"What does 'islands in the stream' mean?"
"Dos islas, en el río. Like two people who love each other. They will never part. Got it?"
I'm talking to Alberto, a construction worker from Honduras. It's 98 degrees in Raleigh and I'm the driver of Alberto's lunch truck. He chooses a Pepsi and a bag of peanuts, tells me about his weekend in English and moves on.
"I'll-see-you-to-mor-row" he calculates and gives a wave. Alberto is enthusiastically teaching himself English by way of Kenny Rogers, Dolly Partin and Johnny Cash and most days has an obscure lyric to double check with me.

I am January. I'm 26. I can help Alberto because I'm bilingual and even have a degree in Spanish. Too bad that teaching in a school just isn't for me. I went the corporate route and felt the same way, though. I think it's the call of the entrepreneur and artist.
I made a decision to step down from any corporate job three years ago. Because of this, I've had many odd jobs and some pretty funny stories to tell about them. I've been a nanny to five wonderful kids and their parents, a court interpreter, a personal cook, a journalist, a private teacher, a fitness trainer and wedding planner.
I've also been a driver of a truck that serves construction site employees. I drove a 'roach coach.' It was this job, though that brought me closer to God. What I came to find was that there are still so many people who are seeking compassion, direction and hope, and who don't know Jesus.
It may have been the sheer number of people that I came in contact with, or the vastly different personalities of the boss and I. Or it could have been my realization that while I was standing there next to that lunch truck in the middle of a windy, dusty, dirt lot was that I probably did not embody that which my parents had in mind for their daughter. At least professionally. I made it my mission to regard my position with pride and to be a person whom God can use to affect the lives of those around me. I loved [most] every minute of it. Then I got fired. One day I'll recall for you the characters and relationships of this story. On the route of lunch truck girl.