Turners at WFI

On Monday, October 24 my wife and I (and our youngest son) dropped off our car for repairs and then last minute, without any thought headed to Wildwood Park. The beautiful weather had collected a number of Toledo’ns out this beautiful fall day and we headed out for our favorite path where a giant odd tree stands out at the end of a prairie path. Once at our favorite spot, we began talking about how we could serve God and reach others for him when…

“Hello?” a voice came from behind us.

Surprised we turned around to see a young man of middle eastern descent. We came to find out that he was born here but that his family moved from Lebanon. He was surprised to find that someone else liked this special place in the park. He said he came almost every day to study – to leave behind his family’s work in middle eastern market in town and advance to cyber security.

My wife then asked him, “Do you know Jesus?”

“I know he is a good prophet.” the young man said.

Quickly our conversation moved to talking about if he had read the Bible or had one. He said he didn’t have one but would like one. “I’m not afraid of other religions.” he said. “I am confident in my wife and will not switch from Islam. But I always want to learn more.” he said.

It just so happened that the previous day I had ordered a Koran, sharing that I had, I said that I was also trying to learn a little more about the Muslim faith. We told he we would get him a Bible and then exchanged numbers.

The next day, Tuesday we picked up an Arabic copy of the Bible and, while rushing to get the kids to their homeschool co-op, my wife felt that we should at least stop back by the giant old tree and see if we could meet him again and give him the Bible.

Rushing with the kids towards the spot, we found the tree empty. We gathered around and prayed, “God, if you want us to give this man a Bible, please bring him on the path before we need to leave. In Jesus name, Amen.” Still no sign of him, and without trying to contact him, we let the kids go walk a little down the trail by themselves. My wife began to wonder, “Maybe his dad didn’t want him to come, maybe…”

And there he was coming down the trail towards us. His face lit up in surprise, “I actually thought about you today,” the young man continued “but I thought it would be a joke to see you.”

“Well we just prayed to our God for you to come.” I said to him. He was surprised.

We handed him the Bible and joyfully talked about some of the main points about it and how to get started and said we would have coffee with him to talk more, and he was excited.

Praise God, this is God’s park, this is God’s world and God is at work.