Peaches revisited

At Margaret's suggestion, I am revisiting my post called "Peaches".  In that entry, I said, "I feel constant guilt and can't even enjoy my peach knowing that other people don't have peaches".
So...
I used to live in a truck while here at BYU. Not just a pick-up, but it was a giant delivery truck. This was before Ryan and I were married, and we vamped it up with a loft bed, flooring, carpet, dressers, solar panels, and sky lights. It was nice. BYU found out and told me that I couldn't live in a truck anymore. That was too bad because I spent all my money I would have used on rent on fixing the truck into a place to live. I knew that it was a possible consequence when I did it, but I thought it was a reasonable risk.
One day after finding out that what BYU wanted, I went over to Ryan's aunt and uncles house to pick up some of his mail and they discovered my situation and made a room for me in their basement and insisted that I live there. They never asked for rent because I couldn't afford it, and it was unclear how long I would be living down there.
I hate to say any of this, but being in a position of such great service and charity made me very uncomfortable. I didn't know them very well, but they love Ryan very much, and I was very scared of overstaying my welcome and making things awkward. It is one thing to accept kindness from a friend when you have other options, but it is another to be so helpless that I could not do something for myself that was so basic as shelter.
Realistically, I could have kept living in my truck or crashed at different friends houses. But to stay at BYU meant finding a reasonable place to live and I couldn't afford any BYU approved housing. It was not a life or death situation, but I was in quite a bind.
That experience was very humbling. Ryan's aunt and uncle are so generous and kind that it didn't take long for me to know that they truly loved and cared about me and that I was not merely a charity project. We became very close.
They never treated me as a service project; but in this entirely foreign situation, in hind sight, I realize that I was worried about being one. Have you heard of (or experienced) people unwilling to accept charity? I never understood that. I thought, "Well why? If someone is willing to give them what they need, they should be grateful and take it."
Okay, but to use a crude analogy, if you couldn't wipe your own butt, and somebody else was willing, then are you thinking "Oh I am so grateful" or are you thinking, "Gee, I would much rather be doing this myself"?
In church youth programs, we would go and do service for people, but I never considered trying to talk or form relationships with the people I was helping. I thought, "Oh, I am helping them so that is enough. I am sure that they are very grateful for what we have done". Maybe people have been trying to tell me this my whole life and I have not been listening, but I feel very strongly that there is a wrong way to do service- which is service without love. I believe that service without love can even become a disservice. If Ryan's aunt and uncle treated me as a foolish, incompetent, pitiful girl, would it have the same effect as what actually happened?
I need to wrap this up, but here it is: service without love is about making ourselves feel better about having what others don't, whether it is time, money, resources, company, whatever. Christ wasn't like, "Ok, these idiots better be so grateful that there is someone divine around here to save them from their sins".
Aren't we all beggars before Christ?

What does this have to do with my field study? Well, instead of hurrying off to different tourist sites and such, I should be open to slowing down and having a genuine interest in the people around me, which may or may not include people that could use my help in some way. And I could start by doing that here in Provo. I should branch out from making friends with students to include people outside my age group, religious affiliation, socio-economic class, and other sub-cultures. Easier said than done, but I hope to spot some opportunities for this and do what I said we should all do.