing to me as he continues to teach me more and more about what is really important in life.
When you walk out our front door here, you look directly at the front side of a little apartment complex. One of the guys that lives there is a 29 year old African named Sam from Sierra Leone, the second most underdeveloped country in the world, only slightly better than Somalia. Joe and Anthony use to strike up conversation with him when they would play baseball outside, and when Sam told them he had never played before, Joe taught him how to play catch for the first time. Sam is always looking out his little window, giving candy to Anthony whenever he sees him, bringing African food over to the house to let us try and he always greeted me with a smile when I would come and go from the house. I really wanted to get to know Sam because he reminded me of Theo and I was curious about his life story and why he was living in Germany because he had mentioned to Joe that he was on some sort of government funding to be here.
One day when I got home from a run, Sam was standing at his window so I went over and talked to him for a little bit and I gave him my phone number and told him to call me if he wanted to hang out sometime. The next day he knocked on the door to say hi and I asked him if he wanted to walk down to the local soccer match with me and Anthony for a little bit. So that was the first day that I started to get to know him and I picked up on a few key pieces of information that led me to realize that he carried the load of a very difficult past and that he didn't really have many people here to help him. So from that day on, even though I knew very little about his life, both past and present, I have done all that I can to be a friend to Sam and to be a blessing to him.
What started out as one simple goal to be a friend to someone in need has honestly changed my life. Sam has inspired me to be proactive about helping people and to live my life serving others. I think it would be impossible for someone to know Sam and not be impacted in a similar way. This is just a sliver of his life story to help you understand the circumstances that have shaped who he is today. When he was a little six year old boy, his mother could no longer afford to take care of him so she abandoned him in the streets and he was left to raise himself. He would go from place to place, person to person every few days finding someone who would take him under their wing and protect him. Although he knows a couple of family members, he never grew up with a family. When he was 15 years old he was sat down in front of a woman he didn't even recognize and told that it was his mother. The mosquitos in his country were so bad that he got malaria TWO times a month, causing him to be more sick than you and I can even imagine. Right when he would start to get better, it would attack him again, leaving him so weak and without an appetite. When I asked him what the best part about being in Germany was, he said not getting sick. Sierra Leone also went through a terrible eleven year civil war between 1991-2002. For those of you who have seen the movie Blood Diamond, this war sets background of the movie. As Sam describes, "terrible, terrible, terrible things happened during the war." And now the people in Sierra Leone are living in even more poverty than before, which if you research it as I have you will find out just how sad it really is.
I honestly cannot think of a life that would be harder than what he has described to me as being his childhood. Aside from all of the suffering, sadness and poverty that he has been through, however, Sam has something in his life that has brought him joy through all of the trials, a relationship with the Lord (a unique mix between Christianity and the Islamic religion...I'm still slowly learning more about his faith). About a week ago, Sam and I took a train ride into a city called Kaiserslautern about a half hour from here, and we got on the topic of his childhood and he was telling me about his life on the streets and how he recently sent money back to this old blind man in his country who had taken care of him for so long. Along with the money, he sent a letter asking for this man to pray for him and for his new life here in Germany. That comment led me to ask him about his relationship with God. Sam started going to a Catholic church when he was little, and he really liked the idea of Christianity, but he didn't feel like the message was really reaching him in the way that he needed it to. He became a muslim (Sierra Leone is a predominantly Muslim country) because when he went to the Mosque he said that they taught him over and over again not to steal, not to commit crimes, not to hurt other people, etc. Maybe these are not things that we think of as being the most important part of a sermon or message, but when you put things in perspective and understand that he was trying to live a Godly life in a culture where stealing and killing were an everyday occurance as people did whatever they could to survive, it becomes easy to understand why he would choose to dedicate his time to a church community that stressed the importance of putting your trust in God and staying away from these evil things. He found the love and support he needed at the Mosque, where he would go five times a day to pray (a very important part the muslim religion). God has proven to keep his promises to Sam and has provided for him in ways that he never imagined. His strong faith in God and positive outlook on life regardless of his past has taught me SO incredibly much in just the short two weeks that I have spent time with him. He has rekindled a perspective on life that was introduced to me once before when Theo told me of his life in Africa and the awful conditions that he had lived in.
When you meet these kinds of people in person, the reality of their situations become so real and it's something that no one could ever understand by just watching movies or reading about them in books. It's absolutely HEARTBREAKING. The government here is somehow paying for him to live in Germany (I haven't quite figured this out yet), and hopefully it will become a permanent situation for Sam, but right now it's on a year-to-year basis whether he can stay or not. He has only been here for a little less than one year now. They give him just enough money to get by, so he doesn't have money to really go out and do anything. Until last week, he didn't have a work permit either so he had found a job working for 1 euro/hour (about a dollar an hour), under the table just to have something to do to get him out of the house. Sam and I went to his first carnival here last weekend and I took him on some rides which was a completely different experience for him. He was scared to death on the ferris wheel and the rollercoaster, he had never been up so high other than on the plane ride between Africa and Europe which he had been terrified of. He loved it though and he was in awe of the fun things that kids get to do in other countries...things he never knew existed. Last night I taught him how to carve a pumpkin, he had never heard of Halloween. He really hasn't made many friends here yet, except me and another 51 year old American military man. He told me last night that he is so blessed to have me as a friend because before he knew me, he would just sit at home and "have so much stress", which he told me means that he would just sit in his apartment and think back on his life in Africa and all of the suffering that he went through.
I have been blessed to be a blessing here for Sam. I think that as much of a blessing as I am to him, however, he is even more of a blessing to me as he continues to teach me more and more about what is really important in life.
Wow! This made me tear up...this is so beautiful aleena!
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