The Man at Her Gate

I know. Third person is a poor mask for myself, but it was easier to write about "she" and "her" than to boldly claim this floundering woman's identity as my own. We get a lot of requests for financial aid. It takes a lot of wisdom to know whose story is true, who is truly in need, and how much you should help them financially. Unfortunately, we cannot help everyone, nor meet all the needs of the ones we do help. Our resources are limited, a surprising truth to many around us. While the following story was unfolding, others were coming to us as well. The frequency of the requests, the repeated calls, the feeling of being used as 'easy cash'. . .it wore away at me until you get the following episode, one with an unsatisfactory ending.

"Giving at the Gate" by Tyler

Her morning was interrupted by loud banging on the gate. The dog went wild, as it always did when a stranger arrived or, maddeningly, if the dog assumed one did. But this time through the crack between the tall metal gate and the cement post supporting it, she could see a briefcase. A stranger had arrived. 

She opened the gate and smiled broadly in welcome. Then her smile stiffened and swiftly froze into that plastic, molded kind of smile that means nothing. It was he. Months before he had shown up at the gate with his upper arm broken badly enough that a second elbow appeared to jut out painfully above the first. He had fresh vomit down the front of his shirt. Her husband had swilled the stranger down with water and compassionately heard the man’s story: “I’ve been in an accident and need money to get back to my family four hours away. I am not from the city and I need to get home.” The man slumped against the cement pillar of the gate and, even while speaking, drifted in and out of cognizance, his head listing heavily to one side, his chin on his chest. He looked terrible. Was he going to die at their gate? Very concerned, they gave him money to help him get home. They were truly glad for the opportunity to help one of the “least of these” that Jesus talked about.

But the “least of these” didn’t stay at his home four hours away. He returned to the city for medical help repeatedly and brought a procession of hospital forms with him to the gate, all of them requiring cash he didn’t have. 

He needed medicine for his eyes that were becoming 

glassy and fogged over, impairing his sight.

 Medicine for pain. 

Lorry fare to get back home. 

Medicines for other ailments.
More lorry fare.

By now compassion was wearing thin, at least for the wife. They were not with an organization set up to give aid like this. Their organization’s focus is church planting; their own job a supportive role in that. Any aid they gave came from personal funds. They tried to give wisely, giving something towards the amounts like their African friends do and never paying bills in full. Contributing towards on-going medical needs for a stranger who seemed to feel entitled to their help had worn away the genuine compassion she felt at the beginning. 

And, anyway, where was this man’s family? Weren’t there other people already in his life that could help him? What if –and she drew in her breath sharply- what if they were creating a dependency issue? African support systems within extended families are huge. African friendships carry obligatory demands like helping financially in times of need. Why, then, did he keep coming to the gate of strangers?

And now, there he was again, standing at her gate. And there she was, facing him with her smile as plastic as her compassion. He no longer slumped against the cement pillar as he did in the earlier days but stood erect. Physically he had improved. But mentally there still was something wrong, at least judging by his smile and stare and his occasional odd comment.

Oblivious to her feelings, the man at the gate handed her a new slip of paper, the by-now-familiar hospital logo stamped across the top. He needed medication for surgery. He needed money for the surgery itself. He was willing to show her the area that needed the operation if she liked, inappropriate though it was. She didn’t, appalled that he would ask.

This time her husband wasn’t home and, hoping that would deter him, she handed back the slip of paper and said, “Please, my husband has gone out.”

Undeterred, the man at the gate stood there expectantly, smiling and silent. Then he settled down to wait. She went back inside, a huge, ugly knot tying up her insides. It started to drizzle, but without her husband home, there was no way she could invite the man in out of the rain. She hated that he sat there in a drizzle. She hated that he came back over and over again. Hated that their white skin made people immediately think they were philanthropists with endless resources. And, worse, hated her lack of compassion.

It was that lack of compassion that startled her the most. Deep inside herself, all she truly wanted was for the man and his problems to go away. To go back to his hometown four hours away and stay there always where his family would surely take care of him.

But what if this was one of the least of these? What if this was Jesus who comes to us in the form of the poor, like the story in Matthew where the sheep on Jesus’ right were rewarded with eternity after helping the needy, unlike the goats on the left who had turned a blind eye? Poor lady. She was torn. Torn between feeling hard and uncaring like the left-hand goats, and, sheep-like, feeling like maybe she should maybe dig into her own grocery money and help the man out one more time. But just how much should she give? And where were this man’s relatives, anyway? He said he was a Christian. Where was his church?

And then, oh joy, she heard her husband return and the weight of decision fell from her shoulders and onto his. He was finding his way in all of this, too, trying to juggle cultural expectations, Bible verses on giving to the poor, and his own finances. 

