Come and Sit

He was a young man and seemed a little lost. He watched us intently as we set up for a medical clinic in a school lunchroom. His English was broken, and to a certain degree so was he. He sidled up to me and said in a cool, indifferent manner, “I lost family in the tsunami.”

Whatever else I was doing could wait. He had my full attention. “Tell me about it,” I said.

Turns out his family had a transportation company with a few trucks and he was one of the drivers. When the wave hit he was out making a delivery. Upon his return he found his home swept away and his wife and 8-month-old son were dead. He looked up at the ceiling as if looking to God and said, “But He is still good.”

He pulled out a Xerox paper color print of his son. Deep pain showed on his face. Then he invited me to join him. He said, “Come, sit.” I did sit with him for a while and then excused myself to return to the clinic. Every time I hit a lull in my work he would come up and invite me to sit with him again.

At our afternoon clinic this same man had followed us. His sister lived in the community we were serving, and he invited us to come and visit her home. They offered me water in long-stem glasses – obviously the best they had. I was touched by his desire just to be with me and show kindness.

Later on, back at the medical clinic I had again hit a lull in work and, again had been invited to come and sit with my new friend. As we sat on cardboard boxes news came to me that my Grandpa had died unexpectedly back in the States. I left to head back to the guesthouse to make contact with my family by satellite telephone. I didn’t try to give an explanation to this young man, but God ordained that we were to meet again.

Grief is a funny thing. My Grandpa was 84 years old. He died in his sleep, in his easy chair with very little pain. He knew Jesus. Then I thought about my new friend I had sat with that morning and afternoon. He had lost 29 of his 36 immediate family members. All of them died in the terror of a tsunami storm and none of them even had the opportunity to hear the Gospel. Though my grief was real, it seemed like my loss was put into an entirely different place.

My four-year-old daughter put it in perspective. When her mom told her about Grandpa being dead she said, “I have good news, mommy. We’ll see Grandpa Harold in heaven because he has made Jesus his boss.”

When I met this young man again I was able to express through a translator about my Grandpa’s death, and about wanting to stay and share in the people’s grief. He seemed pleased. I can’t help but feel sadness that he cannot share in the same hope for his family members that my daughter expressed about her great-grandfather—yet there is still hope for him. That is why we must keep praying, giving and going – so lost and broken young men can hear, feel and see the Gospel being lived out before them. It is my prayer that some day in heaven I’ll be able to sit with that young man and rejoice together with him in the Lord’s goodness.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.