Last month, I was driving through our little town and passed a man standing beside the road.
I knew him as soon as I saw him. Standing there by the bus stop sign. Baggy clothes, obviously purchased from a
local thrift store, dark beard, olive skin....
I knew him but I drove right past him.
I had places to be. I got a
hundred yards down Main Street and felt the Spirit tap me on my
shoulder. “Go back!” But in disobedience I complained.
“He’s probably in a hurry. Or he’s probably on the bus by now. Or maybe he’s Cuban.” “Go back!”
So, I navigated back and pulled into a restaurant parking
lot beside the bus stop and rolled down my window. “What in the world should I say? How do I engage him?”
There’s a refugee resettlement office in my town and I knew
he’d come to our city as a refugee. So I
called out to him. “Hello!” waving at
him. He smiled. It was an apprehensive, wary smile but a
smile nonetheless. I drive this
redneck, old pickup truck, had on work clothes and a camouflage ball cap so
when I pulled up and rolled down my window he probably thought I was going to
kill him.
“Do you know where World Relief is?” World Relief is the name of the refugee
agency. He walked toward me, fear
leaving his face. He pointed to my left
and said, “See Ford?” (There was a Ford
dealership sign a half mile away.) He
then pointed past it, made a right-turn gesture with his hand and said, “World
Relief” exhausting all the English he had.
So, I greeted him in Arabic and asked him his name. After picking his jaw off the floor, Abu Mujd
shared that he and his family of four had just arrived in the States, from
Idlib. I asked about life in America and
his family back in Syria. Then I said,
“Welcome to your new home my new neighbor.”
This man, who had lived through and personal experiencing some of the
worse things you can imagine, had seen the very worst of his fellow mankind.
This conflict-hardened man began to cry.
All it took was someone speaking a kind word and welcoming him to his
new home.
