Chocolate Factory

During the summer I journeyed with a friend to Germany to work in a well-known chocolate factory. However, we were given a very cold welcome by the 400 employees. One woman was particularly grumpy towards me. One day, she committed a big mistake that could have been very costly for her.

Instead, when the section manager arrived, without hesitation, I took the blame for that mistake. Severely reprimanded, I was told that it could cost me my job if it happened again. Yet I was happy: I had done it for Jesus in her. That gesture impressed my colleagues. From then on the atmosphere at work changed; we began to treat each other more cordially and, when the time came to leave them, it felt like leaving a real family behind.

(Krisztina, Romania)

At the Supermarket

I went over to the usual supermarket to pick up some things for a supper with thirty boys at our house, and since I would be busy at a meeting for a few days, I thought I would buy many things in one trip so I could then stock them at home. As I was piling the groceries onto the check-out counter, I noticed the woman behind had only a few items. I let her go first. Behind her was an elderly woman with ten tissue boxes, whose husband had gone to get a case of water.

When her husband came, I also let them go ahead of me. After my items had been punched, I began filling up my many shopping bags. In the end, the cashier handed me the receipt and told me: “Today you don’t have to pay anything!” I thought it was a joke. So the cashier asked me my name. “Chiu,” I said. Then, I heard over the loudspeaker: “Today, Miss Chiu has won 107 dollars!” I never imagined something like this would have happened to me after I loved my neighbors behind me in the queue!

(Chiu, Hong Kong)

Grocery Stores

I run a grocery store and so I’m used to the commercial world where profit comes first – not the customer. One day however, I met several Christians who try to put Jesus’s commandment of love into practice. I thought: if they can do it, why can’t I? The next morning I thought: I don’t want to go on weighing the goods with two heavy pieces of cardboard lining the shopping bag; from now on, I’ll only use a light piece of paper. Then I felt such a great sense of joy and freedom, I had discovered that loving opened up new horizons to me.

(Beppino, Italy)