The City No Longer Forsaken

"They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the LORD; and you will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted." ~Isaiah 62:12

Thursday, June 5, 2008

I love random encounters!

The last time I had a random encounter on my street, it was a Catholic guy whose dog decided to come and say 'hi' to me. That was exciting. I think tonight was even more fun, though.

Tonight at around 10:00, I was walking home for the night and got stopped by a girl who asked for directions to a station. This is not normal. Usually, people ask me if *I* need directions because I am a foreigner out on the street. But I explained that the station in question was pretty far, and that the next stop on that same subway line was much closer. It was on my way, so I started walking with her.

We had a pretty normal exchange. I asked her if she was a college student and she said she was. She then explained to me that she was an exchange student "too", and I didn't bother to correct her. I'd just left an hour conversation on a street corner with one of my students in which we discussed cults and religions and truth and wasn't quite in the mood for starting another one. But then when she asked me what my major was I had to say, "I'm not a student, actually...I teach English in the Christian church." But then we became good friends. She is from Korea and she is a Christian. How is it that I manage two random encounters with Christians on the same street? I haven't randomly encountered any non-Christians there! That's too weird for Japan.

I ended up walking her all the way to the station. We traded email addresses. She invited me to come out to church with her sometime. She asked me if I was going to be back in the area tomorrow. It was just a really cool way to end the day...celebrating getting to meet a sister randomly on the road and help her to the train station.

I really like life on the streets. Some of the best things happen out there.

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