(from Chicken Soup for the Soul - A 3rd Helping)

It was an unusually cold day for the month of May. Spring
had arrived and everything was alive with color. But a cold front from
the north had brought winter's chill back to Indiana. I sat with two
friends in the picture window of a quaint restaurant just off the corner of
the town square.

The food and the company were both especially good that
day. As we talked, my attention was drawn outside, across the street.
There, walking into town, was a man who appeared to be carrying all his
worldly goods on his back. He was carrying a well-worn sign that read, "I
will work for food." My heart sank. I brought him to the attention of my
friends and noticed that others around us had stopped eating to focus on him.
Heads moved in a mixture of sadness and disbelief. We continued with our meal,
but his image lingered in my mind. We finished our meal and
went our separate ways.

I had errands to do and quickly set out to accomplish them.
I glanced toward the town square, looking somewhat half-heartedly for
the strange visitor. I was fearful, knowing that seeing him again would
call for some response. I drove through town and saw nothing of
him. I made some purchases at a store and got back in my car. Deep within
me, the Spirit of God kept speaking to me: "Don't go back to the
office until you've at least driven once more around the square." And
so, with some hesitancy, I headed back into town. As I turned the square's
third corner, I saw him.

He was standing on the steps of the stone-front church, going
through his sack. I stopped and looked, feeling both compelled to speak
to him, yet wanting to drive on. The empty parking space on the corner
seemed to be a sign from God: an invitation to park. I pulled in, got out
and approached the town's newest visitor.

"Looking for the pastor?" I asked.
"Not really," he replied. "Just resting."
"Have you eaten today?"
"Oh, I ate something early this morning."
"Would you like to have lunch with me?"
"Do you have some work I could do for you?"
"No work," I replied. "I commute here to work from the city,
but I would like to take you to lunch."
"Sure," he replied with a smile. As he began to gather his
things, I asked some surface questions.

"Where you headed?"
"St. Louis."
"Where you from?"
"Oh, all over; mostly Florida."
"How long you been walking?"
"Fourteen years," came the reply.

I knew I had met someone unusual. We sat across from each
other in the same restaurant I had left only minutes earlier. His hair was
long and straight, and he had a neatly trimmed dark beard. His skin was
deeply tanned, and his face was weathered slightly beyond his 38
years. His eyes were dark yet clear, and he spoke with an eloquence
and articulation that was startling. He removed his jacket to
reveal a bright red T-shirt that said, "Jesus is The Never Ending Story."
Then Daniel's story began to unfold. He had seen rough times
early in life. He'd made some wrong choices and reaped the
consequences. Fourteen years earlier, while backpacking across the country,
he had stopped on the beach in Daytona. He tried to hire on with
some men who were putting up a large tent and some equipment. A concert,
he thought. He was hired, but the tent would not house a concert but revival
services, and in those services he saw life more clearly. He gave his life
over to God. "Nothing's been the same since," he said. "I felt the Lord
telling me to keep walking, and so I did, some 14 years now."

"Ever think of stopping?" I asked.

"Oh, once in a while, when it seems to get the best of me. But
God has given me this calling. I give out Bibles. That's what's in my
sack. I work to buy food and Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit leads."
I sat amazed. My homeless friend was not homeless. He was on a mission and
lived this way by choice. The question burned inside for a moment and then I asked:

"What's it like?"
"What?"
"To walk into a town carrying all your things on your back and
to show your sign?"
"Oh, it was humiliating at first. People would stare and make
comments. Once someone tossed a piece of half-eaten bread and made a
gesture that certainly didn't make me feel welcome. But then it became
humbling to realize that God was using me to touch lives and change
people's concepts of other folks like me."

My concept was changing too. We finished our dessert and
gathered his things. Just outside the door he paused. He turned to me and
said, "Come ye blessed of my Father and inherit the kingdom I've
prepared for you. For when I was hungry you gave me food,
when I was thirsty you gave me drink, a stranger
and you took me in."

I felt as if we were on holy ground. "Could you use another
Bible?" I asked. He said he preferred a certain translation. It traveled
well and was not too heavy. It was also his personal favorite. "I've read
through it 14 times," he said.

"I'm not sure we've got one of those, but let's stop by our
church and see." I was able to find my new friend a Bible that would do
well, and he seemed very grateful.
"Where you headed from here?" I asked.
"Well, I found this little map on the back of this amusement park coupon."
"Are you hoping to hire on there for a while?"
"No, I just figure I should go there. I figure someone under
that star right there needs a Bible, so that's where I'm going next."
He smiled, and the warmth of his spirit radiated the sincerity of his mission.

I drove him back to the town square where we'd met two hours
earlier, and as we drove, it started raining. We parked and unloaded his
things. "Would you sign my autograph book?" he asked. "I like to keep
messages from folks I meet. I wrote in his little book that his commitment
to his calling had touched my life. I encouraged him to stay strong. And I left him with
a verse of scripture, Jeremiah 29:11. "I know the plans I have for you,"
declared theLord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give
you a future and a hope."

"Thanks, man," he said. "I know we just met and we're really
just strangers, but I love you."
"I know," I said. "I love you, too."
"The Lord is good."
"Yes. He is."
"How long has it been since someone hugged you?" I asked.
"A long time," he replied. And so on the busy street corner in
the drizzling rain, my new friend and I embraced, and I felt deep
inside that I had been changed. He put his things on his back, smiled his
winning smile and said, "See you in the New Jerusalem." "I'll be there!" was my reply.

He began his journey again. He headed away with his sign
dangling from his bedroll and pack of Bibles. He stopped, turned and said,
"When you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?"
"You bet," I shouted back. "God bless."
"God bless." And that was the last I saw of him. Late that evening as I
left my office, the wind blew strong. The cold front had settled hard upon the town.
I bundled up and hurried to my car. As I sat back and reached
for the emergency brake, I saw them-a pair of well-worn brown
work gloves neatly laid over the length of the handle. I picked them up
and thought of my friend and wondered if his hands would stay warm that night
without them. I remembered his words: "If you see something that makes you
think of me, will you pray for me?" Today his gloves lie on my desk in my
office. They help me to see the world and its people in a new way, and
they help me remember those two hours with my unique friend and to pray for
his ministry. "See you in the New Jerusalem," he said. Yes Daniel, I know I will.

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