The Right Place at the Right Time

Ever since I moved to Germany in June 2016, it's as if God has been pulling all the threads of my life together. Three years of mostly forgotten German in high school and college. Time spent as a child in the Middle East among Arabs. 20 years in Africa. Traumatic life experiences of my own to soften my heart to those who have seen worse. And a decent ability fixing bicycles from years of having to do it myself. 

One of the first ways this came together was in the bicycle ministry at the refugee camp here. My friend Gene is the main guy behind a ministry that finds used bikes for refugees to use getting around town and to school. I go with him every other week to help repair the bikes, which also gives the opportunity to get to know precious adults and kids from Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Guinea, Nigeria and meet a practical need. 

Gene(L) and Me (R) under the tent working on bikes at the refugee center some time last year. 

Today was one of those days where EVERYTHING COMES TOGETHER in a way that only God can orchestrate. One of those times where you just kind of sit back and say, "Okay, God, You obviously set this all up. I'm along for the ride. Do your thing."

First of all, we weren't even supposed to be at the camp today. Our normal time should have been last week, but since Gene was away, we had canceled. Rather than make it a whole month between visits, we decided to go today instead of next week. 

We each fixed several bikes - not too many, with good time to chat with folks - as always in broken German and English with the odd Arabic word thrown in. 

We got done a bit early and were carrying the tools to the car. I rounded the corner to see an American guy, Brian, with an African talking to the security guards. I hadn't met Brian yet, but Gene knew him. He was saying, "Does anyone know French?" just as I walked by. 

I chimed in and was swept into that place where you're speaking multiple languages. Brian to me in English. His son interpreting into German for the guards. Me to the African guy with him in French: "What's you're name?"  
"Dembele" 
Wait a second. That's a MALIAN name! 
Switch to a Bambara greeting. Dembele breaks into a bigger smile than when I spoke French, beside himself that someone in this strange land speaks Bambara. 
Turns out he's a Malinke from an area in Mali where I did language survey 23 years ago. 

Brian had been out driving with his sons and saw Dembele walking down the road several miles back. Brian works some in East Africa and was moved to stop and see if this guy was okay. They shared no language but somehow he convinced him to get in the car and come with him to the refugee center. He arrived only minutes before we left. 

Confusion ensued as we talked with the camp staff about procedure to follow. I related that he had come from Italy arriving today on the train. He was 10 months in Italy and then before that he crossed the sea from Libya. He had no papers or documents on him. He hadn't eaten in 2 days.

It seems we needed to take him to the larger camp 15 min away. But in the meantime, the police had been called and so we had to wait for them to arrive. Brian needed to get to soccer practice but managed to find a bag of food among his groceries to give to Dembele. We all exchanged contact information. 

Then I sat with Dembele and made him comfortable as we waited 45 minutes for the police to come. It was good to be able to comfort him, tell him a bit what to expect, reassure him of that all would be well. 
It was obvious he was both tired and a bit scared. 
I got someone to go inside and find the couple from Guinea and they came out and talked to him in French and reassure him. 

I asked about his family. His mother is 58. She and his older brother are back in Mali in the village, where his brother grows millet and peanuts. The best I could tell, he left Mali only in search of better opportunities. We tried to call his brother but couldn't get through, but I left a text telling where he was and that he was okay. 

The security guards came over a few times as did different refugees. We'd switch to German or English and I would introduce them. My synapses were close to bursting trying to go back and forth between German (which I speak poorly) and French. At times, it felt like I had to go in and manually shift gears on the language derailleur in my brain. I kept throwing "und" and "oder" into my French sentences - call it skipping gears. At least it made things funny for those around. 

Suddenly the police were there. They were asking questions in German and found out he only speaks French. So I get to be the interpretor. 
Then they're searching him, patting him down, going through his pockets. I'm trying to keep one step ahead with explanations so he'd know to take off his shoes and socks, show the bottom of his feet. Put them back on. Now get in the car. 
I was able to stop and ask where he was going and tell him so he'd know that he was going with them to a nearby town for tonight. Then 2 hours north of hear to a bigger center where he'd be registered and possibly relocated. And then I said goodbye. 

