Friday, December 23, 2005

I remember being witnessed to by a true Rastafarian. (Warning, dear children, there will be drug references in this memory!)

I was hanging out at the Channel 1 Klub in Vancouver, just down some stairs from Denman Street. There were three or four guys from Jamaica, dreadlocks, big funny hats and everything. I got into a conversation with one guy, and he asked me if I wanted to smoke a joint with him...at the time, that was a bit of a rhetorical question with no need for an answer from me. We headed to a car park for some privacy, and Mr. Rasta (I can't remember his name) pulled out one of the fattest doobies I'd ever seen. We shared it, then headed back into the club. As we sat down by the bar to talk, he pulled a little well-worn New Testament from his back pocket. He opened it and asked me if I knew that Jesus loved me.

I burst into fits of giggles...I just couldn't quite put the whole experience together in my head. First, Mr. Rasta gets me more wasted than I'd ever been before up to that time, then he starts sharing the gospel with me. 'Interesting witnessing technique', I remember thinking, 'If people smoked you up first, you might be more inclined to listen to people proselytize!'

He shared the whole thing with me, the whole Romans Road...and I just kept giggling. I kept seeing myself in Sunday School memorizing the very verses he was reading to me, and then seeing myself at that moment, sitting in the dark club listening to him. The two images just didn't juxtapose.

Part of me wonders...was God reminding me that He was there, watching over me? I was certainly trying to ignore Him as much as possible, yet somehow He was always there, peeking through a window, eye to the keyhole, ear to the wall...unobtrusive, yet inescapable. Nice thought...

5 comments:

Diva Solo said...

That's a great memory. It often astounds me that in a busy club, where everyone is in a frenzy to get high or get laid, God is there, amongst the crowd, Jesus is with the people.. even He has a place in a rave. Interesting.

layne (herman) said...

you reminded me of going to see HR one time (at Bogarts in Long Beach, CA) and seeing a dreadlocked guy outside of the venue with a little pocket Gideon Bible and talking to someone. and the dj that was playing music before HR came on going into the string of titles for Haile Selassie; i felt like i was at a Rasta-church.

Anonymous said...

If only my dad heard the gospel while smoking a joint. Who knows what could of happened.
Thanks for wishing me a merry christmas...I hope you had a merry christmas day too!! Oh, and I'm not irish, just in the "cyber-quiz-taking world". I am a mix...1/4 finnish and swedish, 1/4 russian, and 2/4 scottish. Sounds like a multi-cultural recipe! Yum

Spoke said...

I remember a "woman" in my grade 11 shop class "witnessing" to me. She was 8" taller than I was and very in-your-face. She used to sit in theory with her bible on her desk. We'd all tease her. One day, she cornered me while I had my coveralls half on and asked:
"Lance, have you ever thought about giving your life to Jesus?".
What I heard was: "I'm a freak, commit sucide with me for my God"
I told her to back off or I'd break her nose...she did.
Years later, I saw her in a mall. I ran and leaped over a row of shopping carts to tell her I was a Christian, she knew! She said she "prayed" for me regularly over the past 9 years...wow!!

Anonymous said...

I remember rastafarians trying to sell our youth group weed while we were on a missions trip....that was some good stuff....I mean the memory of the funniness....I love how God doesn't care about what peoples image to others is, he uses anyone who wants to be used to be his messangers I've known wonderful Christian prostituteand don't doubt that they're used by God to speak to those around them for him. Hey, maybe rasta-man was a angel, that would be cool too.