Tonight, I walked the entire length of Douglas from Old Town to the Broadview Hotel near the river. It’s the heart of downtown Wichita, and it’s a pretty desolate place after 5 p.m. It wasn’t until the very end that I finally passed anyone. So there were maybe eight city blocks where I didn’t meet a single soul. Talk about the need for revitalization.
But I eventually did run into someone. I had left Douglas and was walking back along 1st Street when a guy rounded the corner of a parking garage. He had a little smile on his face, like he’d just been telling jokes or like he’d been thinking of something funny. He was walking pretty fast, and so was I, so our meeting was a little sudden. But I stopped him.
“Can I pray for you?” We were separated by several yards because we had walked a bit past each other before we stopped, and I took a small step toward him when I asked my question. His reaction was sudden. He took a sudden step back and held out his hand a little in front of him, like you would if someone were about to throw something at you.
But he heard the question and he paused. A rather bewildered look came to his face. And then, with an accent I couldn’t place, he said, “Yes.” Now I was surprised. “Right now,” I said, just to make sure we were clear. “Yes,” he said again. So I prayed for him. He thanked me when I finished and said his name was Frank. I told him my name. Then we shook hands and parted.
It was kind of a strange meeting. But I had a lingering thought. I obviously don’t know Frank’s background, but I wondered whether he was a Christian, and whether the God I was praying to was the same one he worshipped. In any event, Frank was lifted up in prayer to the one true God. And Frank seemed pleased by the gesture.
No comments:
Post a Comment