Opportunity to Serve...

Today, after already having a big day at work, and knowing we still had several jobs to go before we could knock off, we were understandably quite tired. We’d just left the Electrical Wholesalers (again) and had come to an intersection at the crest of the hill. Dad indicated to turn left, which would have easily merged us onto a busy main road. Just over the crest, on the road opposite ours, I spotted an elderly man who was standing beside his scooter, and he clearly looked flummoxed.

I nudged Dad, and pointed out the old fellow. He looked over, looked back at the easy-to-navigate intersection (had we continued the way we were going) and stifling a sigh, he said we’d better go help.

Then we were stuck at the intersection for ages, trying to go straight across (no street lights) J

When we finally made it across, Dad quickly parked as I lept out of the truck. (In the process, deeply gouging the back of my leg on the corner of the truck door) The older gentleman was struggling with his scooter, his pants, and he was halfway out on the road. I was quite concerned that he’d get skittled if we took much longer.

I rushed up to him, and gently taking his arm, I asked if we could assist him. He said his scooter had just stopped working, and he was concerned that the battery was flat. I offered to push his scooter home, if that was the case. He looked at me as if I was a bit kooky, and said his house was up near the water tower. (*inward sigh* The water tower was a good 1.5kms away, and it was very hot!)

‘Still,’ I said, ‘We’ll make sure you get home safely.’

By this time, Dad had caught up with us, and kindly assisted the old fella with his daks, as his suspenders had gotten caught on a lever on his scooter when he was getting off it to see what the problem was, and had unhooked his suspenders, and the poor fellow was having the devil of a time trying to keep his pants up J Dad was joking with him about how it was an electric scooter and we were electricians, so of course we could fix it! (No way!! We don’t work on scooters!! That would be like working on washing machines or dryers – yuck!)

While Dad helped him out, I was searching the scooter for the brake release (luckily I’d had some training from when we’d inherited Grandad Bull’s scooter) and with that, Dad came back and fiddled with the key.

Suddenly, it started up again (and was a really fast scooter = scooter on steroids!) and we helped the older man to get it across the road. He was worried about it conking out again, and that it wouldn’t make it up the steep incline to the footpath. But Dad assured him that it would work, so the old guy hopped on and away he went J

*high five* to us!

Mind you, old guy didn’t even look back – but he had already thanked Dad for helping him with his shorts…

And thus, you never know when the opportunity to serve will occur J We received a wonderful feel-good feeling for having completed this service, and the older fellow got home out of the burning hot sun, so it was a win-win situation J