Encouraging Strangers

On Monday I was sitting in a coffee shop, working on my way-too-time-consuming-support letter. I was sitting near the line for coffee and a man I'd never met before saw me working and asked what I was doing. I replied that I was working on a support letter. He became excited and said "Oh are you a missionary??" I started to tell him a little about my trip back to the Philippines and when I stopped he asked me to look up his church website. His church (121CommunityChurch) had just finished reading the book of Amos in the Bible and afterward founded "The Amos Project." This project supports faith-based socially active initiatives, one of which happened to be International Justice Mission in Cambodia.

Now I was excited! I told him that's who I was going to work with International Justice Mission! He sat down, and I watched as tears streamed down his face while he told me about a scripture. He shared how there are always people around us, on the road to our ultimate goals, who need to be encouraged, and asked me to keep my eye out for them on this journey. It was a sweet moment and confirmed some things that I had been thinking about. As he left, he handed me a folded up bill. I thanked him and soon after had to go to work.

The bill was $100! It was the very first gift I received towards my trip. I can't help but thinking; I have no idea how on earth all the funds are going to come in for this trip, but I'm excited to see how it will happen!