Plastic Bags

I’ve been told that a main reason we hire house helpers and gardeners here is because we have the means to provide people with jobs, so we should. But even though we provide them with work, my goshhhh, they provide the rest. I come back to my home twice a week and screamthink “THANK YOU, JESUS, FOR THIS BLESSED WOMAN WHO DOES MY LAUNDRY AND MY DISHES AND SWEEPS MY FLOOR FOR ME!!!”…(sometimes cleaning bores me).

Not only that, but I have the angel house helper. Rumor has it she is very much in love with God, and it shows (literally, in my house). While everyone else’s laundry is still hanging on the line after lunch, mine is not only taken down, but neatly folded in my room. Every dish and plastic bag of mine are not only washed but put away. She cleans my stove and mats when I don’t ask her to, including an outside doormat…(what is dirtier than a doormat here?!).

The crazy part is that as she weekly goes beyond the requirements, she hardly ever sees me to get praise for it. Even if she does, she knows that (with my little Hausa) I would not be able to thank her with more than one line.

So in efforts to say “I think I’m in love with you” against a language barrier, I always leave her items that I’ve heard are appreciated. Usually, I am gone before she arrives at my house, but today she came early and all I had was a plastic bag of extra chicken meat and bones.

She looked in the bag, gasped, and then looked at me and said “na gode” (thank you)…

She then proceeded to look to heaven, tear up, slap her hands into a prayerful clasp and say thank you twice more, this time to God.

I was shocked. Even now I recap and hope that my mouth didn’t drop open.

The biggest and most obvious shock was that something I wouldn’t think twice about, leftovers of a scrawny chicken, would be needed enough to cause such a reaction.

But for those of you who weren’t there to see it (aka everyone), it was such a shock to see her heart be so immediately overwhelmed with thanks to her Giver. I mean her face shone “CURRENTLY WORSHIPPING“.

Much later came the realization that my house also cleanly shines "currently worshipping" every time I step home. Whether by washing plastic bags or receiving them, being thanked in person or noticed by only One, this woman makes her daily steps an act of worship. And the overflow of that has been blessing me!

Are we all in love with her now or what?! Permission granted for you to start collecting camels too.


Galatians 1:10
Am I trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.