Well, this has been interesting. When people find out what my "The Shopping Cart Man" book is about, they share their own little stories with me. It seems everyone has a brief "Yeah, I didn't give him money because he was going to buy beer" story, but I've heard a couple really interesting ones.
One took place in Russia where my co-worker's dad was a mission president a few years back. The president had told the missionaries that "everyone" deserved to hear the message of the Gospel. After hearing this, a young missionary saw a man literally sleeping in the gutter and told his companion that they needed to teach that man. The senior companion was extremely hesitant, but finally relented to let the junior try to teach him.
The missionary had to shake the man awake. It took him several moments to get coherent. The elder then told him he wanted to teach him about the gospel. The man agreed to listen as he sat on the curb with the elder crouched in front of him.
By the end of the discussion, the man had a couple of tears in his eyes. The elder asked if they could visit him again the next day to teach him more. He agreed. When asked where they should meet him, the man looked around, patted the curb and said, "I'll be right here!"
They met with the man several more times. He started going to church, got a job, a place to stay, clean clothes, and even started dating one of the girls in the little branch of the church there. Eventually, he was baptized. And, he married the gal.
My co-worker said that one of the last things his dad did before leaving Russia was to set apart the man as the branch president. You just never know...
Another story had a lot of twists and turns and is quite long. The short of it is that another of my co-workers had a son getting married. The bride's family was from South Carolina. A good-hearted brother (with questionable judgment) decided to drive from SC to Utah. On the way, one by one, he picked up five homeless men for various distances. One made it all the way from SC to UT. Another was arrested en route when the sleepy driver let him drive - and was awakened when the car was pulled over for doing 100+ mph, and headed for Montana. Turned out the guy had 4 warrants out for his arrest - he's now doing time.
I would NOT advocate picking up people at random to be your car buddies on long trips...
Read the original "Lines of our Times" post here.
Real Shopping Cart Men...
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