A Rant

If you don't want to read the babblings of someone who is upset about something, please stop reading here.

In case you don't know, I live in a small town just outside of Lincoln, NE.  Our town doesn't have anything historically significant that sets it apart from other small, rural towns.  About five years ago, the pork industry boomed and Farmland decided to build a processing and storage plant just a half mile out of town. And this is where the story picks up...

The residents of our town were happy because they had good employment and a second subsequent plant opened (Nestle/Purina--dog and cat food makers).  They paid better, had better benefits, etc.  Naturally, a lot of the Farmland workers migrated to Nestle/Purina leaving a gap out at Farmland.

Farmland decided to hire illegal immigrants and long story short, five years later, our small, rural community is (at best estimations) 1/3 hispanic.

That is why I'm writing this.  Not because I'm racist.  On the contrary, I am extremely upset at the people of our community who do not accept the Hispanics.  You can see the racism everywhere.  People mock them behind their back, they give them the "leftovers" instead of the freshest products.  It's terrible.

If I had a solution, I would share it with you, but I don't.  This is a world-wide (yes, world-wide) problem.  So what are we to do?  Love.  Love is the trump card in this game.  If we can't love people we (sometimes) can't communicate with, how will we ever show love?

Here's an example:  At work, we frequently (and when I say frequently, I mean about half) get customers who know little to no English.  They can say "One pound" in a thick accent which can barely be understood even by themselves, but you can tell what they want when they point and use their fingers to indicate how much they want.  A couple of my coworkers play this terrible "game" where they just repeat what they said until it becomes funny to them.  When that dies down, they'll roll their eyes, and sluggishly give them what they ordered.  At the first sign of wrong doing (on the employees part) everything the customer does is seen as an act of terrorism.

"I can't believe they won't even learn enough to get around."  I heard one of my coworkers say that today.  It set me off because I know exactly what it feels like to not know what you're actually saying.  You place yourself at the mercy of the employee to ensure that you get a rough estimate of the picture you have in your mind.  It's tough.  I remember asking for 500 pieces of gummys...when I actually wanted 50.  The shopkeeper (in Morocco) laughed WITH me and happily gave me what I ordered.  I couldn't understand a word he said, but his expressions said, "I can tell you're learning, and this is how I'm going to help...by giving you exactly what you ordered."  I quickly learned to annunciate (and study more) because he encouraged me to do better.  Imagine if he would have rolled his eyes, expressing, "Ugh, look at this obvious foreigner.  Why can't he learn the language before he gets here?  Can't you see you're wasting my time?"  If that would have happened, would I be more encouraged to learn more Arabic?  No.  Would I just never go there again?  Probably.  As much as America is not a "face-based" culture, we are.  It's called our fragile ego (for a lack of better term, any suggestions?)

Ok, that's enough ranting for now.

On a happy note, things are going well.  I'm actually thinking of doing some writing.  I have a couple different ideas, but I still need to do some praying if I'm going to invest some serious time into it.

That's it for now.  If you haven't already checked out the church's website, you can do so here:  www.radiantsprings.com
We're going to (and already have) post pictures of every event we host and have a part in.

Enjoy!

-Ryan