They knew they hadn’t seen the last of this man, yet things couldn't go on like this indefinitely. And then God sent another man, a Ghanaian, into the picture. He was truly a Good Samaritan, going well beyond his call of duty to care physically for the man and to locate his relatives. Through him, the loose segments of the story started to be knit together with sinews of detail.

The man had been normal until that horrible accident altered his mind. 

His family (yes, those people she thought were being negligent)
hadn’t known he was still alive.

When they knew of his condition, they put him in a camp designed to help men like him. But he escaped and came back to the gate.
And on his way home he was in a second accident, requiring surgery.

Eventually he was safely taken back home and his absence at their gate meant he must have stayed there, voluntarily or otherwise.

As the details were pieced together over a period of a few weeks, she felt chastised for not helping out more willingly. Her husband had been a wise man all along, just as she had suspected. He must have been laying up piles of treasure in heaven all along. She had not, for she was pretty sure reluctant givers don’t accumulate heavenly wealth very quickly.

It felt like a thousand lessons and revelations were wrapped up in the story surrounding the man at the gate: 

There were lessons in trusting a wise husband’s decisions, and
in believing the best of people -like the man's family whom she thought
defaulted on their duty.
Lessons in reaching out for God's grace in trying moments.

There were revelations of being tighter-fisted and colder-hearted 

than she ever imagined herself to be.

There was the revelation that treasures in heaven aren’t laid up very easily sometimes. Sometimes giving is rewarding and fun, like to the disabled folks begging along the street.

But sometimes it plumb hurts.

Though she had been in the wrong, she now felt humbled and chastised by the Lord. But, she thought to herself, there would surely be opportunities of redemption.

There were.
Once again, giving began with pure compassion.

The man-at-the-gate’s Good Samaritan called. 

His wife died and he needed money to pay a nanny who cared for his week-old baby. 

Then he needed lorry fare. 

And a few days later he needed food for his older children.
And more lorry fare to get to a new job.
He told them, “You are the only people at all I have to help me.

I don't have family and friends who can help me." 

Wait. That couldn't be true. The family wouldn't starve without them. African support systems comprised of extended family and friends take care of their own.
He was coming to strangers for money multiple times a week, an sustainable situation.
And, hey, where were his relatives, anyway?
This felt familiar.
Too familiar.
But, and she inhaled deeply, this might be her chance
to line that heavenly mansion with treasure,
her chance to show her husband how much she trusted his wisdom,
 her chance of redemption.
In truth, she wasn't exactly excited about this, but neither was she frustrated.

The Good Samaritan called again. 

He had fallen three stories and had been in a coma for four hours. 

His leg was broken badly. His face was messed up. 

He needed surgery. 

No, surgery wouldn't do it, after all. 

He needed transportation to a 'traditional' healer in the north. 

They looked at each other, knowing they didn't, couldn't, and wouldn't support the witchcraft that happens at many traditional healers. Plus, they had no way of verifying his story. They told him no.

And the Good Samaritan swore lightly into the phone. 

Maybe his support network of friends and family stepped in and took care of their own.
It must have.
Because the phone stayed silent.

The Story of How We Met & Married

Married one year! 2008

In the fall of 2000, a small Colorado church hosted a week-long Bible School for youth. My sister and I were told about it and attended, getting placed for the week in the home of the Gerald Nolt family, people we had never heard of before. There were 15 other girls there as well and the Nolts had given the 17 of us full reign of their basement. I don’t remember seeing John that week, except when they gathered to take a family picture on the last day of our stay.

But his brother noticed my sister and the following summer they were married. John and I were Best Man and Maid of Honor at their wedding. I saw the Nolts occasionally after that when we would visit my sister at her new home in the West. And, once, our families went camping together in the mountains of Colorado.

In those days I thought John was a really nice guy but didn’t necessarily think of him as someone I’d marry. But my parents did. Sometimes Dad would lean back in his office chair and grin at me across the room where I worked as the secretary for his auto repair shop. “I think,” he’d say with a twinkle, “that I’ll call John Nolt up and see what he is planning to do with his life.” Fortunately he spoke in jest, as I would have been mortified if he had carried out his threat.

What I didn’t know was that John’s parents really liked me, too, and would tell John, “When you look for a wife, look for a girl like Sara.” (If those were the days of arranged marriages, our parents would have had us tie the knot sooner than we did.)

Well, John went to Ghana for six months, came home and worked on getting his pilot’s license, and eventually ended up teaching school in downtown Reading, PA, a school for both Mennonite and city children. While he was there, he lived with two other guys and easily adopted their goal of living within their earnings. Their positions weren’t volunteer ones, but nobody was going to get rich, either, on the wages the school was able to pay. So they saved cash by doing things like keeping their house at 40 degrees Fahrenheit. (“Worked well,” he says casually. “You never had to put the milk away after breakfast.”) Simple living, giving, kingdom living, a life of service. . .these values were being impressed deeply in his heart.

