One Small Step

You may recall that when I first arrived in Naples, I took a four week, intensive language course. About half our class were NATO / U.S. Navy spouses, one of whom was a lady attending a church we'd planned to visit. She recommended the church, we visited our first available Sunday, and we loved the church. We've been attending ever since. I also got the chance to meet her daughter, Betsy, who was finishing up high school and also taking Italian language classes, although much more advanced than ours! Betsy is now in Kenya, doing missions work with children. One of her projects is beginning a library for the children, many of whom have never held books or know what a library is. Here is a link to her blog that describes the project. She needs books donated from an Amazon wishlist she created (on her blog) in order to get this up and running. Being such a reader myself, I love anything to do with passing on a love of books and reading. If any of you feel called to donate a book, I encourage you to visit Betsy's blog, click on her Wishlist link, and donate a book. Once you've added a book (or a few!) to your cart, just click on "change shipping address," and select "Ship to Scott Ingalls" (her parents' address). I love Betsy's ideas for encouraging the kids to read and the reward system she's worked out - so inspiring!

I have a book on my Kindle (that I've yet to read) with the premise of "do something." I love the idea, which is basically, we can't all make the big steps, but small steps added together lead to big changes. I've written about how living here can, at times, lead to feelings of insignificance. The sheer volume of history and knowledge of all those who have walked the very same steps before me is just overwhelming. And the problems of the world seem so vast. Sometimes, those vast, sweeping issues can result in the feeling that one, small person can't really make a difference. But all of us make a difference, in ways we can never imagine and may never know. All it takes is one small step.