The gift of worms

Today, I am thankful for worms.... why worms?  that is a good question.  Why would one be thankful for something small, slimy, slivery?  For more on worms read "Wiggling Worms at Work" with your kids... we learned how to spot where earthworms are so we could find them. But this time it was not necessary because the worms came to us.  You see I live in a foreign place and am attempting to learn a foreign tongue.  I thought it would be a piece of cake because I love learning other languages and am normally great at it but this has been more work than I expected.  So the other day I was going out in the city for a shoot as I need some pictures for a photography application for an online magazine.  I invited my neighbor to come along.  She and I both love plants and so naturally the conversation constantly goes there.  We talked about how I was making a compost bin and I needed worms to help break it down and make soil for my plants.  Worms are digesters, decomposers...they take organic matter and break it down.  Egg shells, vegetable & fruit peels, scraps of herbs, leaves, old tea leaves, coffee grounds, rabbit droppings... the kids and I collect all these things and put them in a trashcan filled with holes.  While communicating on the crowded train with my neighbor about composting, making organic herbal tinctures for health, how we don't baptize infants because we wait until our children know J3sus the M3ssiah and then they can be baptized,  all those surrounding us listening in were just grinning at my language abilities (really just the lack thereof) one man even jumped in our conversation but my neighbor told him she did not need him to translate because we had a dictionary and we were neighbors so we could understand each other.  Today.... my neighbor showed up at my door with earthworms she had gotten out of the yard for me.  Today, I am thankful for worms because worms signify a good and gracious Father who is showering me with the gift of worms, the gift of a friend in a neighbor who would go out of her way to try and understand me through my inadequate language abilities and my strange ways and would contribute to my compost bin that makes no sense to her because she wants to show me that she cares.  So, worms are a gift!