A Little Christmas
Story
December 2013
Christ For The City
International
Approximately
eight years ago, we met an unknown man while we were doing our ministry in the
streets of San Jose , Costa Rica
.
- What
is your name?
- Love…
Dennis
- Love?
- Yes,
that is my name…
Every time we
meet him, we have the same sensation: Is “Love” a man like any of
us, or an angel sent from Heaven to be with us, to test how sensitive or
indifferent we can be to our fellow men? Or is “Love” the result of a
horrible series of tragedies in his life? To this day we don’t know the answer;
what we do know is that he is with us, and seeing him changes our day.
One Wednesday
morning while we were waiting with Jonathan, my partner in this ministry to the
“ homeless,” for a group of men who would sit with us to share the message of
salvation, we saw Dennis, fallen in the street.
Many were
looking at him, but no-body tried to help him. Immediately we went to his aid;
we lifted him up, we pulled up his pants because they were down around his
knees leaving him naked. We hugged him
and took him to the park, where there was no danger of his being hit by a car;
his condition was extremely painful.
The witnesses
of this scene were many; we were at a very busy bus stop. I imagined that some
of them were thinking:
- All these drunks and homeless should die, they make our
city stink!
What we didn’t know was that a woman
was being touched by the message of love that we didn’t even realize we were
communicating.
She started to
follow us from a distance, and then she got closer; finally she expressed to us
her interest in knowing a God that moved common people to show genuine love to
the unwanted.
Without
knowing it “Love” had taken this woman to the foot of the cross. We don’t
meet “this man” very frequently, but every time we do, inevitably we ask:
- Who really are you? Are you an angel? Tell the truth now!
-
He always
gives the same reply:
- May the Lord bless and keep you, may He make His face to
shine upon you, and may He have mercy on you!
-
Later without
our noticing it, “Love” slips away, simply disappears from our
sight, goes to nowhere….
In this Christmas time we wonder: Will there be another
Dennis somewhere else, waiting to find arms to hug him and accept him? Here in Costa Rica
When you think
about us, please pray that we can continue without failing in our ser-vice to
the poor, the miserable, the ones who suffer, the ones who hope to find the
love of the Father.
¡Receive a big
hug! Horacio & Esther
Missionaries
in Costa Rica
E-mail:
horacio.cpci@gmail.com
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