David

Had a tough encounter with a man on the dock earlier this week. While at work one afternoon I was taking out some trash on the dock, and I was approached by a Liberian man named David. David looked like a skeleton in a t-shirt. He was truly starving, and he talked and moved about slowly with a troubling sort of vacancy. He came up to me and asked "can you help me?" "Yes?," I replied with uncertainty, not really knowing what to say. "Can you give me work?" He asked for work with such sincerity and un-vocalized urgency that I cannot get it out of my mind. Mercy Ships is known to hire locals to work on the dock for good wages, so I told him that I would ask my colleague who has been on the ship longer. My colleague came over and explained to David that our department wasn't hiring right now. He took down David's name and told him that we would get in touch with him via his church if something came up.

I think David left the conversation with more hope than I did. The thing is, I believe we do all of our hiring at the beginning of the outreach, so I doubt we'll be able to offer David work. And work is very hard to come by here.

Please please pray for this man David. Pray that he would take heart and hope in the Christ. Pray that the Lord would bless him with a deep and unshakable faith, and that He would also bless David with work and with food. The prayers of the saints are powerful and effective, and by the grace of God this is a sure way we can all help.

"I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father." (Jesus; John 14:13)