Shopping for the Needy

Thursday, Nov. 13  

President Amer assigned us to take the our Arabic-speaking Relief Society president shopping for groceries for a needy family in the branch.  We knew it wouldn't be easy but we also knew we would find a way.

The big challenge was to find her.  Nobody here has an address and all the buildings are square white stone.  Thankfully we have a GPS and the coordinates for her home are in it.  Amer called and told her to wait outside and we would pick her up.  When we drove down her street she was there with her daughter who speaks a few words of English.  

Even though we could barely communicate, we managed to do quite well.  It was fun going into the little shops to buy groceries and we saw all sorts of interesting things.  The two women bought chickens and milk and eggs and rice and lentils and sugar and vegetables and on and on.  Slowly it dawned on us that we were buying a LOT of food for a small family.  The more food they bought, the more we became concerned, because we didn't want everyone to think that we are a rich church with unlimited cash.  We finally had to tell them to stop, that we had enough.  The back of the van was full with enough food to last a month!!

We couldn't believe it when the needy family called to say they wouldn't be available for the delivery until tomorrow.  (We were thinking they would be anxiously waiting for their dinner.)  So we took everything to our house and kept it until the next evening.  Something tells us everyone involved needs to learn some more about welfare principles.