Pray for Dembele. He's a fragile young man making his way in a strange land without any English or German or any papers. 
It would be great if he ended up in a camp nearby where Brian's family and I could visit. 
But if not, it was great just to be a friendly face speaking in a familiar language in a strange land. And to know that God is orchestrating a majestic dance around us. 

PS. Oh, and guess what? Today I discovered my "Toubabou" t-shirt from Mali in the bottom of the drawer and put it on for the first time in perhaps a year! God has a sense of humor. 

Same, Same. . . . .But Different

A few weeks ago someone asked me what it was like to live somewhere where I blended in. After 21 years in Africa, now living in Germany, it's a good question. 

SAME, SAME
That got me to thinking. Up until I was eight, I lived in my home culture. A perfect one-to-one match where I was indistinguishable from those around me, both in the way I looked and the way I understood the world. 

Then my family moved overseas and we lived in various countries in the Middle East from 1973 to 1979. I also had a a year of boarding school in Ethiopia (5th grade) and India (9th grade). 

DIFFERENT
One of my memories from that time was going shopping in the big open market. I always knew I could find my parents easily because they really stood out from everyone else. And of course, I stood out as well. If I got lost, everyone would know who my parents were. 
Not so, when we came back to the US. There it was easy to lose your mom at the supermarket. 

When I was 30, I moved to Africa and lived there for 21 years, mostly in Mali.  
I stood out. Everywhere I went, children (but also adults) would remind me of the fact - in case I forgot - by yelling out Toubabou or better yet, "Toubabou, Toubabou! Toubabou de Toubabou". 

[Toubab is a word used across West Africa, but also seen as far away as India. One etymology is that it comes from the Arabic word Tabib, meaning doctor. In any case, it is used to refer to people of European descent, but does not actually include any element that refers to the color white] 

Having your differentness yelled out everywhere you went certainly DID get old. 

Now, if you live anywhere long enough, you can do things that move you from the camp of outsider to being an insider" 

• Learning the language goes a long way, especially when that language is NOT a language of power but a minority one. (See Language Learning and the Incarnation) 
• Wearing clothing that is appropriate to the context, including things in the local style. NOT wearing clothing that is deemed inappropriate. 
• Eating local food (and not gagging). 
• Taking a local name. This was important in Mali where I took on the name "Dawuda Tunkara" which opened doors to a specific language group. And allowed me to enter into all sorts of games and joking. Tunkara identified me as a "griot", a member of the minstrel/bard class who sing the praises of nobility, warriors, etc. 

• Oh how the Malians loved it when they told me, "If you're a Tunkara, you must be a djeli (griot)." And then I responded by asking them their name and singing a funny song about all the Coulibalys eating beans. The icing on the cake was asking them to give me a dollar afterwards. 

But even if you do all these things, you're still an outsider and will always do things that are funny, strange or even offensive without knowing it. I learned to not be too upset by it all. Try your best and realize you're always going to be something of an oddity. 

In Mali our status of Toubabou came with a level of deference, respect and preferential treatment which was automatic and not earned, and usually made me feel uncomfortable. There's no reason to let me go first when paying my electric bill, for example. Or to make me come up and sit at the front of church. 

I've been in other countries where I stood out and was not always received as kindly. I gone exploring on my bike and ended up in neighborhoods and had people tell me to go back to my part of town. 
I've had people get upset because they were sure I was taking their picture, when in reality I was checking my GPS map to figure out how to get back home. 

SAME, SAME but DIFFERENT* 

Same Same but Different is a very popular "T-shirt Meme" in Thailand

So this brings me to the summer of 2016 when I moved to Germany.  There's no doubt about it - I certainly blend in. I can go anywhere and people do not KNOW that I don't belong. As long as I don't open my mouth. Then they know I'm not German. 

But even when walking the streets, shopping, or attending events, you always have the nagging feeling that at any moment you might DO something that reveals that you are an outsider, that you have no place and then the gig will be up: 

• show up at the church potluck without your own plate, silverware and drink. 
• take forever at the kiosk where you buy bus tickets because you have no clue how it works. 
• cut your cheese with the wrong knife

Of course, people are generally very understanding, especially when they figure out you're a foreigner - but that depends on where you are from (sadly). 

