S05E083, Encourage Someone!!! Andy B Minute Video
While away at a festival I tried to buy an ice cream. Someone had given us a gift of some money for our family, so we thought that would be a good thing to do! However, when we got to the ice cream seller they told us they couldn’t serve us unless we could pay cash, as their card machine was no longer working.
I took a quick look and decided it probably lust needed a charge. Right enough I plugged it in and it started working again. 15 minutes later I took it back to her and she was able to carry on trading once more.
It didn’t take a huge amount of effort on my part and, so very often, it costs us little or nothing to encourage someone.
It could be in the form of a smile, or letting them in traffic, or picking up something they dropped, or opening a door and holding it for the person behind us.
What are you waiting for? Encourage someone!
Just a thought...
Andy B
Download
Transcript
[00:00:00] So another Andy B Two Minute Video. Really simple today, Encourage Someone.
[00:00:14] Now the last few Andy B's there've been a bit of a flavor because we're at a festival and that's very much in my mind and on my heart.
[00:00:20] Now, one of the things that I did was I got the privileges chatting with a lady who was running the ice cream stand. Private business, brought into the festival, and she was serving ice creams and I went to buy an ice cream and she said I'm really sorry, I can't, I can't sell you one that the car machine's broken, I don't quite know how to use it apart from, to take money. And I, it is, it's just switched off. I don't know what to do.
[00:00:42] So I said, would you mind if I had a quick look? And I had a quick look at it. And I thought, well, I've got a charger for that. Let's go and charge it up for her so she can carry on training and doing her job. So she was a bit nervous, and a bit reticent, understandably. But I said, look, you know, we are the BerryBunch. That's a my stand over there. It's all good.
[00:00:56] So we charged up this card reader for, and it's, it came to life [00:01:00] and she was able to carry on. As a result of that, she started sharing some of her own journey with me. She was quite upset, and quite down that day, serving lots of people very happy to get an ice cream, but she actually was a bit sad. She's a bit struggling.
[00:01:13] She shared some of that story with me and it was a privilege to hear her talking about her life and some of the things that she's been through, the hardships and the the highs, the lows, retirement covid, how did she get through all that?
[00:01:25] Now, I didn't do anything exceptional. I just took her card reader, saw a port, knew that it could be charged and fixed that problem for her. It was really simple for me to do. and I talk about this many, many times. A lot of the time when we want to help people, when God's calling us to get involved in the lives of others, it doesn't have to be really hard, arduous, complicated, or even a huge cost.
[00:01:45] Took me all of 30 seconds to work out what was wrong with it and charge it up. And 15 minutes later she was able to keep going.
[00:01:51] Where can you encourage someone today?
[00:01:54] Don't think about it too hard. Just Encourage Someone. I always say this, go and smile at someone in the [00:02:00] supermarket when they're serving you. Someone who's stacking the shelves for you in that supermarket. Give 'em a smile, get eye contact. Say hello to them. Most of the time it's a pretty thankless job and they get quite a lot of abusive rude stuff.
[00:02:12] Maybe you're getting some petrol for diesel for your car. Smile at the person behind the till. Let somebody in in a traffic jam. That can be hard can't it sometimes. but there are things that we can do to encourage somebody in a kind of indirect, the car way.
[00:02:24] Or maybe in a direct way, maybe it's a next door neighbor, you know, they're struggling to get their bins out. Encourage them, go and do it for them. Bring it back for them. If they haven't got to. They don't have to be unable to do it. Just show some kindness and show some love.
[00:02:37] Encourage somebody.
[00:02:38] Don't think too hard.
[00:02:39] Just get it done.
[00:02:40] Just a thought.
Andy B, 05/06/2023