Let's Have a Little Compassion

 

This week I gave a hand to help Abdul Yaftali, an Afghani man.  He arrived in Albuquerque with his family, his wife Fawiza, five-year-old son Sayed and baby Dau about three months ago.   Sayed, quite small for his age, has severe dental problems and I gave them a ride to a dental appointment.  Abdul showed me the inside of the boy's mouth and I cringed to see badly decayed baby teeth.  Abdul told me about the dire circumstances of his father and brothers back in Afghanistan – his father, a retired police officer from the former government, is denied a pension and not allowed to work by the Taliban government. Abdul had worked for a Non-Governmental Organization in Afghanistan that focused on the needs of women, but the Taliban had made it impossible to continue their program and he lost his job.

 Abdul, who speaks passable English, has a part time job in a restaurant and takes an occasional extra job cleaning someone’s house.  He gets around town mostly on his bicycle but sometimes has to take Uber – quite a drain on his meager income.  BUT he has an offer of a full-time job at Amazon with good pay but can't take it without having a car. Amazon is way out of town.  

I told Bill and Karen our good friends and neighbors about Abdul and his circumstances.  I knew Bill has had to stop driving recently.  At the age of 93 he is getting frail and has some physical limitations.  Bill has a small car and says he would sell it to Abdul.

So, I brought Abdul to Bill and Karen's house where he test drove the car and was very excited and hopeful.  Then we sat down to talk, and Bill told Abdul he would give him a good deal.  Abdul was excited but quite anxious because he only has a little savings - maybe able to put together a thousand dollars.  That would mean he would have very little to go on for living expenses. 

Bill told him he would sell Abdul the car for $250.  Abdul stared at him smiling, but since his English is not totally fluent, he asked Bill to say that again.  Bill repeated and went on to explain that there would be a delay as they have lost the Title doc and would have to get that replaced.  Meanwhile, Abdul seems a bit perplexed and writes on his phone for me, "he mean 250?"  I nodded, and we went on listening to Bill.  

Soon Karen stopped Bill and said "esta llorando!" – (her first language is Spanish).  I looked at Abdul. He had his face buried in his hands, and yes, he was crying - sobbing in fact.  He couldn't believe it and was overwhelmed with the generosity being shown him.  He quickly regained composure but was unable to say anything more than "thank you" over and over - other words failed him.

Later taking him back to his apartment he told me he has only one relative in the US, a cousin in California and he had asked him to help him buy a car.  He knows he has money, but he refused to help.  Abdul said, "and these people are helping me and don't even know me"

This Sunday the sermon focused on the word compassion and where the Scripture says, “and Jesus had compassion on the crowd”.  Compassion literally means "suffering with" – it has all to do with empathy and love. Passion refers to the sufferings of Christ between the night of the last supper and his death. 

The words passion and compassion are used in various ways in our normal discourse, like in what we are passionate about, or strong emotional reaction or intense sexual love. Indeed, political passions are running hot and heavy in our country right now. How we long to hear more rational and calmer words of compassion – expressions of feeling with and reaching out to the needs of others.  

I thought of this this encounter with Abdul, Bill and Karen this week and how I had seen their compassion demonstrated right before my eyes.