How Dad Reached Out
Theme of the Week: The Reaching-out Risk
Mark Buchanan
Sunday, September 26, 2004
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Who Said It
Mark Buchanan pastors New Life Community Baptist Church on Canada's Vancouver Island. He is also an author who majored in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. His latest book is The Holy Wild.
Mark enjoys gardening and woodworking at their Duncan home, plus fishing and cycling. With his wife, Cheryl, and their three children, he can often be found swimming in Vancouver Island's clean, clear, warm rivers. What He Said
In the early '70s, many Pakistani refugees fled the war between India and Pakistan and came to Canada. Bureaucrats in Ottawa distributed them throughout the country. Ours was a hard-fisted northern mill town where the resentment of many toward them ran deep.
One winter evening my father was driving home from work, trailing a public bus. The temperature was at least 40 below zero. Around the curve of road, he saw a dark-skinned man standing at the bus stop, shivering in a thin windbreaker. He was in clear view. The bus driver sailed straight past him.
Dad stopped, swung open the passenger door, and invited him in. The man was confused. Dad—holding up traffic—had to get out of his car and, with gestures and tone, convince the man to get in. It took another half hour to figure out where the man lived. Thus began a friendship that took hold and widened to include our family and his. They introduced us to curry. We helped them learn English.
Adapted from Things Unseen (Multnomah, 2002) by permission.
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Jesus, You died for me while I was still a rebel. Help me to reach out to other outsiders on your behalf.
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