Compassion in Action

On our 2nd Senior outing about 2 months ago I observed something that showed great Charity and Love.

Early Saturday morning 10 Senior couples met at the office building for our monthly outing.  We drove over to the dock where we took a 1 hour Ferry ride to downtown Sydney.  We arrived at 9 a.m. excited to see the sights and  shop at the outdoor market and walked along the bay.  We could see the Opera house across from us, it was a little too far for us to walk too.  We all met up at noon at a nice restaurant where you could eat vegetarian or choose your own meat and BBQ over an open pit.  It felt really good to sit and drink cold water and relax as we had been going pretty strong for 4 hours and walking 4-5 miles (and we ARE getting older).

After a delicious meal we walked some more to the dock for our return ferry ride.  We were approximately 30 minutes early with many empty seats on the dock.  We enjoyed visiting with each other and showing each other what we had bought.  As I was listening to one of the Sisters talk I noticed the dock was filling up with people taking  ferry's to various destinations.  I noticed an older gentleman struggling to walk as he passed by our group.  He was limping, and had a pained look on his face.  He soon was out of sight as he walked all the way to the end of the dock.  Shortly I noticed him walking back toward our group.  I supposed he was looking for a seat.  Just then I noticed President Checketts get up quickly, walk over to the elderly man, point to his empty seat next to his wife, and gently usher him over to the seat.  The gentleman took the seat gratefully as we waited another 10-15 minutes for our ferry.

Now the interesting thing is President Checketts is a large man with bad knees and hips.  I know he has had one hip replacement and maybe some knee surgeries.  All the walking we did that day could not have felt good on his aching bones and muscles.  But President Checkettes noticed, maybe because he could relate to this older gentleman's difficulty in walking and  showed compassion towards this man and gave up his seat.

I don't know if anyone else in our group noticed what was taking place as there was so much laughing and talking place.  I don't know if anyone outside our group noticed the kind act.  But I noticed and I was so impressed by the gesture, I am writing about 2 months later.  What a good example President Checketts is, even when no one is paying attention.  I am sure this is something Christ would do.