Prayer Evangelism
Sally had walked on ahead of me. I was locking the outside door of our apartment building. Head down, I turned to walk up the street and on to work. I ran right into him.
He’s a small man and old. Over the years he has lost his teeth. On most days he wears his false ones, but they don’t fit him very well. Today, he chooses to go toothless. However, in demeanor, he is anything but. He bites.
“Where have you been,” he demands. “I have not seen you in three years.” This is his way of chastising me for not having the good manners to stop by his hair salon and give my regards.
“Sorry," I tell him, "but I’ve been busy taking care of people from the States.”
“Come have tea,” he says. He takes my arm and begins pulling me toward his shop. I nod to Sally to go ahead without me. She does.
As soon as I am in the salon, he tells me that his youngest son is in jail. I ask why. “They say he throw stones at the police, but he was in the shop. He no throw stones. He no throw stones.” He is shaking his bony old finger in my face as if I am somehow disputing this. I gently reach up and take his hand in mine.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” I say. His oldest son is sitting in the barber chair pretending to read the newspaper, but I catch him watching me in the mirror. The old man begins to weep. “He no throw stones. He no throw stones.”
I do not respond. “Fifteen soldiers come to my shop. Fifteen." His voice is now high pitched and vibrating. "They have their big guns out in front of them, and their little guns on their belts.” He demonstrates how they hold their guns. His face takes on the the expression of authority. He is the soldier. “They put the wrist holders (handcuffs) on my son.” He shows me how his son was holding his hands. I notice a scar on his left thumb. His hands are shaking. “What we can do? What we can do?” Then he mutters, “Nothing. We can do nothing.”
“We can pray,” I offer up – rather a lame thing to say I know, but really, what to do? What to say?
“Yes, pray to Allah. Yes, we pray to Allah.”
“But I will pray for you and your son too. And I pray in the name of Jesus, you know.” The oldest son looks up from his paper and stares at me for a long moment. I raise my eyebrows and move my head slightly to the right, a gesture that asks his permission to go on. He nods. “Is it alright with you if I pray in the name of Jesus.”
“Yes, yes,” he says, putting his right hand on my arm. “Yes, pray for my son. Pray to Jesus. You are a good friend to us.”
So I did. Right there in that shop I prayed for his son. I prayed in the name of Jesus. My hands shook as I did, as this was the boldest act I have ever done in my life. But it seemed right to me, and so I did it. When I finished, I looked up to see what I had done. The son was sitting with the paper in his lap, his head bowed, and the old man was weeping. I stood there wondering what I had just done, and what to do next.
Just then another man walked into the shop and the moment passed. I needed to go as I had a bus full of pilgrims waiting for me. I told them just that and moved for the door. The old man had collected himself by now and walked out with me. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll tell my son that you stopped by for tea.”
“Will you tell him that I prayed for him?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “I will tell him.”
We stand there on the street, both of us lost for a moment in our own thoughts. Then I lean down to kiss him first on one cheek and then on the other. Neither of us have shaved, which makes for a rather strange feeling, at least for me. The old man is shaking his head, the sadness in him oozing out of every pore. “He’ll be alright,” I say.
“No,” he said, “he won’t.”
I frown slightly and nod my head. “No,” I say, “probably not. I’ll keep praying.”
“Issa?” he says with a little smile. (Issa is Arabic for Jesus.)
“Malum,” I respond with a half grin. (Of course.)
And he laughed. Honest to God, he shook his head and laughed. I don't know what to make of that laugh, but it might have been the only laugh he had all day.
