It's the little things that make quite a difference.

We walked into the stoa of our building yesterday without the usual "Ya-sas!" greeting from our security guard, Mohammad. I realized that that small act of Mohammad greeting us and then walking us to our stairs was something I'd simply come to expect when in reality it's something that I should be simply grateful for. I was also a little disappointed because I've been meaning to get a picture of Mohammad for a post just like this one, but with him not there at 10:00 on a Tuesday morning that meant he wouldn't be in for the day.

Mohammad is one of the many people employed as security guards in Greece. Athens has security guards for every store, every building, every metro station...but these people are more than a physical image of security and order and Mohammad has made me realize that.

Mohammad is of North African descent (Egyptian or Moroccan maybe?) and speaks no English, just Greek and Arabic. He's the new security guard for the building that the ARC occupies and he has really become an unofficial and integral member of our team. When the lines get to long, he handles crowd control in the stoa into the street, when we're moving bags of clothing from our downstairs closet upstairs he hops in line and takes a bag, when I'm carrying a very heavy bag from the Nest (a house for new Christian men just down the street) he happily carries up the stairs for me, he knows that Thursdays are women's showers day and so he brings sodas for all the children, when a drunk man urinates all down the stairs he disciplines and then grabs a mop, when we've had a long day and look very hot he insists we sit in his air-conditioned office for a while before we walk to the metro, and even when he's on vacation (like yesterday) he comes up to tea house and greets the refugees and the staff simply because he wants to.

Mohammad represents the type of person that we wish we could be each and everyday. It's those simple acts of kindness, not asked for, not required, but done out of a genuine desire in one's heart. Mohammad is an immediate image of Christ. There's a reason he's the first person seen when anyone comes to the ARC.