Are You Significant?

by Dave Kahle

“My whole life, I was told that we were one of the richest nations on earth, but now I see that we are one of the poorest.  It’s like my whole life has been wasted.”

           That comment marked one of the saddest and most poignant moments of my life. Here’s the story.

           At one point in our life together, my wife, Coleen, and I were foster parents.  Over the years we had 19 foster children of various sexes, races, and physical and emotional disabilities.   One of those was Michael, who arrived in our home as a 17-year-old refugee from Albania, which was then the most closed and repressive socialist country in the world.  Michael had escaped the regime by swimming across a portion of the Adriatic Sea and eventually landing in a UN refugee camp in what was then Yugoslavia. During the time that Michael was in our home, the regime fell Albania and the country opened up. Michael was able to speak with his parents via a phone in the village where his family lived.

           One thing leads to another, and a couple of years later Coleen and I visited his parents in their village in the remote foothills in Albania.  We eventually hosted John, Michael’s 80-ish father, for a couple of weeks in our home. 

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Culture shock is too mild a term to describe John’s experiences.  For example, Albania at that time did not have a single stop light in the country because there was no need for one.  There were no cars; people walked or traveled in oxcarts.  Bringing John to America was like time travel — fast-forwarding him a couple of hundred years. He was overwhelmed and awestruck. The treadmill, for example, was a source of amusement – “Why would somebody walk on it when they could just walk outside?  Silly Americans.” Expressways provided a terrifying experience; air conditioning was a wonder.

           As we escorted him to the airplane that would take him back to Albania, he thanked us, said good bye to his son, and then said, “My whole life, I was told that we were one of the richest nations on earth, but now I see that we are one of the poorest.  It’s like my whole life has been wasted.”

           For years that moment stuck with me like a weight on my heart – every time I thought of it, I felt sad.

           But, in recent years I’ve seen it differently.  John was wrong. His life wasn’t wasted, unless of course you judge your life solely by the amount of material possessions you’ve accumulated. It is true that the socialist government lied to him for a lifetime, and that those lies narrowed his world and prevented him from seeing opportunities he never had.

           But John made the most of the situation in which he found himself.  He was the village elder, and helped his villagers survive in a difficult time.  He and his wife raised two children and instilled a sound character in them, embedding one with the self ... READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE.

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