ugh

Yesterday morning God brought a verse to my mind...a fragment of a verse actually. "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment..." and so I made a mental note to be extra conscious of that. But I didn't bother to look up where the verse was found because it was 7:30 am and I had to get to work.
And then in school yesterday afternoon Miriam had us read Romans 12:1-8. We each read a couple verses out loud until we'd read the passage twice and then we were to read it silently on our own to see what verse popped out at us...well, verse 3 is the verse God had given me in the morning, so coincidence? I think not. So anyways, Christina and I teamed up to share our verses and pray together. Her verse was 2, talking about testing and approving God's will...we had a cool conversation about that which I won't get into, but yeah, it was good. And then we talked about my verse and about serving and how sometimes it's so hard to serve some people because they don't appreciate it or they expect it or whatever. Or how do you serve someone who leers at you lecherously...what's the balance? like super good service or running away? ok, so maybe that's a little dramatic, but they are common, awkward situations to deal with. Anyways, it was just cool how God was using that Scripture again.
Then...ok God was showing me a bunch of things yesterday. so let's skip to today, shall we? this is going to be long enough anyways...
I was training Matthieu for morning cafe (shift from 7:45 to 1:15) and was also CS (shift from 9:45-15:00). So Matthieu could possibly be the faster learner I've ever trained in the cafe...as in he was doing things before I told him. mooi. So I went to do cleaner time, and we read Romans 12:9-21, basically doing the same thing I did in school yesterday, only with different verses. When Tom read his passage his tone was so mocking, but still subtle...it turned my stomach. And then Ivan commented how wonderfully Tom read it and how it made the passage meant so much to him due to how it was read, and the sarcasm...ugh, grossness. But Ivan also commented on verse 16 where it says "Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position." and the footnote that says "or willing to do menial work" and was like "Hey, that's us! that's what we do" and made this cool connection to cleaning. sweet, right? yeah, but then when I asked them to read it again silently Tom kept saying in this weird voice "you will heap burning coals on his head" and then he and Ivan started talking and laughing while poor Diego is trying to reread the passage seriously. After about 7 attempts to get the guys to be quiet, they finally shut up for less than 30 seconds. Then they started talking to Diego, but his English isn't very good and he couldn't understand them. Anyways, when we got back to the topic Tom shared his verse, and we talked about real situations where we do something good or nice back to someone who has been mean or rude or whatever to us and how that makes the person feel worse. We talked about what the world would look like if people and governments repaid evil with good instead of evil with evil. Then Ivan started apologizing to Diego because Diego was always nice to him even when Ivan was mean to him, but Ivan didn't really mean it because he loves Diego and blah blah blah and Diego didn't understand what he was saying and then Ivan was kissing Diego's hand and it was so weird. Tom was also going off about something. He and Ivan were full of this subtle mockery and it was disgusting. I was thinking of verse 12 "be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer" so I just prayed and gave them their bed lists and sent them out for a smoke. But this has been a good lesson...I need to serve these guys (and others)who sometimes make my life difficult and test my patience and really just love them with Christ's supernatural love.
Freek and Matthieu prayed with me in the kitchen, and then we continued to work there, unloading the groceries and stuff, so it was a while before I was able to check on the cleaners. I found Tom slouching on a random bed spouting off and at the end of our very brief conversation in which he told me "absolutely nothing" he quit and walked out. Which is sort of good because he was negative and bringing the team down, but it's also really sad because he desperately needs Jesus and this was the only source of light in his life...and there's certainly a lot of darkness. So please keep praying for him wherever he is!