SAME, SAME but DIFFERENT 2.0

These thoughts originally grew out of some facebook interactions. At the time one of my friends also pointed out that she felt this same fear of being discovered as a pretender when she returns to the US after 20+ years overseas. 

Sadly this is very true. After you do your time overseas, you head home and think you'll finally be able to blend in. Once someone takes you shopping for clothes that are in style, you can look the part, and sound the part in normal conversation. 

But then you go to a party or Sunday School class and realize that you really can't relate to the casual talk that is going on. You may not even know WHO or WHAT they are talking about. And the things you have to contribute are so foreign that most of the time you don't share them.  

Strangely you end up not fitting in either in your host country, or your own country. You become truly a "Third Culture" person. You only find yourself fitting in with other cross-cultural workers. And oddly enough, they don't even need to have served in the same area of the world you have. 

Recently, I talked with a Third-Culture Kid who is now back in his home country as a young adult. He said that even though he LOOKS and TALKS and SOUNDS like those around him, he does not FEEL like one. 

Same Same . . . . but Different. 

50 years – The Second Decade: 74-86 [Basic education - or what I learned in school in between moves]

So I am turning fifty this month. And that of course gives one pause to think about his life. Who am I? Where have I been along this journey? This is the second blog post and it treats my second decade (minus 2 years).

Places lived: Ethiopia, Yemen, Oklahoma, India

• Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Good Shepherd School – 74-75 school year: 5^th grade)
• Yemen (American International School - fall semester 1975)
• Oklahoma City (Spring semester 1976, and 76-77 school year: 7^th grade)
• Sanaa, Yemen (77-78 school year: 8^th grade)
• Mussoorie, India (Woodstock School – 78-79 school year: 9^th grade)
• Edmond, Oklahoma (1979-1982: 10^th-12^th grade in the same school system)

  

  Woodstock school, Mussoorie, India (foothills of the Himalayas

Life Shaping events:

Two years of boarding school. 5^th Grade in Ethiopia and 9^th grade in India. It was hard being so far away from home, and this before the age of email and skype and cellphones. Letters routinely took 3 weeks each way!

The frequent moves across cultures – 11 schools in total before I graduated from high school – had several effects on me:

• Like many Third-Culture kids, I becamse leery of forming deeper relationships for fear of the eventual separation. But that also made me into someone who works hard at keeping up old friendships.
• It made me very flexible and adaptable to different contexts and understanding of other cultures.

Senior Picture (High school 1982)

Returning to the US in 10^th grade was a big adjustment after being overseas off and on for 7 years. Going from a small boarding school to Edmond where each class was 600+ students was a big change.  The Youth Group at First Baptist Church Edmond was a safe and accepting place during this time. Thanks to Roger Hagan, our youth minister, and to the kids in the youth group.

Spiritual Growth:

After growing up in a Christian home and hearing about God all my life, I realized that I needed to make it personal sometime in the fall of 1974 while in Ethiopia. So one night after the dorm devotions, I prayed to ask Jesus to come into my heart. I don’t think I knew all that that meant then, and am still learning today.

In India, I was involved in a small group Bible study that met in one of the staff’s home and really began to grow in my walk. 

Roommates:

Boarding school begin a very long phase of having roommates. At last count there have been 60+ guys with whom I shared a living space for at least a month. In these 8 years, I had seven roommates – all before I started university. In keeping with the cross-cultural mix in my life, I had roommates from the US, UK, Afghanistan, Iran, and India

Roomies that stand out in this period

Judd Threlkeld (5^th grade),

Taizoon Shakir, Zaphar Al-Talib (9^th grade)

Languages I spoke then and have more or less forgotten today:

• Arabic – I only remember the odd word here and there, especially loan words that have made their way into African languages via Islam.
• Hindi – an interesting language related to European languages.
• German – 3 years in high school, 1 year in college. Mostly forgotten over the past 30 years but I was very surprised last year in Germany how much was flooding back into my mind.

