How often do you and I get a chance to do life with someone from another world? This week’s outreach project with the All Nations Cafe reminded me that many of us don’t often get opportunities to sit down, eye-to-eye, with people not like us. We served and had lunch with Columbians, Ecuadorians, Romanians and Belarusians. We heard their stories, shared ours and began the conversations about God when we the door opened. Each week they come, the conversation goes deeper.

I had another conversation some time ago with someone else connected with the All Nations Cafe – a young Muslim man from the Mediterranean region. He, like thousands other 20-somethings from all over the globe, came to the Beach to work in the service industry a few months, make money, meet people, and see America.

His nation and ours don’t see things the same. In fact, some would say we are enemies.

He stopped by to return the bike he’d gotten early in the summer and he joined our circle of conversation about Jesus. We heard his story, his dreams for his own life and his family back home, and how he missed his culture but would miss ours, too.

We, in turn, shared the Good News of the Kingdom – how God had loved us enough to invite us into a love relationship with His Son Jesus, how we had experienced His mercy and grace through our faith in what He accomplished on the cross, and that we believed God sent him to turn in his bike at the right moment for us to pray with him.

And we did. We prayed for his family, his travels, his nation, and most of all, for his salvation. As we soaked him in prayer, he soaked it up.

We invited this young man into the family that Jesus is building, one repentant life at a time.

The Gospels speak of “kairos” moments – when the Father brings us into his work in a nexus of His purpose, our willing service, and someone’s need. He gave us a “kairos” moment that day – not with the enemy, but with someone who is loved by the Father and invited to the table of grace in Jesus.

Thank you, Father, for my friend who I pray now sees you call to him to salvation and serving Jesus.

Thank you, also, Renovation Vineyard, for stepping out in faith this week at the cafe and around the Grand Strand, looking to the Father for that “Kairos” moment He invited you to step into.