Saturday, July 5, 2014

Love Knows No Boundaries...

She seemed anxious.  She came up beside me as we moved to the security line and pointed the gate on her boarding pass. A-19. My cousin pointed up ahead of us as the direction she must go. The young woman wearing a long turquoise colored robe and black head-covering hurried ahead. I resumed my conversation with my cousin and then we parted at the beginning of the security checkpoint.  A moment or two later, as I was in the security line, the young woman, barely an adult, was behind me now and pointed once again to her pass.  Her boarding time was 6:20 departing at 645. She was clearly worried she would not make it to her flight. We were still outside security, through which the line was moving steadily forward, but the time was 6:14. I assured her that she would be on time.  She began to cry in the line and showed me one finger. I asked if it was her first time flying.  She nodded and wiped her tears. I let her step ahead of me and put my arm around her shoulder.  She reached out to the agent assisting passengers and the agent confirmed in English that she would be fine.

"Where is home?" I asked. "Tunisia", she said; the only word she had uttered that I understood. We proceeded, after a minute or two more, to the belt where she stared at the agent. He instructed her to get a bin and she then began placing her bag in it. I showed her she must take off her pocketbook which was handing across her body.  She did and moved ahead. I placed my things in the bin and moved ahead in similar fashion and after a brief pat down by a female agent I advanced to the end of the belt to collect my belongings. We waited there side by side as she fidgeted nervously because our things had not yet come through the scanner. I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder once more and, knowing my gate was farther past hers, said I would take her to A-19.  She nodded.  Our bins arrived in front of us and we retrieved our things. As we moved toward the gate, she seemed to ease as the numbers increased from 14, 15, to 16.  When we reached A-19, the gate was populated with passengers quietly seated and two gate agents shuffling through papers and speaking casually to one another. She approached the agent and pointed to her pass. The agent said in English, "you still have a seat. We will start boarding soon."  The young woman smiled and looked relieved. "See!" I said encouragingly, "it isn't time yet!" She gave me a long, grateful hug.  As I left her at the gate she was taking a seat next to a woman and spoke to her in what sounded like French. I continued on to my gate feeling unusually blessed to have met her and grateful for the opportunity to have helped her.

We didn't speak even two words of common language. I don't know where she was headed, except to Hamburg. She did not know anything of me. Yet, we formed a brief relationship, a friendship, displaying simple human need and kindness.  Love knows no boundaries. Not nationality, not language, not religion, time nor distance.  

I learned an important lesson today. One does not need words to be His hands and feet.


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