Winter shoes and Language lessons

The other day David heard a soft knocking at our door. “Who could that be?”, he wondered as he quickly went to answer it. Standing on the other side of the door was our neighbor, a young man in his early 20s. They exchanged greetings, and then the young man shyly looked down at the ground and then back up at David. “What is it, what do you want?”, asked David cautiously. After gaining his composure, the young man asked David if he could borrow $50. He was in need of a new pair of winter shoes, and his pay check would not be coming until the end of the month. He promised that he would pay us the money back as soon as he could.

Well, it is always an awkward situation when people ask for money. We do not just want to ‘give’ people money, even if they say they will pay us back… for what if they don’t? We also know that if we lend this one person money, then word will get around, and soon more people will come knocking on our door. Yet, on the other hand, we could see that he was in great need of winter shoes, as outside there’s now snow covering the ground and we have temperatures way below 0. We also knew that he was not lazy, yet worked long hours as a prison guard, yet just got paid very little. And, we also want to help the people here and show kindness and generosity to them. But, what to do?

David’s first reaction was to just tell him “no”, as he didn’t want to get into the sticky situation. Then he had an idea. He told our neighbor, “look, I will not just give you the money. But, if you will work for me, I will pay you the $50 in exchange.” “What? Work for you? What can I do?”, was the reply. David continued, “well, you know how to speak Tuvan, and I want to learn your language. If you will teach me for two hours a day for the next ten days, then I’ll give you the money.” The young man hesitantly agreed.

Well, we weren’t really sure if he’d even show-up for the first language lesson Monday evening, but he came… and last evening too! David is really enjoying spending time with him, and we think our neighbor is enjoying it too. Not only are we learning some Tuvan language and culture through these lessons, we are also getting to know our neighbor better. We are so thankful.