Rides:

• On our 1976 furlough, I got a Raleigh 10-speed bike from Wheeler Dealer in Oklahoma City. At this stage in life, I was not riding anywhere for transportation, just around the neighborhood for fun and occasionally to the swimming pool.
• Skateboard: I had a few nice skateboard and actually still have my nicer one in storage somewhere. Back in 1976, my brother and I both got cool plastic skateboards “by GT”. We had a game that involved chasing each other all over the apartment complex sidewalks on skateboard and trying to crash into the other. In retrospect, it was very similar to our “passport” bicycle game.
• My first car was a Fiat 124 special. Nothing very special about it as it was always needing repairs. I drove it on one of my first jobs as a spotter for the “Edmond Evening Sun” newspaper, delivering newspaper bundles to the delivery boys. 

Activities:

• Boarding school: Once you get over the initial home-sickness, you can have a lot of fun. In Ethiopia, I was on the baseball team, and was in a production of Mary Poppins and a youth musical called “Come Together”. We made our own darts out of matchsticks and paper and pins. And rigged up strings all around our room to turn off the lights and close the curtains from the bed.
• In India, there were Saturday trips into the Bazaar, and buying gelabees, throwing chapatis like Frisbees off the balcony to the monkeys. And a rainy season that never ended, and towels that never dried out. I was happy to never get a leech. The school organized a lot of dances and this was the era of Saturday Night Fever. My mom always said I learned to dance at boarding school.
• Piano lessons: practicing in the freezing cold in India, learning jazz with Fran Young in Edmond.
• Drums: I did snare drum in 7^th -10^th grade. Marching band in 10^th grade. I wasn’t that good and dropped out.  That hasn’t stopped me from tapping on things since then. I now have a Djembe drum that I really enjoy playing.
• Studying – Looking back, it seems I was pretty nerdy.
• Work: In the summers, I would work with my granddad, George Gaidaroff, who was a small-town pastor and worked in the week as a painter and wallpaper. I learned to paint and paper working with him and have always enjoyed painting. (but not so much wall-papering). 

Reading:

The Bible. I transitioned from the Living Bible to the NASB.

Chronicles of Narnia. I won a boxed set in some sort of Sunday school context in 6^th grade.

The Lord of the Rings. (I mistakenly started with the Simarillon and quickly abandoned that).

Tunes:

I got my first Toshiba cassette tape recorder before I went to boarding school in 5^th grade. It was red and I remember that these were really cutting edge at the time. My folks and grandparents sent me audio cassettes when I was in boarding school.

• I recall listening to Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass – my parents had this.
• We picked up Evie and BJ Thomas cassettes on furlough in 1976
• Then in high school I got a record player and listened to Amy Grant, The Imperials, Leon Patillo, Ken Medema, Truth.

Language Learning and the Incarnation

Malians have a very delightful expression of extreme surprise that goes something like this:

EEEEE

                    EEH!!!

           eueu

where the relative height represents the pitch.

I was back in Mali for the month of November and was minding my business checking out at the SHOPREATE grocery store when one of the workers walked up and let out this incredible EEEE-EUEU-EEEH that was so loud that it kind of embarrassed him and he quickly found somewhere else to be.

What was it that flabbergasted him so? Well, several workers at SHOPREATE including the main cashier are speakers X, the language I started learning back in the late 1990s. And so I usually greet them in X while I am checking out. Now, it’s been 14 years since I was in an X context but I still can just barely get by with the greetings, before I am reduced to speaking Bambara or French.

So there I am chatting away in X, when up walks this worker to ask where to put the cans of powdered milk or something, and he hears this white guy talking in S. And he emits the mother of all EEEE-EUEU-EEEH’s, because this shatters everything he knows to be true about the world.

Why? Well, it is best explained in this piece that is adapted from my newsletter in the summer of 1997 when I was 5 months into learning the X language. (see Tillinghast Times vol 7 num 2, June/July 1997)

 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)

The incarnation – it’s about God identifying with us, showing us that we mean so much to Him that He was willing to make himself nothing, “taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness.” (Phil 2:7)

What does this have to do with language learning? I’ll try to explain. Every time I go out in town and talk to people in Bambara, the trade language, I am greeted with beaming smiles, astonished looks, joyous laughter and cries to neighboring vendors to come see the Toubab (white guy) who speaks Bambara.

Why the fuss? An Arab in the US who speaks English doesn’t surprise us. A Vietnamese in Paris who speaks French is not give a second glance. The difference is that French and English are languages of socio-economic power. People learn them to get ahead. In a perfect world, all languages would be equal, but history and commerce have left some languages at the top of a linguistic ladder and others further down.

