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It’s a Small World

February

While speaking with a friend recently, he told me he had just spoken with a woman in
Canada and the temperature was 19 below zero. He went on to explain that she was the
customer service rep. for a Fortune 500 company he had contacted about his personal
account. Then, just a few days ago, I had to make a customer service call to another
company and nonchalantly asked the man where he was located. He told me he was
answering from India. I asked if he had heard of Ravi Zacharias, (who was born in India)
the Christian apologetic who broadcasts a radio show, “Let My People Think.” I had just
finished learning about Ravi’s beginnings from his book: “Jesus Among Other Gods”
where he addresses the truth of Jesus and Christianity and the history of Islam, Hinduism,
and Buddhism. I was surprised that Marc, (he told me his name by this time) had not
heard of Ravi Zacharias. So I gave him Ravi’s web site: www.rzim.org, and mine:
www.stonechapelumc.org. But,…the next thing he said floored me!
He had been listening to a woman – but he could not remember her name. I
questioned, “Was it Joyce Meyer?” “Yes,” he confirmed, “it was Joyce Meyer!” We
finished my account transaction with his asking if I would pray for him and we said
goodbye. I was taken aback at just having spoken to a person in India with which I have
so much in common.
Later in the week, I spoke with another representative from a different company. I
asked her location and was disappointed when she said, “Kansas!”
She made the remark that she thought that representative jobs should not be
outsourced to other countries. (Well, I don’t think those jobs should be outsourced to
incarcerated persons because of ID theft.) I can understand the mission of keeping jobs
in the USA, however, I liked the smallness of the world I felt, having spoken to an
unknown from India. How would it be, if we could make calls to citizens in Baghdad
and tell them we are praying for them? If we could call a person where an earthquake
occurred, asking them if they need a blanket, and put it in the mail? I know charities are
aware of our need to feel a bonding and personal letters are sent to us when we donate to
orphanages etc. But I am talking about a one on one contact with another.
Then I think we will adopt the idea that whatever we do here personally, (with our
families, our groups, our churches), in some small way, or even big way, affects others
around the world. I think of Psalm 19:4 (NRSV) “Yet their voice goes out through all the
earth, and their words to the end of the world.” The world is getting smaller because of
communication devices, such as TV and Internet, but the world gets smaller still when
we personally talk to another one on one.