Three Cups of Tea

This may not make complete sense if you haven't read Three Cups of Tea. I could provide a brief synopsis for your benefit, but I'm not sure it would be. It might be of more benefit for me to leave you wondering, and have you actually read the book. I recommend it highly.

I just finished Three Cups of Tea - late at night, again, proving to me there's a lot more time in my day than I think, at least for things I really care about. It pretty much cuts through any excuses about not knowing how to make a difference, or not having time, or...

It's sweet to see how people with so completely different backgrounds and perspectives can and do agree and pull together on real issues. The point one of the main characters, Haji Ali, kept driving home, that you never go somewhere without getting to know someone respected there is so easy to forget - but I wonder how many mission and NGO messes come from exactly that. And the scene from when the first school, in Korphe, is finally under construction - and Mortenson (protagonist) is trying to hurry everything along and Haji Ali pulls him aside and takes away his clipboard, and tells him to calm down, to stop trying to hurry the construction along, driving everyone crazy in the process - that's a lesson I've been being taught, and I'm sure still need to learn, about how often my ways, or new ways, are actually not better at all. And then when it was all done, getting the ledger book back with every expense recorded, exactly, better than he could have done it himself.

I just looked up the verse that speaks to that same idea "do not think too highly of yourself..." I didn't realize how much of that chapter seems to fit with what 3 Cups has me thinking about. "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices..." "Honor one another above yourselves..." "Never be lacking in zeal..." "Share with God's people who are in need" "if your enemy is hungry, feed him... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12 - (and there's a lot of good stuff in between those snippets, too!)