Marie

I was sitting on a bench at the market waiting to hand out bibles for what seemed to be the right people, unaware that somebody already sat beside me. I noticed at the corner of my eye that she started eating her lunch from a plastic sack, surrounded by large plastic bags that had clothes in it. She was a street dweller by the looks of it. I thanked the Lord. The patient wait yielded fruit. The fish was brought to me.

Conversing with strangers isn't really my thing. I will probably never get used to the massive apprehensions that overwhelm me in waves every time. But once you get the first word out, it always plays itself out, like water pouring into a bottle.

Marie lives on the street. She has relatives in Tarlac but she doesn't know where and how to travel home, let alone raise the expenses to do so. She worked in Hong Kong as a domestic helper years ago, and upon arriving home landed a job at the local mall as a cashier. After some issues with the management regarding coins that didn't tally, she got transferred to a lower department till eventually she was laid off. Her speech was ecstatic, seemingly she doesn't get to talk with another person on deeper things. I patiently tried to open up the gospel to her little by little, carefully choosing my words so she would understand me. I checked if she can read, and made her read the main line of my tracts, which she did. I then asked her to repeat this phrase for me: Jesus Christ is the Son of God. She did with a smile. I often use this to test the spirit inside a person especially if they're bordering between sanity and weirdness. 

For about an hour, the stories shifted in between numerous subjects, from noise to coins to newspaper sizes to some person named "long-hair" who lost his mind to attending mass in a Catholic church to an old pastor she fellowshipped with when she was still a young girl to her noisy cousin who kept annoying her. I kept injecting the topic of Christ and his salvation, and she kept going back to trivial things. I was praying all the time for the Lord to open her up for his name's sake so she can understand. The usual route of presenting the gospel did not seem to penetrate the cloud of confusion around her.

I still tried to tell her God's plan of salvation, about Christ being the sacrificial lamb and that Jesus was the only way to the Father. She had no idea what heaven was, or what hell was. She can relate to being in jail though, so using that illustration helped a bit. Every time I went back to my subject, she strayed to another. I kept pulling the conversation back, but her mind was all over the place. I stayed on my subject, listened intently to her story, and during a short break of silence I simply said, tonight, ask God. Ask God who he is. Ask God to reveal who Jesus is to you. She remembers the fellowship she had when she was young, may the Lord burn these words to her when she's alone tonight. She smiled and asked me to repeat the directions again, and so I did. She responded that she will definitely ask tonight. I asked if she wanted a bible and if she had one if she will read it. She said yes, so I pulled one out and gave it to her. I was both frustrated and disappointed that I couldn't get the gospel through to her. I can't help thinking to myself that this meeting seemed to be a failure. I pinned my hopes on God.

Eventually, my family came back from their errand and I had to leave. I introduced her to my family and she was courteous enough to greet them. I handed her a small portion to buy food with and left. As I'm writing this her face is on my mind, but my spirit is before the throne of God interceding on her behalf.

My consolation:

I like gardening. Not in the professional sense. I used to care for a few bonsai plants before, but buying seeds from the grocery and planting them in egg containers amazes me. I lay the seeds down into the ground. I sleep. I awake. I go through the day and the week. When I look at the containers I see small green leaves sprouting. I do not know how, but I do know that when the seed is laid in the ground it will eventually burst forth on its own. Such a miracle of nature, and a grand illustration of the work of God in the gospel being planted in hearts. 

We proclaim the gospel in a place. We go home. We go through the year. But we do not see how God works the miracle of the seed in the ground of the heart, fighting against all the dirt and the dross that covers it until it bursts forth its bud. Then the leaves. Then the stem. Then it grows. It grows into a plant. It grows into a tree. When you come back to the same place there's already a full grown tree.

I contributed nothing to it becoming a plant. God alone made it grow. I didn't plant it. God did. I simply obeyed to sow.