The seven of us piled onto three twin-sized beds in our bedroom and nestled into the covers. We were staying with a house-church on the outskirts of Tirana, Albania. We had just finished a time of individual listening prayer and were coming together to talk about anything we might have heard, felt, seen or learned.
Everyone took their turn discussing what they felt like the Lord was speaking- what he might have us do or say, what he might want to encourage us with or teach us, or what Albanian city he might want us to move to next.
One of my teammates, Louise, mentioned that during her prayer time, she had a vision. She acknowledged that she paid particular attention to it because God had never spoken to her in this way before; which caused her to doubt and question whether or not what she saw meant anything.
She saw a man who had sores all over his body. As she studied him, she noticed he wore a sleeve covering his right arm, as if to protect these sores.
We didn’t quite know what to think about this except that maybe we would cross paths with someone who had sores and needed prayer.
A few days later, my teammate, Rachael and I caught a bus into Tirana. We had a couple meetings scheduled with prospective future World Race partners. After our successful meetings, we decided to treat ourselves to Cinnabon before heading home.
Immediately after grabbing our Cinnabon, we hurried to the bus stop. We didn’t want to miss the bus and wait another 30 minutes in order to catch the next one. Once we were there, we quickly realized that the bus was not coming for another 15 minutes because we went to a station that was further into the bus route.
We stood there waiting and people-watching, as lunchtime traffic whizzed by, when I noticed a man slowly hobbling up the asphalt. He stood in the middle of busy traffic, making his way from car to car.
He used a single crutch, as he had a severe disability that hindered his capability to walk. His head hung low from his neck, almost parallel to his hunched back. It appeared as though he could not straighten his body.
My heart began to break for him as he drug his weak leg and shuffled from vehicle to vehicle, with zero attention from passerby’s.
No one would look at him.
No one showed him kindness or compassion.
I noticed that I had a hard time looking at him. In order to ease my own discomfort, I turned around and hid behind the bus stop awning. I thought to myself, “If I stop looking and don’t acknowledge him, I won’t have to hurt.”
I also thought that it would be a good idea for Rachael to offer her to-go cinnamon roll to the man; because, I of course, had already eaten mine. A few seconds after thinking this, she asked me if I thought it was a good idea for her to give her Cinnabon to him. I was relieved that she too had this thought, because I didn’t want to ask her to involuntarily give away her food.
I agreed and told her I would go with her to deliver it.
We made our way down the street to cross to the other side. As we approached the man, I could see how much worse his condition was up close. Rachael walked onto the street to hand him the bag of food.
Immediately, I knew that I wanted to pray over him, right there, on the side of the busy road, in front of everyone. But how was I going to let him know I wanted to do this? He didn’t speak English.
Once he received his bag of Cinnabon, he staggered towards my direction.
Quickly I asked, “English?”; to which he nodded with a no.
I wanted to ask for his permission to pray for him. He stood in the road looking at me with his doubled over frame and weak balance. I decided to use make-shift sign language to get my question across. I pointed to myself, then made the prayer-hands gesture and then pointed to him, as if to say, “I pray for you?”
He nodded yes and collapsed to the curb.
Rachael and I knelt down beside him.
His shirt was not put on properly, as he couldn’t lift one of his arms, leaving part of his body exposed. In his exposure, I could see that he was covered in sores. I could see that these sores traveled across his body and he wore a sleeve on his right side to protect his impaired arm.
He was the man Louise had seen in her vision!
I wondered to myself how many people were scared to touch him, and it broke my heart to imagine what it would be like to live with a condition that makes others scared to come near you.
It made me upset that people (myself included) reject others, knowingly and unknowingly, like this. So, boldly I laid my hands on him. I didn’t want to be one of those people. Even if for a short moment, I wanted him to feel accepted, loved, cared for and harmless.
Rachael and I began to pray.
The Holy Spirit gave me so much compassion for this man. As I prayed, my spirit was leaping with grace, sorrow and tenderness towards him.
When we were done praying, I realized that he would not know by whose authority we prayed in. He would not know in whose name we came.
Immediately, I remembered that I knew a phrase in Albanian. When I was in Macedonia, during month one of the World Race, I randomly chose to learn the phrase, “Jesus loves you” in Albanian. I knew with this phrase, he would know who we represented, whose name we carried.
Once we were done praying, I leaned in closer and said, “Jezusi te do ty!”. He looked up at me, smiled, and said, “Amen.”
In that moment I was so thankful I learned that phrase. I was excited that I was able to use it in such a valuable moment.
Rachael and I stood up and left him sitting there on the curb, hungrily eating his Cinnabon. Once we made our way back to the other side of the road, our bus arrived.
As we drove away and headed home, I couldn’t get him off of my mind. I couldn’t help but begin to cry every few minutes thinking about him. I wondered if he had any friends. I wondered where his family was and if they helped take care of him. I wondered what invaded his thoughts. I wondered how painful it must feel to be in such a situation. I wondered if he felt alone.
Whatever the case may be for all of these flying thoughts, I hope that for just a few minutes, he felt loved, clean and accepted by us.
