With friends like these...

I've become friends with this lovely immigrant from Malawi, who moved to South Africa a few years ago to find work, and more opportunities etcetc. He's doing well for himself, but having said that, he's not earning top mega bucks. And what really amazeso me is that he is so generous with the little he has. This was again displayed to me on Sunday, when he came up shyly to me and called me out of the group of people I was standing with. As I went over, he showed me a collection of books he had with him, a whole stack of books he'd gotten from his employer. "He's given me more than 30!", my friend exclaimed, obviously really excited at this amazing gift. "And now that I am being fed so well with these gospel books, I thought you guys must also have one!" And lo, and behold, he'd picked one book for each of the people that had worked with him at the Night Shelter, How cool :)

And what's even more exciting is how thoughtfully chosen and appropriate the books were for each person! I've been thinking a lot about relationships recently - how much time to give to them, how to conduct healthy relationships, how to be friends in a really meaningful way etc.etc.. I'm a bit of a people's person (even though I swear that deep down inside I'm a repressed introvert at times!), and to be honest, thinking about relationships drives me up the wall and down again. Especially 'cause I've also been thinking a lot about burnout recently as well - am I giving too much, am I too easily focused on other people etc.etc. And believe it or not, the book I'd gotten was one called: "Listening for heaven's sake: Building Healthy Relationships with God, Self and others". My brother got one on the balance between praying and doing, another friend who's about to become a dad got one on leading the family in a godly manner etc.etc. Yay, talk about God stepping in to give us just what we needed!