Evendays

The visiting missionary was asked by the preacher: You’ve been here for a month. What can you tell me about this church? And the missionary, who’d spent hours and hours at table with Christians from that church community responded: What surprises me is that everybody, everybody has a story.

Having lived 23 years in the same place, I sometimes “tune-out” to the stories of those around me. While traveling, my ears open, my heart is more aware to what others have to say.

It was our third night in town and we’d already been talking for an hour when R. told us about his family tragedies. Years ago, from a kitchen table, his 17 year-old sister picked up her eldest brother’s recently-cleaned pistol, put the barrel to her temple and pulled the trigger, stupidly thinking the weapon was unloaded.

A teenage son got talked into a robbery, chose to hold the gun, which went off during the hold-up, killing the female employee behind the counter. He’s already served over a dozen years of a life-without-parole sentence in 4 different prisons in the south of the US. He’s in a “good” prison now.

Everyone’s got a story. I just need to listen.