Eating carrots in the shape of hearts

Last week, a few days before their departure, some  of my students stopped in for a surprise visit.  Under the guise of needing help with a community project essay, what arrived was not one student, but four,  and a delicious home cooked Thai meal, a beautiful thank you card and a photo album of our year together.  The thing was... in one of the dishes, the carrots were cut into the shape of flowers... and hearts. 

Now, I typically don't think of myself as a very sentimental person.  As a Local Coordinator, I say hello and goodbye to many students each year.  But this moment quickly reduced me to the truth... that something simple  can transform even the mundane, and that even eating a carrot can be a powerfully humbling experience.

I love my job - more than 50% of the time, and I think that's saying something.  The majority of my time and effort is spent with people... students, families, teachers, school administrators, others like me trying to find a way to meld a complete stranger into someone's well established family system.  As in any "public" enterprise, there's a lot of day to day, sometimes irritating, dealing with issues, problems, logistics, emotions!  But it's moment's like these, moments when a seemingly simple act cuts through all of that:  these moments inform me that this is what I hope to be about.  That under all our differences, be they cultural, religious, linguistic... need I go on...under all that, we are still just people.  People whose hearts long for love and understanding, long to love and understand, waiting to be transformed.