Last Sunday night, 11pm.
I stood on the corner by our hotel watching taxi after taxi pass hoping that the taxi containing my teammate’s forgotten things would pass again so that we could stop it. I stood there watching the taxis in hopes that I would see the familiar face, with no luck. In the in between moments when no taxis were passing, I watched the people. I saw people that I recognized. I smiled and said hello to some of them.
10 minutes passed. I began to feel like I was noticing many more people than were noticing me. I was wearing a bright pink shirt and blue pants- even in the dark, I kind of stood out. I looked to people’s eyes to try and make eye contact, but people would quickly divert their eyes. If they looked at me, I would smile and they would look down at their shoes. Maybe two people smiled back. This was a busy corner- there were probably 10 or 15 people passing me each minute…
15 minutes passed. I felt like I had become part of the scenery. People stopped acknowledging that I was there. I noticed more and more white men with Asian women- men that were treating those women as property. I looked at the women’s faces and smiled if they looked at me, but many of them blankly looked passed me.
20 minutes passed. A man passed on a taxi bike with an open seat. He smiled and waved. I said hello and asked how he was. He said fine, offered me a ride, and when I turned him down, he continued on his way. He was the first person to notice I was there in about 15 minutes. Minutes later, a man rounded the corner and bumped into me. He kept walking without even knowing that he had bumped into me.
30 minutes passed. A little girl that was selling gum rounded the corner and made a b-line for my teammates that were sitting on the corner opposite of me. She was maybe 8 years old and was holding her baby sister. She didn’t notice me as she rounded the corner but after talking to my teammates, she saw me. She walked over to ask if I would buy some gum. Her name was Boh and she and her baby sister were both beautiful. I hugged her and chatted with her and eventually bought some gum. She smiled and giggled and continued on to the restaurant behind me to sell to the customers- most of which looked past her as she approached their tables.
35 minutes passed. A boy with Down syndrome, also selling gum, approached me but did not notice me. He was probably 13 years old. I waved and said, “Hi!” His face lit up and he ran toward me. I gave him a high five and he took off skipping down the road.
45 minutes passed. The rest of my teammates returned.
In the 45 minutes that I stood on that corner, only about 7 people acknowledged that I was there… It made me think about all of the people that sit on the streets every single day selling things or begging. They spend their whole days going unnoticed by the majority of people that walk past them.
Imagine how you would feel… Imagine blending into the scenery to the point where people walk right into you. Imagine spending your days actively talking toward people that don’t even see you. Imagine the loneliness. Imagine how forgotten you would feel…
I started thinking a lot about Jesus as I was standing on that corner. Jesus reached out to the people that felt forgotten. He touched people that other people wouldn’t touch. He saw people that other people didn’t see. He loved people that most people didn’t love. He gave hope to people that had lost all hope- and He is still giving hope to the hopeless. He called us around the world to give us His eyes and His heart for His people. He challenges us every day to make the choice to be more like Him and treat people the way He would treat people. He lived by example for us and with us.
I am thankful that Jesus stood me on that street corner for 45 minutes. I am thankful that people passed me without seeing me. I am thankful that people walked into me as if I wasn’t even there. I am thankful that through those 45 minutes, Jesus gave me a clearer understanding of the people around me every day. I am thankful that He showed me that all of the waves and hellos that I share as I walk the streets in every country are not in vain. He showed me in those 45 minutes how a simple “hello” or a simple wave makes a person’s heart jump. They make a person feel loved and noticed.
And in the simple moments such as those, God gets glory.
We can walk through life oblivious to what’s going on around us. We can choose to look past the people on the streets. We can choose to ignore a vendor as they approach us. We can choose ignorance as bliss…but if no one notices, nothing changes. If no one takes that step to love someone without reason, love has nowhere to spread. This isn’t just a lesson for a foreign place- this is a lesson for at home too. There are so many people that feel overlooked and if our motivation, our push, our drive in this world is to live more like Christ, it is our responsibility to notice people. It is through noticing that hearts change. It’s through noticing people that relationships form and conversations start. From a simple smile or wave, we are spreading Jesus’s message of love by example and preparing people’s hearts to know Him and understand His story.