Most of the world’s minority languages are near the bottom of the ladder. Even though X is one of 13 official languages in Mali, an X speaker who wants to sell vegetables in the market in town needs to learn Bambara, the trade language. If this same X wants to open a store or get an education, he needs to learn French. If he wants to study abroad or get involved in international politics or commerce, he might need to learn English as well. The world gives little or no importance to his language.

Those situated nearer the top of the linguistic ladder have little reason in learning a language further down, especially since speakers of that language want to learn their language. During colonial times here in Mali, the French felt no need to learn national languages. Most foreigners in Mali today use French and don’t think it necessary to learn Bambara or X. Very few are motivated to make the effort to learn vernacular languages.

And we who are lucky enough to speak English, well, we travel the world and expect to be able to find people everywhere we go who can speak our language, without us needing to do learn theirs.

And that is why people in the market are so delighted and bemused when I address them in their language. I have made an effort to come down the linguistic ladder. Why would I do such a thing? There is no advantage for me (except for slightly cheaper vegetables). It must be because I am interested in them and their culture. I want to identify with them.  

After 18 years in Mali, I never really got far in X. I did make more progress in Bambara though I was never fluent. But still, I could carry on a decent conversation. It was not uncommon for Malians to say to me “I be bamanakan men dɛ. I kɛra malien.” (You really understand Bambara. You’ve become a Malian).

Learning X or any other language means humbling oneself in a very real way. You have to become like a child, be willing to say really stupid things (unintentionally), and submit yourself to a huge amount of ambiguity as you exist in a world you do not understand. You willingly sacrifice power and control for a situation where you are utterly helpless and dependent on the kindness of others. How very much like the Christ-child at Christmas.

Learning a minority language is a choice to step down the linguistic ladder into areas that serve not yourself but others. That’s what Christ did – he came down a ladder of infinitely larger degrees, to become like us, to understand us, to reach us. Each of us, in turn, is called to dwell among those around us, to meet them where they are - on their terms - and to flesh out the Word for them.

Ashia - Empathy in Africa

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

So the other day I came in the front gate of the center where I live in Cameroon and noticed that Mama Maria was not there serving lunch under the shelter like she normally does every day for a dozen people. I went back and ask the guard at the gate where she was and he said that she was not feeling well and would not be in all week. 

I went on my way, but then turned back and said to the guard, “Meilleur Santé” – literally “better health”, or “get well.” I realized how perfectly natural that was to say to an African when someone ELSE is sick, but how unnatural it is in French or in a western context. 

If I were in Mali, this is where I would attempt to say the “get well blessing” that I always got wrong in Bambara and would stumble through anyway:  “Ala k’a nɔgɔya kɛ” which means “May God ease it (the suffering/sickness).” This can be said to the sick person but more off than not is said to the person who reports it to you. 

This got me thinking about the radical difference in worldview here and the incredibly empathetic nature of African culture, which is built on the fundamentally relational nature of their cultures.  This is one of the big cultural divides. Western culture is very individualistic, focusing on independence, self-help, self-realization, etc. African culture is a group-oriented culture that is “all about relationships”. 

Early on in my time in Africa, there was something that would always irk me - a sure sign of a cultural difference. I’d be out riding my bike and come up a hill or just be hot and sweaty and a Malian stranger would see me and greet me with a hearty “I segenna”. This literally is means “You’re tired.” To my western, individualistic ears, this sounded like someone pointing out that I was too tired to get the ride done -  “You wimp.  And you think you’re in shape. You can’t already be tired?” 

In fact, though, this was just the group, relational culture showing through in a way I came to love. Basically the other person is recognizing that you are doing something hard and joining with you in that. There is no judgment, just empathy. 

A similar Bambara phrase is “I ni baara” – “You and the work”. It is said when you pass someone who is doing some sort of manual labor - carrying something heavy, digging a hole, plowing a field, building a wall. Again, it is a recognition that that person is doing something hard and you join with them, just for a minute, by acknowledging that.  A link is formed to that person, even a stranger. 

These empathetic observations are not limited just to Mali. In Côte d’Ivoire, they say “I fo” in Jula, or “Yako” in Akan. You say this, if someone shares a difficulty they are experiencing, much like we might say “sorry” in English. I think it can also be used when you see someone doing difficult work.  

