The 1 person you should never help.

According to the Bible, we’re supposed to love our neighbor and our enemy. Yikes, that seems like it covers everyone. Who isn’t in one of those two categories? The pressure! The pressure!

Fear not, though. I found someone you should never love or help. In fact, a whole category of people. I actually got an email from one of them the other day. The email address was oncall4Jesus@yahoo.com. Definitely a neighbor, not an enemy. The subject line of the email was “urgent,” and being a helpful Christian myself, I immediately opened it. I was shocked at what I discovered inside, and I thought it might be good to break down the email in case you ever get sent one like this. Here is the actual text of the email and my thoughts:

I really hope you get this on time.

(Don’t worry, oncall4Jesus, I did get it on time. Proceed, with urgency.)

I didn’t tell you about my visit to Spain with my family for a short vacation,

(Kind of bummed about that right off the bat. You think you know someone and then they jaunt off to Spain with their family without even letting you know.)

but unfortunately we were robbed at the hotel where we lodged along with other folks.

(What??!! Oh no! Not only did they get robbed, they started using “lodge” as a verb, as if that’s common. Good thing that, like every other hotel on the planet, there were “other folks” staying there.)

We didn’t bring our phones and the hotel telephone lines were disconnected during the incident.

(What kind of Ocean’s 11 heist was this? In addition to robbing you, the cat burglars went to the trouble of disconnecting the hotel phone lines. As the Spanish and Bart Simpson say, “Ay Caramba!”)

So I have access to only emails.

(Thank goodness the thieves did not mess up the wifi at the hotel. That was their first mistake. George Clooney would have.)

Please I’m going to need some sort of loan from you for us to relocate to another hotel close to the embassy

(Smart move, oncall4Jesus. Get the embassy involved. I’ve seen enough movies to know that’s the first thing you want to do when you’re up against a Spanish thievery ring. And loan? It’s kind of you to even use that word, that gives me the sincere assurance that this money will be paid back promptly. But, as we both know from Romans 13:8, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”)

and also to get another flight ticket.

(Is that what they’re selling now in Spain? “Flight tickets?” Oh the miracle of flight, now finally available. The Wright brothers would be thrilled, if they weren’t currently lodging in coffins.)

Those thieves made away with our credit cards as well which is why this can’t be resolved instantly.

(Credit cards too? Those rapscallions! Is there anything they did not take? They stole your money and your credit cards, but they can never take your freedom! Not as long as flight tickets are available for purchase. As a Dave Ramsey guy, I personally think those thieves did you a favor by stealing your credit cards. You were being robbed by the credit card companies already, but we’ll talk about that over lattes when you get back!)

We have been to the Embassy and the Police here are not helping issues at all and our flight leaves tomorrow.

(I appreciate you capitalizing “Embassy.” Your earlier lowercase made me nervous. They’re not helping now? I’m confused why you wanted to move your hotel closer to them then, but what do I know. And the police? I’ve seen Taken a number of times. You’re better off throat chopping your way across Europe than you are trying to work with the international police. As far as your flight goes, did the thieves steal your flight tickets as well? Surely you did not go off on this secretive Spanish vacation without buying a return ticket? That’s just like you oncall4Jesus! Fly all the way to Spain on a one-way ticket, and then hope against hope that you do not run into a band of Andalusian marauders.)

Please, Let me know if you can help us out? I’m looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Jean

(Jean! Oh, for a second I was hoping that your name would help me remember if this was coming from the husband or wife of this stranded family. But that name is perfectly in the middle. Sure, most male Jeans are spelled “Gene,” but it could still go either way. Curses Pat, Chris, Jordan, Jesse, Kelly! Can I help? of course! But first let me say how fortunate it is that the thieves did not take your passports when then they were stealing your money, your credit cards, and flight tickets. That would have been a real pickle.)

At the end of the day, I wasn’t able to help Jean. Upon further review, I started to feel like maybe Jean wasn’t being completely honest with me.

So there. There’s at least one person on the planet we don’t have to love or help.