We get a list of a few different things. God confirms “blue shirt” to both of us. Shannon gets ‘bank’ as location and God clearly speaks, ‘love the unlovely’ to me.
Off we went, praying our way around Iranga asking God which way to go. Right? Left? Straight? (I’m laughing as I type this thinking back to the time Shannon & I AtL’ed it to a market in Cambodia because we had to buy fruit for an event we were attending and had no directions and no time to get lost. We found it successfully too 🙂
We found ourselves downtown and had some good conversations with people, but nothing that felt like “this is it!”
We decide to head across town to the other bank that we know of when Shannon asked, “hey, wanna go buy that guy some food?” I see a man sitting on a street corner and say, “yeah! lets go hang out with him!”
This guy speaks absolutely zero English. Whatever, that doesn’t stop us. Love is more than spoken words.
We sit with him and spend the afternoon with him. Praying for his body (he was crippled and his feet were sideways and flat from being dragged when he walked with his hands) and figuring out ways to communicate. We bought him fruit and spent time with him, laughing and enjoying the afternoon together.
People were staring at the three of us. A crippled African and 2 mazungos, sitting on a street corner. People came over & asked Shannon and I what we were doing, because in the eyes of most Africans white people are rich and why would they spend their time with the homeless?
I looked up and across the street from us was a local Bank. This guy was wearing a blue shirt. And we are loving the unlovely, the person everyone else has walked by.
This is it.
This is the Kingdom expanding.
Sitting on a street corner, loving the one that Jesus is madly in love with. Making people wonder what the driving force is behind Shannon & myself, and getting to tell them about Jesus when they come over and asked.
