Getting Water

This evening Edna and I were sitting in our living room when we heard a familiar voice outside our balcony window say “Babusya, mozhna?” (Grandma, can I?) We went to the window to see what was going on and there was Joshua carrying an empty water jug and bucket with a little old woman. We watched as they walked down the street to go get water from a well. I ran and grabbed the camera as Joshua helped her fill up her jug and bucket. Once they were full she insisted that they were too heavy for him to carry, so he walked back with her and offered to help her clean up some trash across from her garden.

Later, we asked Joshua how he knew this woman. He told us that he has been helping Babusya Natalia water her garden in the evenings. He said he wanted to see what was in her garden so one day he asked her if he could help her. Through gestures she let Joshua know that when her vegetables were ready, he was welcome to have some. Edna and I were shocked to see that not only had Joshua started a friendship with a little old woman who doesn’t speak a word of English, he had also left his friends on the playground to do so.

As parents we sometimes look at our kids who wear their muddy shoes through the house for the fifth time of the day, refuse to pick up their toys off the floor yet pick up every dirty discarded object they see off the street, insist on touching everything in the house with their dirty hands except a bar of soap, and we say, “What have I done wrong that my child won’t listen to anything I tell them?” Then there are moments when we simply say, “Thank you, Lord.”