In Colombia, people typically greet women with a hug and a kiss or two on the cheek (or in the air at least somewhere close to your cheek). Now for me and my team, this is not what we are used to at ALL. After church on Sunday, one of our new friends, Lennon, even pointed out after he greeted Paxtyn and me that he can tell we aren’t used to it because we tense up when it happens. We had a good laugh and he asked how we typically greet people. We launched into a very detailed and highly technical explanation of the awkward side hug or the, “I don’t really know you that well but you went for the hug so I guess I will too” sort of hug and of course, the handshake. We explained that when you meet someone new, it is typical in the US to shake their hand. It is a sign of respect. Then, all of a sudden, a powerful memory came surging back into my brain of, you guessed it, a handshake I had recently experienced.
It was late Wednesday night at Aguapanela, our weekly night handing out bread and a warm drink to the homeless. I was moving down the line handing out cups in the rain. Many people stick out their hands for the cups or ask for a cup. I received a few mumbled greetings as well as several expressions of thanks or blessings and even a bit of small talk. But then, one man did something different, something that was so simple yet so powerful at the same time. He reached out his hand, much like everyone else, but after I handed him a cup, he reached out his hand again and shook mine. It struck me not because this was entirely unexpected but rather because it was so… well, normal.
Being in a foreign country, you tend to seek out things that are normal or comfortable, things that are familiar to you. I never expected to find normal out on the streets surrounded by the homeless but I did. And as soon as it happened, it was over and I had moved on without another thought until Sunday when that memory resurfaced.
Why did God want me to revisit this memory? Why did it matter that a homeless man had greeted me in a way that was normal?
It mattered because so often, we don’t think of the homeless as normal.
As much as I don’t want to admit it, and I don’t think I am alone in thinking this, I often think that homeless people are somehow different than myself or others. They must have messed up somewhere or done something to end up homeless. I get uncomfortable when I stop my car at a light and someone is holding up a cardboard sign out my window. I try not to make eye contact because I simply don’t know how to react. God showed me that this man I met on the streets of Medellín is normal. He is a human being with thoughts and feelings, talents and fears, a person who is treasured by the same God who loves me. He is a person who has undoubtedly fallen on hard times or who maybe cannot even remember any good times in his life. He is a person who has probably experienced horrors beyond my darkness nightmares. But, He is a child of God.
He is my brother in Christ.
He is my equal and deserves to be treated with dignity and love. Knowing that Jesus died on the cross for not only my sin but for the sin of EVERYONE (this includes the homeless), how could I not love this man? How could I let feeling uncomfortable stand in the way of treating another human being like a human being? How could I avert my eyes or stare at the ground when a person who is hurting and who desperately needs love stands right in front of me? I have let my fear control me for so many years but one gesture, a gesture so familiar in a place so full of the unfamiliar, broke through that fear. A simple handshake was all it took to change everything.
Sometimes God uses the simplest of things to teach us great lessons.
