Lota smiles at me when he drives to our next destination. “Is that a culturally significant activity?” he asks.
I think I’ve trained him. Not intentionally. But he seems to have figured out the focus of my attention much of the time.
I made a list. Yesterday, I asked my work shoppers to help me evaluate the ideas on my list of culturally significant ideas. They needed to rank each on a scale of 1 to 5.
They liked most of them. In fact, I warned them multiple times that if they kept giving these ideas scores of 5, I would need to add rankings of 6 and 7. I would still need to distinguish the absolute need-to-do inclusions from the others. My hypothetical agenda of culturally significant activities for the Christian Enablers mission team(s) would still need culling.
One of the culturally significant activities included the hand washing of clothes. So this morning, I told Lota that I wanted to wash my own clothes.
Lota tends to want to treat me like some sort of spoiled prince. So, I needed to give him a princely command, “Let me do it!”
“OK,” he replied. He looked like a worried man, that God would not forgive him for allowing such a thing. His moral fortitude stood at the edge of a mighty precipice!
He washed out a couple buckets, drained most of the remaining tap water, first into the soapy bucket, then into the other. “Not that way!” he said. “Here, rub the dirty parts together until they come clean.” My socks tend to show the day’s floor dusting, or inner shoe absorbing.
He said, “OK, let me help you.”
“No, I’ll do it myself.”
He couldn’t help but watch, squirming at the obvious inadequacy of his student clothes washer. I finished the white stuff, rinsed it all in a separate bucket, and set them aside in the sink until the colored threads underwent the same process, but with less aggressive treatment.
They’re all hanging on the line now. Yes, dropped one of the socks on the ground. The 5 second rule didn’t apply. It absorbed the dirt off the pavers like the chickens vanquish our flying watermelon seeds. My socks have not seen such whiteness since they left their packages. Underwear, the same.
I tend to agree. The male contingent of my Christian Enablers team, at least, will need to participate in the culturally relevant activity of clothes washing. They’ll need to wash, rinse and hang some clothes. The clothes line will string across some dirty pavers because there will be no forgiveness for dropping.
Lota just emerged from his room now (he tried to take a shower), smiled at me, and said, “You didn’t tell me we were out of water!”
Told him he should have read his email.
John
9/13/2017