Now that cafés are open, friends can meet for coffee and enjoy the warm, fresh air. As my husband, Mark, and I recently sat with a local pastor friend, Bob*, to catch up after being apart for three months, a familiar scene unfolded.
A small man, his head down, approached a table at the end of the café. The person sitting there was busy with his phone and ignored the man, who mumbled something, before gingerly placing a small card on the table. After no response from the table’s occupant, he retrieved the card and came to our table.
As I suspected, he was deaf and offering a small trinket in exchange for any coins we could spare. In this case it was a 2020 calendar card with Donald and Daisy Duck on the back—nothing of value, really, but more dignified than outright begging. He mumbled something and hesitantly offered a card to each of us.
Pastor Bob was the first to pull out a coin and place it on the card, sliding both back to the man. This told him that the money was a gift, and he could “sell” the calendar card to someone else. As Mark reached for his coins, he asked the man, mouthing the words slowly, “What’s your name?”
“D-Dan*,” he stuttered, surprised by the question. Mark stood up, and the man shrank back a bit. But when my husband stuck out his hand and said, “My name’s Mark. Nice to meet you, Dan,” tears welled up in Dan’s eyes.
We gave two more coins for calendar cards we didn’t keep. Dan looked around the table from one face to the next. “You must be real believers,” he said. “No one else even sees me. But you looked at me and saw me. Are you religious teachers? You must be. We [deaf people] sense things others don’t, and I can sense that you are godly people.”
Pastor Bob offered to give Dan a Bible, which he gladly accepted. They exchanged phone numbers in order to connect the next day. When Bob stood up, Dan shrank back again. But Bob went in for a bear hug, and again Dan’s eyes filled with tears as we blessed him and told him that God loves him.
As Dan went on his way, he didn’t stop at any more tables. He crossed the street and found a place away from the crowds where he wept openly. This simple act of kindness gave us a powerful reminder of how desperate people are for God’s love and the dignity we can extend to them in His name. Please pray that Bob will be able to continue to share the hope of Jesus with Dan.
*Name changed
by Kathy, an Alliance international worker serving in Europe/Middle East