Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

• Leviticus 19:33-34

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.

• Deuteronomy 10:17-19

And foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord
    to minister to him,
to love the name of the Lord,
    and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
    and who hold fast to my covenant—
these I will bring to my holy mountain
    and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
    will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
    a house of prayer for all nations.”

• Isaiah 56:6-7

I could go in many directions with the Scriptures and the title.  My wife and I lived in Germany (West Germany at the time) for three years.  We were foreigners in a strange land.  I could write this about my wife who was born in Indonesia, traveled to the Netherlands, and settled in El Paso, TX.  And for the last twenty years of my working life, I traveled around the world, only officially going around the world once.  But a lot more times, halfway around the world and then doubling back.

But no, I went to visit my grandchildren, oh yeah also my son and his wife, about a month ago.  I had a late start due to a doctor visit.  I went to the next state over and got in line to get a hamburger, something to be my only meal of the day.

The line was extremely long, but the doctor saw me early, and I was not going very far down the road.  The long distance would be the next day.

The people giving their order were not prepared for the options.  What type of this do you want?  What flavor of that do you want.  It was the usual delays in getting the order right and the guy taking the orders was very patient.

But then, there was the group of four people in front of me.  As I watched them intently, one never stopped talking and mostly made no sense.  Another was being led as if she was blind.  She could see, but maybe not well enough to read.  Let’s just say that this was two special needs people and two caregivers.  The two ladies got their food with no problem and were eating at a table nearby.  Then, the woman with the talking boy got to the counter.  She said that she had five orders.

What I did not realize was that she had five orders that were paid individually.  She wanted a receipt for each, and she wanted exact change for each.  That is understandable if the three orders for people who were not present wanted to know the exact amount of their meal.  But in ordering and paying in this fashion, it doubled the time in making the orders.

As the order taker was very efficient and thorough, he noticed that the people supplying the food were getting things wrong.

He had opened the bags and laid the receipt in the open bag so that each receipt was easily read.  He would explain that they had the special order burger in the wrong bag, the wrong sauce for another bag.  Then he fixed all the errors.  Even with his fellow employees who were making mistakes, he did not seem frustrated, but he insisted that they read the receipt carefully.  He did not seem to need to read the receipt.  He had the orders memorized.

Then he got to me.  He smiled and said, “Sir, it seems you are travelling, and you need to get down the road.  I will make your order to go.”

I laughed and said, “You make an astute observation.  I appreciate that.”  We both gave each other a knowing nod.  Company policy at that restaurant chain was to ask if they were eating here or did they want it to go.  But this guy sensed what people needed.

At one point in the five orders given by one person, I was thinking that I had made a mistake.  I could have made better time going somewhere else, but in watching the efficiency and the care given by a guy who was probably not paid very well, I could see the love that he showed to his customers.

I have said it before, you can learn from the great and the small among us, but we should always be willing to learn.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.