It was an unusually cold day for the month of May.
Spring had arrived and everything was alive with color.
But a cold front from the North had brought winter's chill
back to Indiana. I sat with two friends in the picture
window of a quaint restaurant just off the corner of the
town square.
The food and the company were both especially good that
day. As we talked, my attention was drawn outside, across
the street. There, walking into town, was a man who
appeared to be carrying all his worldly goods on his back. He
was carrying a well-worn sign that read, "I will work for
food." My heart sank.
I brought him to the attention of my friends and noticed
that others around us had stopped eating to focus on him.
Heads moved in a mixture of sadness and disbelief. We
continued with our meal, but his image lingered in my mind.
We finished our meal and went our separate ways. I had
errands to do and quickly set out to accomplish them. I
glanced toward the town square, looking somewhat
halfheartedly for the strange visitor. I was fearful, knowing
that seeing him again would call for some response. I drove
through town and saw nothing of him.
I made some purchases at a store and got back in my car.
Deep within me, the Spirit of God kept speaking to me:
"Don't go back to the office until you've at least driven
once more around the square." And so, with some hesitancy,
I headed back into town. As I turned the square's third
corner, I saw him. He was standing on the steps of the
stone-front church, going through his sack. I stopped and
looked, feeling both compelled to speak to him, yet wanting
to drive on. The empty parking space on the corner seemed
to be a sign from God: an
invitation to park. I pulled in, got
out and approached the town's newest visitor.
"Looking for the pastor?" I asked. "Not
really," he replied.
"Just resting." "Have you eaten today?"
"Oh, I ate something early this morning."
"Would you like to have lunch with me?"
"Do you have some work I could do for you?"
"No work," I replied. "I commute here to work from
the
city, but I would like to take you to lunch."
"Sure," he replied with a smile. As he began to gather
his
things, I asked some surface questions. "Where you
headed?"
"St. Louis."
"Where you from?''
"Oh, all over; mostly Florida."
"How long have you been walking?"
"Fourteen years," came the reply. I knew I had met someone unusual
We sat across from each other in the same
restaurant I had left only minutes earlier. His hair was long
and straight, and he had a neatly trimmed dark beard. His
skin was deeply tanned, and his face was weathered slightly
beyond his 38 years. His eyes were dark yet clear, and he
spoke with an eloquence and articulation that was startling.
He removed his jacket to reveal a bright red T-shirt that
said, "Jesus is The Never Ending Story." Then Daniel's
story began to unfold. He had seen rough times early in life.
He'd made some wrong choices and reaped the
consequences. Fourteen years earlier, while backpacking
across the country, he had stopped on the beach in Daytona.
He tried to hire on with some men who were putting up a
large tent and some equipment. A concert, he thought. He
was hired, but the tent would not house a concert but
revival services, and in those services he saw life more
clearly. He gave his life over to God.
"Nothing's been the same since," he said. "I felt
the Lord
telling me to keep walking, and so I did, some 14 years now."
"Ever think of stopping?" I asked. "Oh, once in a
while, when
it seems to get the best of me. But God has given me this
calling. I give out Bibles. That's
what's in my sack. I work
to buy food and Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit
leads."
I sat amazed. My homeless friend was not homeless. He was
on a mission and lived this way by choice. The question
burned inside for a moment and then I asked: "What's it
like?"
"What?" he asked. "To walk into a town carrying all
your
things on your back and to show your sign?"
"Oh, it was humiliating at first. People would stare and make
comments. Once someone tossed a piece of half-eaten bread
and made a gesture that certainly didn't make me feel
welcome. But then it became humbling to realize that God
was using me to touch lives and change people's concepts of
other folks like me."
My concept was changing too. We finished our dessert and
gathered his things. Just outside the door he paused. He
turned to me and said, "Come ye blessed of my Father and
inherit the kingdom I've prepared for you. For when I was
hungry you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me
drink, a stranger and you took me in." I felt as if we were
on
holy ground.
"Could you use another Bible?" I asked.
He said he
preferred a certain translation. It traveled well and was not
too heavy. It was also his personal favorite. "I've read
through it 14 times," he said. "I'm not sure we've got one
of those, but let's stop by our church and see."
I was able to find my new friend a Bible that would do well, and
he
seemed very grateful.
"Where you headed from here?" I asked.
"Well, I found this little map on the back of this amusement
park coupon."
"Are you hoping to hire on there for a while?"
"No, I just figure I should go there. I figure someone under
that star right there needs a Bible, so that's where I'm
going next." He
smiled, and the warmth of his spirit
radiated the sincerity of his mission. I drove him back to
the town square where we'd met two hours earlier, and as
we drove, it started raining. We parked and unloaded his
things.
"Would you sign my autograph book?" he asked.
"I like to keep messages from folks I meet. I wrote in his
little book
that his commitment to his calling had touched my life. I
encouraged him to stay strong. And I left him with a verse
of scripture, (Jeremiah 29:11)-- "I know the plans I have
for you," declared the Lord, "plans to prosper you and
not to
harm you. Plans to give you a future and a hope."
"Thanks;" he said. "I know we just met and we're
really just
strangers, but I love you."
"I know," I said. "I love you, too.”
“The Lord is good."
"Yes,. He is. How long has it been since someone hugged
you?" I asked.
"A long time", he replied. And so on the busy street
corner
in the drizzling rain, my new friend and I embraced, and I
felt deep inside that I had been changed. He put his things
on his back, smiled his winning smile and said, "See you in
the New Jerusalem."
"I'll be there!" was my reply. He began his journey
again. He
headed away with his sign dangling from his bedroll and pack
of Bibles. He stopped, turned and said, "When you see
something that makes you think of me, will you pray for
me?"
"You bet," I shouted back. "God bless."
And that was the last I saw of him.
Late that evening as I left my office, the wind blew strong.
The cold front had settled hard upon the town. I bundled up
and hurried to my car. As I sat back and reached for the
emergency brake, I saw them--a pair of well-worn brown
work gloves neatly laid over the length of the handle. I
picked them up and thought of my friend and wondered
if his hands would stay warm that night without them.
I remembered his words: "If
you see something that makes
you think of me, will you pray for me?"
Today his gloves lie on my desk in my office. They help me
to see the world and its people in a new way, and they help
me remember those two hours with my unique friend and to
pray for his ministry. "See you in the New Jerusalem,"
he
said. Yes Daniel, I know I will.
