We made an incongruous couple—the little old lady and I. She, dressed in a thin dress, threadbare shawl over her shoulders, and a scarf covering her head, all three of different fabrics, with her feet shuffled into thick black slippers that were so worn, they were pilling on top like an old sweater. I, in my burgundy pants, bright yellow ski jacket, bright blue shoulder bag, and purple hat with ear muffs to keep me warm in Istanbul's chilly winter, clashing colors yet unconcerned as how warm I felt was of more importance than being a fashion statement at the moment. I stood out; she was lost in the crowd. So lost that I encountered her nearly falling down the incline of the side road we lived off of. I was on my way home after Turkish class, a bag of toilet paper and a paket of cheese pide in one hand, when I passed her. She was struggling to pull a metal cart with a giant bag of recycling plastic strapped firmly onto it. The cart had one wheel; the other was missing. In her right hand she held tightly to a single metal hospital crutch, its screws long gone, a thick white elastic band wrapped around it to keep it together. I hurriedly took the cart from her and asked, "Okay, where are we going?"
She spoke no English; I spoke just a few words of Turkish after 2 1/2 months of class where we mostly learned how to conjugate past, present, and negative statements. I could recite to her the verb endings for I, you, he/she/it, we, you (plural), and they, but I doubted that would be very helpful. So I pulled the cart and followed her as she stumbled down the road.
A moment later, her uncertain feet nearly slipped as the wobbly crutch hit an uneven spot. "Yavash, yavash!" I exclaimed, using one of the Turkish words that had managed to stick in my mind. I hoped dearly I was telling her to slow down, not speed up! She slowed her pace a bit, then picked it up again. I kept in step with her, maneuvering the cart around obstacles along our way, a restaurant sign, a chair, a corner of a building, righting it when the single wheel jammed against the obstacle and tipped the cart sideways. Undeterred, the little old lady kept going, step by determined wobbly step. We went down the incline, across the road, down another road, and turned right. At one point she looked at me and asked who I was. Or at least that was what I assumed as I had no clue what her toothless smile was saying as she peered at me out of her flowered scarf. I summoned up all the words I could muster and said, "Hollandalym. Turk'ce orgenciyim. Yabanci." She was confused, thinking I was from Poland, so I shouted "Hollanda!" at her several times until she finally understood. I knew I had butchered all the tenses but at least I had communicated I was studying Turkish and was a foreigner. That was enough for her and off we went.
After we'd been walking for about 10 minutes, I asked, "Evde nerede?" wondering how much further it was to her house. She pointed up the road aways and continued hobbling along. The thought briefly entered my mind that she could be pretending to be a little old lady and was perhaps leading me down some deserted alley to then attempt to rob me. I didn't have much money on me, though, and decided that if we didn't reach her final destination soon, I could always turn the cart back over to her and be on my way.
Finally, she stopped next to a door and thanked me. Two older men were standing inside. One came out, thanking me also, and began to untie the recycling bag. I promptly forgot how to say goodbye, smiled awkwardly, and turned to go home. As I started to walk back, I wondered how she would get home. Would she do the trip in reverse—wobbling her way home, only this time with an empty cart? The cart hadn't been that heavy; it was just unwieldy to maneuver. Should I have waited to help her back home? I decided I had done my good deed for the day and continued on home.
That evening, when I excitedly recounted my day's adventures to my husband, he promptly reprimanded me. "You shouldn't help people," he said. "People who shine shoes drop their kit on purpose, you go to pick it up, and then someone steals your purse. It happens all the time. What if the lady had fallen on the ground and died? What would you have done then?"
He was right. I'd grown up in an extremely sheltered Adventist bubble my whole life. I'd never lived life in a big city like this where we were on our own. I didn't speak the language and I didn't have a community of friends around me yet. I didn't have any street smarts and I didn't know what to do if I got into a difficult situation. He had a black belt in judo, had lived in big cities most of his life, and knew how to read people while I was a very trusting person.
"But as Christians, aren't we supposed to help people?" I wondered.
"Yes, but you need to be careful," he replied. I agreed. And yet I couldn't forget about the little old lady, hobbling and wobbling along with her cart of recycling plastic. What if that had been my mother? A friend? How would I be able to share Jesus through my actions if I couldn't help others?
It was a question as yet to be answered.
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