Our new friend

After two months of Joseph and I sharing cleaning and cooking duties, we finally have a new helper! Yeah! I (Lindsey) am beginning to feel like I can breath again and our floors are finally clean! She is a sweet lady near my age and has three kids; the youngest being a little boy the same age as Anna. The two have hit it off well. Anna is already beginning to speak more of the local language around her and is delighted with her long, long hair (it's midway down her legs). Anna thinks our helper is secretly a princess and is always trying to brush her hair! Emily has also really taken to her and lights up in smiles when she's around. 

As I have gotten to know her a bit better, my heart  has really gone out to her. She was denied an education by her father. So she never even entered grade school but began working at that age as a helper, for her family, relatives and as she got older for others. She calls herself 'stupid' because of it, which just makes my heart hurt for her even though she says it with a laugh. But you can tell it obviously impacted her, because with her job and her husband's two jobs they make some incredible sacrifices to send their own kids to school so that they get an education. 

She comes from a very poor background and I'm finding myself nervous to throw anything away. For example, a few days after she started working for us, she saw that I had thrown away some old rice (it was a good two to three weeks old and really hard!) She asked me if, next time, she could just take the rice home for her family. I stumbled through an explanation that it was really old and hard, but said that yes she's welcome to take our left-overs home when we don't eat them. I hated how that sentence made me feel like I was giving her our family's scraps, even though I provide lunch for her, often send her home with food, and sometimes cookies for her kids. 

She also told me the other morning that she'd gotten up at 4 a.m. to do her family's laundry and cooking for the day. And by 'doing her laundry' she means all by hand. She does all my laundry too, but we have a machine. She said it in passing, like it is just "all in a day's work." She then worked at our house from 7:30 a.m. until 4:30 (most days later) in the afternoon and left to go finish the chores at her house. I can't even begin to explain how small I felt. 

I came here to love people and share the Good News with them, but is it possible for people to believe me when I just appear like the rich white woman who can afford someone to do all my chores? Do they think, "Of course she loves her God! He's made life so easy for her!"   I know nothing of hunger, early mornings, late nights, lack of education, real difficulties. How do share Good News to a woman like this? How?