Likewise, in Cameroon, a very similar thing to say is “Ashia”, which is an English Pidgin word (proposed etymology is “hush ya”??). Ashia can be used to sympathize with someone in sickness or difficulty, or to appreciate someone working hard. (In researching this, I came across this blogpost on Ashia).  

Language follows culture. Some would say it is the other way around, but they are definitely intertwined. For those of us living between two cultures, we find ourselves borrowing words from French or Bambara or Pidgin and inserting them into English. Sometimes it is just laziness, but often it is because we are stuck between the cultures and we want to express a cultural concept that simply does not exist in English. 

“Ashia” is one of the few words I have learned and use since moving to Cameroon. I hear other expats say it a lot. Likewise, “I ni baara” and even “I segenna” where phrases I came to love using in Mali. There simply is no good ways to say these things in English. 

In looking up the definition of empathy, I found that oddly enough it did not even exist in English until 1909 when it was “coined by the psychologist Edward B. Titchener in an attempt to translate the German word ‘Einfühlungsvermögen’” [source: Wikipedia]. He took the greek morphemes “en” (in/at) and “pathos” (suffering/passion) and put them together to form empathy, a concept that was obviously missing in English.

Merriam Webster defines empathy as: 

“the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present…” 

Empathy stands in contrast with compassion (con=with ) and sympathy  (syn = together), though obviously there is a lot of overlap.  

Sympathy is a concern with the well-being of another and a feeling of pity or sorrow for what they are going through. Compassion is a sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

While I think all humans, regardless of culture, experience all three of these feelings, our reactions to suffering in others (especially strangers) show an innate cultural preference:

• Western culture prefers to react through compassion and sympathy:  Feeling sorry FOR the other person and desiring to alleviate their suffering, without necessarily getting involved emotionally. We want to DO something.
• African culture prefers to react through empathy: identifying with the other person in their suffering and sharing in that. An African will try, of course, to help those in his inner circle, less so with strangers. But there is always a strong identification with anyone who is suffering.  This mostly just means verbalizing the joint pain and BEING with the other person. 

 Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

Some examples should make this clearer:

1. When there is a tragedy anywhere in the world, Westerners are the first to send money to help. We feel sorry for them, and want to do something to alleviate their suffering (partly so that we will not have to feel that suffering ourselves).  We might even organize a mission trip and go there and bring real physical help, but it usually about doing and giving. We end up feeling better. The community is helped but in many cases, an honest evaluation would show that what we brought was not what the community really NEEDED.  
2. When someone dies in America, if you can’t go to the funeral, then you send flowers, or you give money in lieu of flowers. This is an appropriate form of sympathy. If someone dies in Africa, well, you find a way to go. And you sit with the family, sometimes for hours, often for days. If you are absent when the funeral happens, then you are obliged to go and visit and sit with them upon your return months or years later.  I have been to a few funerals in Africa for expatriates who have died and heard Africans express surprise that some of our number did not make the effort to travel to the funeral.
3. When someone is sick in Africa, the thing that you do is go to sit with them. I know numerous stories of missionaries out in the village who were sick in bed and really just wanted to be left alone. And invariably, they have people come to visit who want to sit with them all day.  “He’s not accepting visitors” makes perfect sense in an individualistic, Western context. And very little sense in an empathetic, relational group culture.
4. If I have a problem in the US, the individualistic nature of our society leads me to try and solve the problem myself. Self-help and self-reliance are strong values. It is hard for a Westerner to ask for help, especially to someone outside his family or inner circle.

In a relational, group culture, it is not hard at all to ask for help even from strangers.  As a Westerner, you can get overwhelmed with these sorts of requests. Our culture predisposes us to fix everything and try to help every stranger who comes to the door. Usually we can’t do that completely, and need to learn to just BE with the other person, to empathize with them. Listen to them and share back what they are feeling. Pray with them.  

Jesus has something to teach all cultures in these matters. He calls us to have both compassion and empathy. He who “bore our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4) also had “compassion on the crowds because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36) and carried his compassion to completion by  healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and raising the dead. 

May “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3) help us to grow in these things!