Lonely Planet

My last week was spent on the Fort Benning Army base is
Columbus, GA. My husband is currently
training there to become and infantry officer.
Since he’s been away for a while, I took the opportunity between when I
finished school and when I leave for India to spend time with him. Unfortunately, as often happens with the Army,
his schedule for his training was changed so he didn’t have his nights off
during the week I was there. We did
still get two weekends together but I was left to occupy myself Monday through Thursday. On Sunday night, Colby, my husband, and I
decided to go see a movie. While we were
walking in, we ran into a friend of Colby’s from training and his wife. The US army often has members of foreign army’s
come train in the US as part of an international cooperation effort. So this man and his wife, Rosa, are from
Bahrain, a small country bordering Saudi Arabia. So, since both of our husbands were going to
be away all week, we decided to meet one day and go to lunch and shopping.

So Thursday comes along and we make plans to
meet. She comes and picks me up and with
her is Annie, a wife of a man in the same training. So the three of us head out, Annie a Muslim from
Honduras who speaks Spanish but very little English, Rosa a Muslim from Bahrain
who speaks English enough to get by but no Spanish, and Megan a Christian from
America who speaks English but not enough Spanish or Arabic to communicate
effectively. The three of us went
shopping for about an hour and then at lunch in the food court together. We didn’t speak much but my time with these
two women was spectacular. They are
beautiful women who love their husbands enough to leave everyone else they know
for two months to sit in a hotel room alone all day just to get to be with
their husbands at night and on the weekend.
They both shared some piece of their beautiful lives with me. No, I wasn’t able to teach them about Jesus
during my afternoon with them but I would still say that Jesus smiled while
watching us. It was the power of humanity
to find a common bond. Although most
everything else was different about us, we all know what it is like to have our
husbands in the military. As each of us
had spent most of the preceding week alone, it was nice to be with other
people. It didn’t matter that we weren’t
talking, it didn’t matter that we didn’t know much about each other. What mattered was the company found in simply
not being alone. In Genesis 2:18 God
tells us “it is not good for man to be alone.”

I’m sure that there will be many times in India when we are
frustrated with our inability to communicate with words. I’m also sure there will be times when we
experience a connection with someone that is deeper than what words could
describe. I have a hard time not doing
something tangible for people. I want to
build their house or educate them or something.
What my time with Rosa and Annie reminded me, however, is that sometimes
what people need the most is to not be alone.
They need the companionship of sitting together with another human being
who may not be able to speak their language but is willing to give them
attention. These women were my reminder
that God sees the beauty in humanity and his power allows us to connect with
those we can’t speak to. He provides
that common bond which is the breeding ground for love and therefore for
Jesus. May our hearts be open to His
connections. Thank you Rosa and Annie
for such a beautiful lesson.