Mendez Family

Some friends came to stay last week on their way through from Albania to Guatemala. They brought us as a gift a plate from Tirana that had a picture of the Albanian national hero, Skanderbeg. With a name like that I had to find out more about him. One of the stories connected with him really made me think. The story goes that on his death bed he gathered his commanders and Albanian nobles, with a last lesson. He called his son Gjon to bring a bunch of arrows and gave the bunch to his strongest worrior to break. The warrior couldn't break them. So Skanderbeg gave them back to Gjon and told him to break them. The child broke them one at a time. At this time he said to his friends, "the arrows represent you, if you are united you are strong, and if you are alone you are weak."

I thought that there is a good lesson in that for all of us. Of course there are many tales and proverbs along those lines - the verse from Ecclesiastes 4 v 12 springs to mind 'A cord of three strands is not quickly broken'. It is such a simple truth yet easily forgotten. How often I find myself struggling away with something on my own without just asking for some help.