Teach a Person to Fish

Everyone's heard the old adage, "Give a person a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a person to fish and he eats for a lifetime."  Well, that actually happened to me while I was building our new home, in a manner of speaking.  We came to a standstill in our construction, when our regular builder wasn't able to handle the electrical work, due to another pressing commitment.  What I knew about wiring at that time wouldn't have filled up half a page in one of those handy home how-to books.  Enter the "teacher."  A friend of ours and a commercial electrician by trade, named Ed, called me up and said, "I heard you're in kind of a jam."  I said, "No, we're in a REAL jam."  He said, "Don't worry about it.  I'll be over some day this week and we'll get it taken care of."  Little did I know that not only was that statement true, but in the process Ed would teach me enough about wiring that I would NOT be dangerous!  He came in and surveyed the situation.  I'd made some initial efforts based on the instruction of our builder, Dan, and with the help of a friend or two, was about 20% done with the wiring.  Ed sized up the situation in about ten minutes, asked me a few questions, and then said, "Here' what we're gonna do--you wire those can lights (there were 21 of them!) and I'm going to get busy laying out everything else."  He showed me how to do the lights (and I would find out later that he checked three or four of them to make sure I had done them right without my knowing it!), and then went to work.  Each time he showed up (usually after having already worked a whole day at his own job), he'd give me more instructions, show me how to do whatever it was we were doing, and then set about doing the difficult stuff himself.  When he left he'd say, now before I come back I need you to...." and he'd give me a list of things I could do, or that he would show me how to do.  Then he'd say, "If you have any questions, call me--anytime."  There were plenty of calls, and every, single time, Ed patiently explained what I needed to do. 

Eventually, there came an amazing moment---I ran a circuit from the sub-panel box in the basement, wired a three way switch to five lights--ALL BY MYSELF--and THEY WORKED!  I called Ed and said, "Ed, I did it!  I wired the basement lights in with a three way switch--and they work!"  Ed said, "I'm happy for you, man. I knew you could do it. And the great thing is he actually DID know it.

Today, is PROM day for thousands of young people in western, PA including our Abby.  Picture time is this afternoon at 3:45 p.m.  At noon I was cleaning up the front porch where we will have "picture time." As I finished up I noticed that the door bell wire was still just hanging there with no button.  Once of those little jobs I haven't gotten around to doing yet. Would I be able to figure out how to wire it myself?  Could the guy fish, without the master fisherman on hand?  I got out the box containing the door chime, the transformer, the button and THE DIRECTIONS.  I looked at the wiring schematic and realized that the chime and transformer were supposed to be located in the same place.  I hadn't done it that way. I had already run wires for the transformer to be in the basement, and the chime in the family room upstairs.  I looked at the diagram again, recalling my understanding of how a circuit works, realizing I was dealing with both low voltage and 120volt wiring, and said, "I can do this!"  I got out the tools, the 14-2 with ground, a rectangular box and headed for the basement.  I decided to put the doorbell on its own circuit just to make it a little more challenging--actually I did it because I didn't want to run off of any of the existing circuits, and I realized that I could also turn the door bell off at the breaker if I want to do that without impacting anything else.  Anyway, In about 1/2 an hour everything was set to turn on the breaker and try out the doorbell.  I turned on the breaker and heard a "humming" in the chime upstairs.  (I didn't think that was good!) When I tried the door bell it worked and the humming stopped for the moment the button was depressed.  I realized the wires weren't exactly right. I went down and changed them without referring to the diagram and NOTHING worked.  Then I looked at the diagram, and realized at once what was wrong.  I rewired it and BINGO--it worked like a charm.

I called Ed on the cell phone.  He said, "What do you need?"  I said, "I don't need anything.  I just called to tell you that even though the door bell wasn't set up the way the schematic that came with it showed it was supposed to be, thanks to your teaching, I put it together anyway." He said, "How'd you do it?"  I explained.  He said, "And?"  I said, "And---It works!"  He said, "I'm proud of you man!"  As I hung up the phone I realized how effective Ed is as a teacher---He DOES wiring as well as anyone.  He can EXPLAIN what he does and what to do as well as anyone--in language that even a novice can understand.  He CHECKS the work his "pupil" does, and ENCOURAGES success.  When I made a mistake he would laugh and say something like, "That's creative. It's not going to work, but it's creative!"  Then he'd SHOW me what went wrong.  Then he CELEBRATED success with me--and continues to do so.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we had teachers like then for our spiritual lives?  The process Ed uses literally ensures that a person can "fish" for a lifetime.  I've taken many of Ed's ways and translated them into how I equip/mentor folks in the ways of Jesus.  Thanks Ed!  You've shown me way more than how to wire a house, and I'll always be grateful for your taking the time to bail us out in our time of need.