This is an email I got from a friend in the US at the same time I was writing my blog on Sloppy Community.  He encountered what I was writing about first hand and I love what he wrote.

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“Yesterday I went to the lawnmower repair shop to try and get a tire fixed for my mower. While I waited for the guys to fix it I noticed an older Jamaican man standing around the shop. He had the Rastafarian hat and the dread lock beard and just looked like a typical Jamaican. I never strike up conversations for no reason with people even though I have been trying to “learn” how to do that. So I just started it by saying “so are you from Jamaica”. In his Jamaican accent he answered yes and we started talking. I asked him what he was doing here in America and what his life was like in Jamaica. What started out as a simple conversation quickly turned to American Homeland security, economic theory, immigration policies, Afghanistan and Pakistan, coffee production, hurricanes, and soon my little sheltered world view was shattered standing outside the lawnmower repair shop.

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This man had a comprehensive knowledge of geopolitics like I could not believe. I guess I underestimated him for two reasons. One because I’m an American and he was “just” a foreigner, and the other because this was no well maintained repair shop – it was the only one still open on a Saturday. I expected a few pleasantries exchanged but I found myself wishing I could just sit over a cup of coffee and chat with this man for the rest of the afternoon. I never brought up God or tried to “witness” to him. I just had a conversation. I just opened a door and I was amazed at what God showed me.

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I was thankful for that brief encounter. He opened my eyes and taught me a lot in that brief 30 minute conversation. I’ll probably break something on my lawnmower just so I can stop by again and talk to him sometime.”

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