There is a story told about a man moving into a new town. As he comes into town he stops at the local gas station to fill up. The owner comes out to service his car and engages the man in conversation. The man asks, ‘What kind of town is this? What sort of people live here?” The owner responds, “What were the people like where you just lived?”
The man responds, “They were hard, never smiled, and stingy. You had to watch your back and you really couldn’t trust anyone.”
The gas station owner responded, “Well, folks here are a lot like that, you may want to keep moving on.”
The next day, another traveler comes along, stops to fill up and the owner comes out to service his car. Once again, he engages the traveler in conversation. Over the course of their brief time, the traveler asks the same question as the previous day’s traveler, “What sort of people live here?” The owner responds in the same way as before, “What sort of people lived where you’re from?”
This time the traveler responds, “They were great! If you needed some help with something, a neighbor was always ready to lend a hand, The folks were trustworthy, hard-working, and looked out for each other.”
The owner of the gas station responded, “That is a description of what folks are like here as well!”
It is all a matter of perspective! Often, we see what we want to see, not what is really there. Rosewood is one of those communities that would fit the description of the second traveler. It is a beautiful place; folks are friendly and always ready to lend a helping hand.
We had great weather during our project day and some amazing helping hands from many volunteers. A wide variety of projects were taken care of, from repairing leaky plumbing, to giving one a house an outside makeover (a paint job 😊), repaired some flooring, installed a playground set and helped beautify several yards by cleaning, raking and just giving them a good ‘once-over.’ All that work amounted to nine dumpsters full of stuff being carted away! In short, that means a lot of ‘stuff’ that was once there is no gone! Clean yards make for happy neighbors and a pleasant neighborhood.
‘Can we pray about that?’ This was one resident’s response to many things during conversations. Impact Cares comes into communities to bring an impact but often the team are the ones that are impacted by the awesome people we meet. Here was one who was not afraid to pray about things, to bring the Lord into conversations and to let you know that God is in control of all aspects of our lives. What an encouragement!
Finally, we had one resident who perpetually had a smile on his face! The couple had very little in terms of material resources, their house was not in great shape, but they were ‘content’ despite this. Impact Cares was able to help with some significant improvements and the couple was extremely grateful for all we did.
Perspective is everything!