God always uses the waiting period in the in-between.
It was about 9:15pm, I had just left Intervarsity large group meeting and was now not so comfortably sitting on the bench at a bus stop. Already slightly nervous to be traveling on public transportation at such an hour, God used the waiting period. A tall black man came to sit next to me as I waited for the bus to come.
"You Chinese?" he excitedly asked.
"Yep," I replied.
"You speak Chinese?"
"Yep."
"Which kind of Chinese?"
"Mandarin."
"Ohhh, you would speak the main one. I am pretty fluent in Cantonese."
I looked at this large and in charge black man with wide eyes, excited to hear his story.
"My name is Daryl."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Kim," as I shook his stretched out hand.
Conversation struck, and we continued talking as other buses passed. I'm pretty sure he purposely missed his own bus to continue talking.
Daryl used to work in a Chinese restaurant as a cook. A lady he worked with asked him to teach her to speak better English. He agree to this in exchange for lessons in Cantonese. He told me an instance where he was on the bus one day and a few ladies were talking in Cantonese about a certain 'ha gui' stunk. He turned to them and replied in Cantonese asking which 'ha gui'? To their surprise, they readily apologized in embarrassment waving their hands saying "Oh! Sorry sorry!" He told this story with perfect Chinese accents.
After working in the restaurant, Daryl got into a bit of trouble with drugs and whatnot, sending him to jail, and only recently getting out and trying to survive, living at a hostel for $22 a week. He's been clean for 12 months now, and even to my unknowing him, I am excited and proud of him.
God uses the waiting period.... when we least expect it. He said, "Love my people, love them with MY love, and love them well."
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