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Seth and Jenny
Shaw (daughter and son-in-law of David and Sarah) are visiting Albania for a
week and are experiencing the village way of certain practices. This
e-journal is written by Seth.
It was an odd exchange to say the least and the subject
matter was not all too uncommon. In the last unfinished room of the
ministry center in Vlashi, Bedri and I were at opposite sides of a workbench
fashioned out of a folding chair and a stack of Styrofoam insulation.
Between us a length of bed molding, already cut square on one end, sat
clamped in the center of a mitre box waiting for the final cut. Bedri, just
a few hours earlier, was making these difficult cuts free hand with only his
line of sight to guide his saw. The results indicated that Bedri and his
crew worked between wider margins of error than I was used to. My
indifference to the event turned to concern when I saw a mitre box sitting
under a pile of dust in the corner. I dusted off the tool and brought it
to Bedri. It was a tool he had never used, not because of its novelty, but
because he never had taken the time to learn. “Mitre cuts”, he said, were
easy “by eye”.
Minutes later, with his new
knowledge of a simple tool, Bedri was elated with accuracy he had gained.
An hour later, he called me over to show me the results. I recall seeing
only satisfaction in his eyes. As a rule, tools are never designed to make
things difficult and when in the right hands, any tool can add efficiency
and accuracy to any job. The tools that we as believers have at our
disposal include language, action, and time. I’m spending my next weeks
learning a lesson from Bedri. Not letting my ignorance of the tool get in
the way of the finish work. --Seth
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