Supply the Love: Arab Town
Supply the Love: We supply the camera and film and you supply the love! We would love to have you be an ambassador of Print the Love! If you are traveling to an under-resourced community anywhere on the globe in the next year and would like to participate in spreading random photo kindness to the local people, lets chat! Together we can make a difference! Application is online.
The Supply the Love program is 100% supported by donors. If you are not travelling, you can still donate funds towards the camera and film for those who are.
As part of the program, we ask that ambassadors write a short description of their experience. All the words are their own.
Check out other self-trekking ambassadors’ experiences on our blog! Like Katie in El Salvador, Sharon in Haiti, Laura in Israel, Nathan in Puerto Rico, Allison in Kenya, Kelsey in Guatemala, Anne in Tanzania, Dan in Malawi, Krystal in Argentina, Cindy in Haiti, Lea in Cambodia and more!
J in an Arab Town
We, my husband, me, and our three blond children, were driving to a little Arabic town where people are definitely not as wealthy as in the bigger cities. We drive there, just to be a little blessing for someone, handing them a little picture, to print a little bit of love!
We parked the car and walked up to the centre of the village. We didn’t need to go far to see a man outside together with his three children, working hard to get ready for winter. They were carrying big logs of wood up and down the tall stairs, so they would have some kind of heating during the cold winter months.
Our kids were spotted quickly by his kids, the blond faces are hard to miss. And that’s how we ended up chatting with them. The father looked tired, the frown above his eyes explained a lot. This poor family was carrying burdens.
His eyes locked on the camera I was carrying, just as I was about to offer him a little gift, ‘Would you like me to take a picture of you and your children?’, I asked with the little bit of Arabic I know. He smiled and told me ‘Yes, Yes’, and summoned our kids to be in the picture with his family.
As I took the picture, beautiful smiles appeared on all of their faces, which then quickly disappeared after taking it. The kids went back to work, having our kids there to help a bit. We were not invited in, which I could understand. Our kids had noticed hardly any furniture inside, and just some mattresses to sleep on the floor. This really was a poor family, trying to hold on with the things they did have.
After a few minutes the picture was cleared and I wrote a simple: ‘God loves you’, on the white edge of the Instax photo. As I held it out to him and told him it was a gift, he took it and then took at least 10 seconds to dive into the moment of that picture. A smiled appeared on his face, not hearing anything happening around him, locked into the moment. He had joy, probably for the first time in a good while. A smile! That’s all you need, just a blessing, just a little bit of love printed on a picture.
Just then, the call to prayer started, they needed to get ready to walk up to the big mosque on top of the hill. As they were heading there, I was wondering if the words I wrote on the edge of the picture would still echo in his mind, God loves you. I hope, just by this little gift, that this Bigger Love would get more and more space into his heart. By remembering this moment we shared with him, that he would get to know his Creator.
Print the Love – powerful!
