I took a man night for myself on the Saturday Ryan was out of town. I went to a local fight night and met a guy there from Sweden who was traveling alone. We talked about punk music, boxing, seeing friends waste away in addiction, and countless other shared experiences. Although Tom is an atheist, I immediately felt he was a kindred spirit. I bought him a beer, for which he seemed very grateful. He seemed grateful not for the beer, but simply the gesture of kindness.
He invited me to come surfing with him the next day and said he was gonna try hitchhiking to the beach. I was apprehensive and replied with a maybe. The next day, I felt I should follow up. I walked into his hostel after church and he greeted me immediately. The girls prayed safety over me, then Tom and I set out to find ourselves a ride. We were picked up by the second car driving by. It went all the way to the beach. I spent that day surfing and discovering more of our shared ideals.
As the day was closing Tom joked that his friends at home would never believe he had such a great time with a missionary. I suggested he open the story everytime with, "So I met this missionary at fight night…" With a laugh, he said he surely would. As we approached his hostel, he mentioned a raw vegan restaurant that he wanted to try.
Two days later, our team was walking around setting up dinner plans. They wanted to try the raw vegan place too, but it was closed. We happened to run into Tom walking in the street. We made plans to meet him the next night for dinner at the restaurant.
The next day our team hiked up a hill to a Jesus statue overlooking San Juan Del Sur. Tom joined us for dinner that evening. As we prayed over the food, he mentioned it was the first time he'd experienced that. During dinner together Tom mentioned that he wanted to make the hike to the statue he'd seen up on the hill. I offered to lead the way for him the next day and invited any of the team to join us. He was grateful to have a guide and some company to make the hike. Our team picked up the tab for dinner and Tom again expressed his appreciation.
That next day, Katrina and I set out to walk with Tom up to the statue of Jesus on the hill. Along the way, we shared many ideas of the universal nature of spirituality to seek peace with the great unknown. It was a wonderful blessing to find so many similarities in our quest for understanding.
The day after that, the three of us went surfing together. The waves were much rougher the second time, but we continued to enjoy what seemed to be very deep conversations of universal spirituality and it's applications in our lives. One of these conversations was overheard and then joined by a woman named Sara.
My experiences with Tom were some of my greatest joys during this month. It was an incredible reminder that we are all the same, regardless of how we try to fathom existence beyond our reasoning. Thank you Tom for sharing a part of your journey with me.
