A stranger with thee

You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 23:9

Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.
Psalm 39:12


This week, we came home one day to find that neither our telephone or internet were working.  When we picked up the phone, we heard a recording that told us that our service was temporarily disconnected, and we should contact the service for more information.  We figured that out after listening to the message half a dozen times.  How do you contact the telephone company when you have no telephone service?

After thinking about it for a few moments, we realized that we had been receiving phone service for over a month, but had never paid the bill.  Not only had we never paid the bill, we never received a bill!  Not for the telephone; not for the internet.  That isn't really surprising- we have no home mailbox!  We received our electric bill folded into a credit card sized packet and stuffed into the crack of our front gate. 

We looked at our contract for the internet, and at the bill our landlord gave us to get the phone started.  We couldn't figure out which set of numbers were the account numbers.  We couldn't even discern a phone number to call.  And honestly, even if we had, we're not sure we would have the language to ask why we didn't have service.

We are those people.  We are those people that you are frustrated to be behind at the grocery store, who stare at their money and the cashier has to pick out the correct change to help them.  We are those people who after talking to them on the phone, even if by an accidental wrong number, you hang up and say, "... and they didn't understand hardly a word of English!"  We are those people who get their phone cut off because they didn't pay the bill!

Fortunately, we have a Tica friend who we went to, who helped us to call the phone company, who told us to go to the bank to pay the bill, even if we didn't actually have a physical copy.  And as it turned out, it actually wasn't our part of the bill that was a problem- there was an outstanding balance from before we moved in that needed to be paid.  And, it wasn't our delinquency that caused the internet problems; it was just out of service for a bit and came back on later in the day. 

But being in this situation does remind me that we're not just learning Spanish; we are also learning lessons of humility day in and day out.  And being in this situation does remind me that it's not just the refugees in your community that are the sojourners, strangers in a strange land.  We are, too.  It reminds me that I should never make an assumption that because someone doesn't speak the language well, they are uneducated.  They might, for example..., have bachelor and master's degrees, and yet have barely a clue about how to take care of ordinary business in a new place.  And it reminds me that as Christians, we are all sojourners, like the Israelites, like David, until we are eternally home.

(art credit: Zen Pilgrim on a Journey, offered by plasticpumpkin on Etsy.)