I wrote it at the laundry-mat on my phone, in a short amount of time. Sooooo here is a better constructed version I did for my class assignment... Its for a descriptive essay, so if it seems to detailed or something that's why. If not, great, enjoy my recolection of my divine appointment with the beautiful soul I call Mumbles.
Divine Appointments
The canvassing program in Duluth, Minnesota was one full of interesting experiences. When I go canvassing, a reoccurring, spirit of revival stems from the opportunities and time I spend sharing Christ and helping others. We call these collisions of circumstance divine appointments: where a canvasser meets someone at just the right time and a unique experience is born, where God significantly impacts someone's life through a canvasser. One such event happened in the least likely of circumstances and ended up being a refreshment to the truth I know but am not always conscious of, which is, the interior is what God sees not the exterior. That special experience happened something like this.
“Hey, what did you want to show me?”
A young guy pulls up next to me on his bike, and I look and see that it was the individual I had just seen up the street, whose friend stopped me at a distance from talking to them both earlier. As I turned and looked though it wasn't a guy as I assumed, it was a girl, she looks like and dresses like a teenage boy, and rides around on a BMX bike. Her pants sag, she had on a big baggy shirt, a snap back cap which covers her shaved head, and all over you can see tattoos and piercings. She has some tattoos on her fingers, some behind her ear, on her neck, pretty much everywhere along with piercings and marks of previous piercings scattered around as well. She has dreary, hurting eyes, pale skin, and a couple of scars on her face.
She proceeded to look at my books and made crude jokes about pictures and proceeds to let me know she is a lesbian, though I had drawn that conclusion myself. Then she asked me what I am doing around this area and I tell her how I'm a student, and am raising money for school. Nonetheless she tells me she wants to help. She speaks in what I call a ghetto language, making sure to skip the niceties and roughly tells me what she is thinking,with chuckling now and then to reassure her confidence in what jokes she made were humorous. After affirming she wants to help, she pulls out a worn, crumbled lottery ticket and tells me to meet her down at the gas station because she wants to go cash it and give me a few dollars.
So she takes off on her bike and I meet her down at the end of the crowded street. I canvass a guy outside the gas station and she comes out, then the person I was talking to, who was being really aloof, started making jokes with her. Turns out she knows practically everyone in the area, and she has an idea to help. She decides to bring me down to a couple of bars, of which I know have both already been canvassed but I decide to go with her down a couple of blocks since she insisted I try.
Along the way we talk, and I learn she has three kids and she lives with another woman who helps her and they are currently fighting, somewhat about the three kids. She also decided to tell me a “funny” story, though not so funny to me, of how she used to live in LA and she got bit by a shark. She even showed me the massive scar on her right side and told me that she punched the shark in the face and used some harsh language, though an inflection of shame appeared once she mentioned the kids on the beach that had to see her yelling and bleeding everywhere.
Eventually we got to the bars through a few wet, trash covered alleys. We went into the first bar, this building was just as many of the others in this downtown area, fully brick, with worn out signs and faded paint around the outside. After entering we soon found out they already had got a book, and no one in there would give a donation. Mumbles tried hard to explain what I was doing, going ahead of me to each person and timidly mumbled out bits and pieces of what I told her about what I was doing, asking them to help me and look at the books. She was very child like actually, you could tell she got a little discouraged after the guys at the bar wouldn't listen.
After trying all the guys there she changed out some of her cash and exclaimed to everyone there very abruptly "If ain't none of you gonna give, I'm gonna give to help." She gave me a dollar as we walked out. She tried to act like everything was alright, but it wasn't. She kept trying to reassure me that she could still help me though it didn't work well in that bar.
We walked outside and I gave her a Happiness for Life otherwise known as Steps to Christ. She looked at me very thankfully, she wanted to read it with the other woman she lived with. Continuing on, she still wanted to bring me to the other bar. On the way we went by a guy that was in his car leaving the lot. She walked up to his window and tapped the glass, he waved her off, she went right around in front of the guys car, as if to stop him from leaving and she gave him an aggressive look ,which he returned. He wouldn't roll down the window, she then threw her bike on the ground and started cussing at the guy and said she would fight him with further aggressive gestures. She proceeded to move towards his car but I physically guided her away and told her she shouldn't do that. She cooled down and the guy drove off, it turns out she didn't like that guy from previous events before. So I was thankfully it didn't have to deal with me at all.
At the next bar it was really crowded, guys going all around, smoke and thick air pressing, with the stench of beer on me as soon as we entered. She brings me directly to the owner and introduces me a little, though again she lives up to her name and mumbles out everything she wants to say. He asks me a couple questions about the project and gets a book! Just like that, I didn't even really canvass him, he just pulled out some cash and gave it to me. Then she brings me through the crowd telling everyone in proximity about me, the bar tender stops by and asks about the book, and says he wants one too, he quickly rummages his pockets and gets some money and hands it to me. I was delightfully surprised.
After a while I noticed it was time for lunch, so I ask her if there is anyone who wants spiritual books. "People don't like to hear much about that stuff" she said quietly. I tell her that thank you, and that I appreciated her help and I pulled out Health and Peace the magabook version of “Ministry of Healing” and tell her I want her to have it. I flipped open to the index and she read a few of the chapters, she really felt like she needed this book. She looked away from the book and said "Man, you got me all cryin and stuff... thank you though." She gave me a hug and thanked me and hugged me again. I talked a little more with her and left, and she even signed up for bible studies too.
That is an experience I won't forget. Mumbles made a deep impression on me, but its much more amazing too, I know in my heart God wanted to meet her and just show her some Love. God brings us specific divine appointments, and its our job not to hinder his work but our exterior judgments or preconceptions.
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