Anyway, we went to this wicked sweet coffee shop in town called the Raven. I’ve been there twice now, yesterday being my second time. I’m pretty sure that it’s one of the most amazing coffee shops ever conjured out of someone’s imagination. If you’re ever in the Port Huron area, you should probably give it a visit… unless you’re here in the morning, then you should go to Sail-Away Café. They have amazing breakfast foods there.
So we were all sitting on the cushy couches that cover half of the second floor of the coffee shop reminiscing on some of our favorite World Race memories when this girl randomly walks over. There was no fear in her really. She had this unconfident boldness that kind of threw me back.
Standing there she said, “you don’t know what the Christian radio station is up here do you?” We all just kind of sat there and looked nervously at one another. None of us really listen to Christian radio… and we heard that the “Christian music” stations suck up here anyhow. We told her we had no idea.
So then she asks us if we knew this particular song that was playing and she prompted herself to sing it… out loud.
Again, I was stunned with her boldness. I would never randomly sing acapella for a group of strangers. We quickly named the song and she sat down, interrupting our entire conversation to tell us how she was so moved by the song she heard on the radio.
And then she gave us her life story.
This was clearly an eighteen-year-old girl who was starving for some Christian community. She works late nights and weekends at the assisted-living home, struggles to get by, and is never able to go to Church services on Sunday mornings. She caught wind of a Christian Bible study at the Raven and I think wondered if we were it.
No worries though – we talked to her for quite some time before we had to leave and she was scheduled to go play the piano and sing songs in the coffee shop. But it just blew me away how thirsty someone could be for community.
I mean, I LIVE in community and most days I’m ready to run from it. But I’ve never thought of how blessed I am to have it, to live in it daily, and to have the opportunity to run from it, no matter how much I want to scream. Haha…
