Alan

Alan is an atheist. One night as I had a chance to talk with Alan while he was smoking on the campus house roof overlooking the university following our end of term party. He said, “You know, I’m not religious. I’ve never been. But, you guys are the nicest people I have ever met. I just want to be at this house. I just want to hang out here. Is that alright?” Of course it is. I would find out later that Alan asked a teammate, Tim, if there “was a place for him” in all of this.

Alan’s house was broken into one night while he was working late. Our teammate was the first person he called that morning. It is pretty spectacular that of all the people he thought of calling, it was his American friend who loves Jesus. Tim was in another town visiting a student and his family and couldn’t help him. So Tim called us, and we went and helped Alan clean up the broken glass throughout his house. We let him sleep at the campus house as he was quite nervous to stay in his house by himself. That night it became clear why we are here: to show beauty and hope to students like Alan who can’t see them in their own neighborhood.

There is a community on the internet called Facebook where a person can make a web page containing all the information anyone might want to know about him. Alan has a Facebook page. Until that night, Alan’s religious view was “atheist.” When you look at his page now, that word is missing. We can’t help but think Alan is beginning to see, in a tangible way, what Jesus meant when he prayed, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

UPDATE: Alan continued to show up at the Canvas house on a daily basis to drink  tea and coffee, to have long talks with the various people who wandered through her doors. He came for the meals and he came for the music, but more than anything else, Alan came for the community. Over these days and weeks that have compounded into months, into a year, Alan had found a family that he could trust. He could be loved and he could love. Alan has begun to see God taking shape in his eyes and up into his mind and down into the deep places of his heart. He found himself in countless moments and circumstances, situations, and conversations that have begged him to take a look at this man called Jesus who each staff member of Canvas insisted on going back to, time after time. Finally, one conversation helped him to see that he believed in Jesus as his Savior, and that he needed to live that out. Alan was baptized in March! Pray for Alan as he begins his new life with Jesus.