Lending a Hand

It had been a long, long day. I’d been through a safety inspection, a full equipment inventory and a surprise cash count. I’d just finished 12 hours sweeping and picking up old water bottles that had been half filled with tobacco spit. I’d picked up trash, pushed in chairs and helped soldiers connect with their families. I’d checked out computers and started movies all day long. I hadn’t been able to sit down for more than a few minutes and my feet were hurting.

I climbed down from the shuttle van and said goodnight to Oleg. “Have a good night,” I said, varying my sentence slightly from the last time so that he could notice the difference. He smiled. “Havagoo night,” he answered with a Russian accent. My laptop bag was heavy and I was hobbling up the alley toward my building. All I wanted to do was take my shower and crawl into bed. I struggled past a small flower garden surrounded by a wrought iron fence. A woman worked there, tenderly plucking the tiny weeds from around the beautiful purple and white flowers. On the concrete wall behind her she had painted a sign that said, “Nye ervaht tsvi-TEE,” “Don’t pick the flowers.” Where the fence ended I glanced toward an old woman who sat peacefully on a concrete block next to the garden. She smiled toothlessly at me as I glanced over and I smiled back. A tiny playground was huddled next to the back door of one of the shops that faces Sovietskaya Street and two young girls played on the steel bars. Across from them was a concrete block storage building that had been painted with graffiti by some local gang, and in English, next to a hand-painted image of 3 street hoods, were the words “3 Angles.” I smiled at the misspelled word and limped on. As I neared the apartment building I noticed a young mother pushing a stroller. At her side was a little girl, maybe three years old, pushing a miniature stroller and mimicking her mother. They both turned and pulled the strollers up the steps to the green steel door of my building and went inside.

I pulled the steel door open and climbed the last few steps to the “lift,” or elevator. There the mother and daughter stood, both looking sad. I reached over and pressed the button to the lift, but the customary hum didn’t start and I looked at the mother and asked, “Lift nye rabotayet?” “Doesn’t the lift work?” She just shook her head. “Ya pah-mah-GOO.” “I’ll help,” I offered. The little girl smiled, probably at my accent or my strange white hair. “Which floor do you live on,” she asked. “I’m on the sixth. I’ll help.” She seemed a bit relieved. She took the baby from the stroller and carried the blanketed bundle in her arms. The little girl picked up her own stroller and carried it up the stairs, bouncing ahead of her mother as she found more energy than the rest of us combined. I picked up the big stroller, a heavy one with four large wheels, more like a buggy than a stroller, and hefted my computer a bit higher on my shoulder as I began to climb the stairs behind the small group. “Which floor do you live on,” I asked. “The fifth.” I was relieved. I thought that she would certainly say “the sixth.”

We climbed stairs and I huffed and puffed as we moved from one floor to the next. Finally, on the fourth floor I called out, “Ot-dee-XHAY!” “Rest!” The young mother paused, smiling, and resettled her baby. The little girl was already on the fifth floor waiting for the rest of us. I gasped for air for a couple of minutes before I finally said, “Ya ga-TOF,” “I’m ready” and we started again. That last floor was the hardest. I set the big stroller down and the mother reached under the seat and removed a large bag of groceries! That’s why I thought it was more like carrying a box of dumbells than a pram! “Spa-SEE-buh,” she thanked me. “NYE-zuh-shtuh,” “It’s nothing,” I puffed back as I limped up the stairs to my final destination of the evening.

“As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all…” (Galatians 6:10)