Kindness and a Canteen
Last week I went to a high school graduation for a friend’s of mine son. I became very close with their family when I spent a couple of months in Spain in 2021. His family are missionaries in Spain and dear friends of mine.
This wasn’t a normal high school graduation. It was for an online Third Culture Kid school. The graduates all came to the United States from all over the world to graduate. Hearing the speeches and the stories took me straight back to when I was a teenager studying online in Brazil.
Towards the end of the ceremony, an elderly gentleman was introduced and brought up to give the commencement speech. I had never heard of him, but that’s not surprising. My friends are part of Assemblies of God and I’m not very familiar with that stream.
This gentleman walked up the podium and began to talk. It was clear that he was a very practiced public speaker and for the second time that evening I was generally moved by someone speaking. It has become very rare that someone speaking on a stage moves or motivates me. But this gentleman, Dr. Richard Foth, did both. Hats off to him.
He gave a simple 15-minute commencement speech. He shared about his own Third Culture Kid experience. He lived in India with his family after the end of the Second World War. His story was nothing like mine, he truly lived in another era and had to be separated from his father for a year and spent 5 weeks on a ship getting from India to Boston. Hard pass. But even though his years in India are a lifetime ago, they have shaped him in unfathomable ways. Just like my years in Brazil shaped me.
Once you’ve lived overseas as a kid, there’s no going back. Your worldview is forever changed.
Dr. Richard Foth went on to talk about what made this small group of seniors different than the other 3ish million seniors graduating in the United States. It wasn’t just that they were TCKs or missionary kids. It wasn’t their unique upbringing, their international worldview, or that they spoke multiple languages.
It was kindness.
He talked about Hesed. I was excited that I actually knew about hesed. My church went through a few books that taught about the power of hesed. It’s a Hebrew word that does not have an exact translation in English. It is love, attachment, kindness, loyalty, care for one another — the list goes on.
He talked about the power of kindness. Everyone else is running around searching for money and power, but those things don’t remain. Kindness and love remain. The connections that you make with people from all over the world out of kindness remain.
He shared a few stories of how kindness and genuinely taking an interest in people, regardless of where they are from, lead to real connections and friendships. Kindness crosses cultural barriers and even religious ones. We can be kind to people who have different views than us and truly love them.
This speech from a man in his 80s reminded me of the power of kindness. It was a much-needed reminder as I often find that I am more angry and ticked off than exploding with kindness. I find myself having arguments in my head, plotting what I would say to certain people if I saw them at the grocery store, and wanting vengeance. But vengeance does not belong to me, does it?
Kindness, love, care for others… those things have lasting fruit. It’s what separates us from others. It’s how we stand out as different. The love of God in me, and you, expressed towards others is light in a dark world.
Dr. Foth shared a story about a young woman who wanted to give food to soldiers traveling through her small town, North Platte Nebraska, on their way to California during World War II. She convinced the army to let each train of soldiers stop for 10 minutes on their way west to get a warm cup of coffee and some food. She wanted those 18-year-old boys scared out of their minds to know that someone cared.
For the entirety of the United States’ involvement in the war, the North Platte Canteen served hot food to 6 million servicemen and women. In the book about the North Platte Canteen “Once Upon a Town”, the writer interviewed some of the soldiers who passed through North Platte Nebraska several decades later. These men in their 70s instantly wept when asked about it. They still remember the care, the hot food, and the hugs and prayers from young women and mothers whom they had never met and would never see again.
The woman at the North Platte Canteen showed kindness to 6 million terrified soldiers. And it stayed with them for their whole lives. A granddaughter of a WWII veteran heard about this story and called her grandfather to ask if he had ever gone through the North Platte Canteen. She didn’t expect much of a response because he had dementia. But as soon as she mentioned the canteen he remembered everything. He remembered the kindness shown to him in the middle of the night as his train stopped for 10 minutes. The kindness he experienced endured in his mind.
I was moved by this story. Kindness really does endure and make a difference in someone’s life, more than anger, more than vengeance, more than disdain or indifference. Kindness to someone in a moment of need can stay with them for the rest of their lives.
They shall know us by our love, not our superior intellect, our ability to argue, our fanaticism, or our intensity — but our love. I want to be known for the love that I show others. It’s way harder than I thought it would be, but it’s a legacy worth striving for I think.
I want to be like those recent high school graduates, known for my kindness.
Photo by Bill Pennell on Unsplash