volunteers – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

“When we laugh, our brains release feel-good chemicals that enhance attention, memory, and creativity*”

International students coming in from across the globe, many of them sporting proper names that are both tongue-twisting and truly foreign to the Western ear, elect to adopt names common to North America. From early on Xianghui, aka ‘Paul’, together with his wife and two young sons, endeared themselves to the community. One memorable scene in the life of this electrical engineering student featured a common garden vegetable. It happened on a Thursday at mid-day.

For the weekly FIL (Free International Lunch) for which my wife had pulled together a cadre of Rock Star kitchen volunteers, we rolled out a special feature. Christening it the “English Slang Expression of the Week”, the skit-based treat soon captured the attention of student diners frequenting the downstairs buffet every seventh day.

This Thursday I conscripted our friend Paul to lend his talents in unveiling the day’s idiomatic treasure. Tossing him an unpeeled potato, I signaled to the long sofa with its vinyl black cover resting just inside the room’s entrance.

“Once the students are settled in with their plates of food, just stretch out over there,” I coached Paul who happily complied.

At the key moment, taking up a mic, I directed a sharp glance to Paul who lay there stretched out facing the ceiling – repeatedly tossing the veggie upwards and catching it. “Hey, there, Paul!”

The students all turned his way.

“What is it you are doing over there?!”, I asked in mock surprise.

Paul’s response was perfect, “Oh. . . not much of anything, Jerry. . . just being a Couch Potato!”

It was in such moments that a line from the ministry’s official Mission Statement easily sprang to mind.

(We exist) “to meet practical needs of international students”

The linguistic “pinch of humor” supplied just the right luncheon seasoning.

For the college student suddenly thrust into the streams of an unfamiliar location and culture, it can feel like a whitewater rafter battling turbulence along a Category Five canyon. Sympathetic voices of those who have traversed such currents ahead of them can prove priceless. In the language of Clinical Psychologist Wilson Van Dusen, “Perhaps the most important skill that should be taught to all persons is the capacity to really see, hear, and understand others.”

Such nerve-calming figures might arrive on the scene as volunteers who had previously served in missions service or other cross-cultural vocations. Indeed, lessons gleaned from such informal coaches can sometimes translate to things of life and death! How lucky was I as a twenties-something arrival to Africa, having locals on the ground orient me to new ways of thinking and acting within a different context. Navigating a car along a bustling corridor on the ‘wrong side’ of the road while, poised at a steering wheel affixed to the wrong side of the vehicle carries the potential of posing a risk! Contrasting roadway differences of the American and the British landscape give rise to humorous – and terrifying – tales.

The task of orienting our new international students did not just fall to American welcomers. To our real pleasure, a student or two from abroad – who had by now stacked up some cultural mileage in adapting to Tulsa life – sometimes showed up to lend aid.

“Remember this point. . .” The university upperclassman from Hong Kong paused a moment for emphasis as she served up nuggets of wisdom to a handful of new arrivals. . . “Keep it in mind, that words displayed on a sign along a sidewalk do not always mean what you might think”.

“When you see a sign along a city street announcing SUBWAY, please do not look for stairways leading you underground. No” (here she raised both arms toward an imaginary placard), “it is only a sandwich shop”.

Tag: volunteers

Aha Moment

In Other Words