Meanwhile, I moved to Ghana, too. But shortly before I left, there was a significant event that influenced our future. I was back in Colorado for a wedding. Afterwards, a group of youth were invited to the Nolts' house for the evening. When the party was over, one of the girls needed a ride home almost 45 minutes away. John was elected to take her and his sister was going along. They invited me to come, too. So I did. We talked the entire drive as a foursome, about missions, places we’d like to serve, etc. On the return trip, the conversation continued and the ride was over long before I was ready for it to end. I had seen another side of John and was favorably impressed. And so, he says, was he.

My sister, perceptive woman that she is, read between lines I never verbalized and said simply, “Your eyes have been opened.”

“What do you mean?” I protested lamely. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I know. But I can tell that you see John differently than you did. Am I right?”

She was. But I had no time to think about that, for I was going to Africa for a year. I taught English in a small village that had no electricity or plumbing. I was focused on my work and thought little, if anything, of John. 

With schoolchildren in 2006

Pounding dried fish

Winnowing beans

Rich, deep things were happening to me. I was learning the values of a life of simplicity, of giving, of kingdom living, and of a life of service. My life was deeply enriched through the examples of the missionaries I was privileged to be with.

Halfway through my year, I was asked if I would take on a second term. I didn’t know what to say. My decision flip-flopped for weeks. I asked my parents, hoping they’d have a strong preference one way or another, but they didn’t. They only told me they’d support my decision, whatever I sensed God asking me to do. Disappointed then that they didn't make my decision for me, I realize now that their answer was a God-directed one. He wanted to speak to me Himself and wanted me to have the joy of knowing I had heard His voice.

I set a day aside to fast and pray. They were waiting on my answer. I needed to act. But that day, every time I stepped into my room to pray, I felt God saying to me, “Just wait. I’m going to answer.” I responded to Him saying, “Okay, Lord.” And walked back out of my room. I didn’t really pray much that day, not like I expected to, anyway.

And that evening there was a two-lined note waiting on me when we checked g-mail with a Satellite phone. “There has been a new development,” my mother wrote. “Call Dad before you make any decision.”

A new development? Courtship crossed my mind, but I didn't dwell on the idea. I was in Africa after all. They probably needed me full-time in the office or something boring like that. The evening was a long one for me, but finally I knew Dad would be home from work and I could call. Phone calls from the village were tricky business because the reception was very poor. There were only a couple places where we got any signal at all. I chose the spot by the thatch-roofed sitting place and made the call.

Dad usually beats around the bush until you are almost frantic for the information, but this time he came right to the point: “John Nolt is asking for permission to begin a courtship with you.  What do you think?”

“Are you serious?”

“As serious as a heart attack.”

I don’t remember anything else from our short phone call. I’m sure I promised to think and pray about it, which I did all night because I was much too excited to sleep. Not only was John interested in me, God had answered my prayers and given me direction as clearly as if His own voice had thundered from the heavens. I knew that whether or not things worked out with John, I had my answer: I was would not take a second term. 

John didn't know I was fasting for an answer on that day. He only knew he had been asking God if he should pursue a courtship with me and had been very surprised when, during a random phone call, John’s dad ended the conversation with, “Whenever you want me to call Sara’s dad to see if she’s available, let me know.”

Surprised into silence, John only said, "Okay, thanks.” 

Two weeks later, 

     John called his dad, 

          who called my dad, 

               who sent me an email, 

                      which I received on the evening of my fast, 

                              a fast my family wasn't aware of. 

Believing we had God’s approval, we started to write weekly emails in March 2006. And once a month, when I would get to a city with reliable cell phone reception, we would get in some phone calls that, sadly, weren’t as satisfying as you might expect. Reliable cell phone coverage only meant I didn’t have to climb a tree to catch a signal, a trick that worked in the village. It did not mean we would be able to hear each other very well. We battled with static in the lines, abruptly ended calls, and many, many opportunities to say, “Can you repeat that?” “I didn’t catch that.” “Are you still there?” “Can you hear me?”

Five months later in August, my term in Ghana ended and John was waiting for me at the airport. It was so incredibly good to see each other in person! I had collected a small army of pictures of John over the past few months that I would spread out in front of me when I wrote him letters. But they were a poor substitute for being together. There is something unbeatable about watching someone’s face when they talk or laugh. Or of sitting quietly together and soaking in the moments. Or sharing little love-looks that can’t happen across static-y phone calls.

Roughly three weeks after my return, we were engaged on September 11, 2006. John went with my family on a camping trip that weekend. I can’t believe how unsuspecting and clueless I was, but I never guessed that he had a question burning a hole in his pocket the whole weekend. On the last evening we were together, the family suggested they all go to bed to give John and me a few minutes alone since I lived in Indiana and he in Pennsylvania and it would be a while until we were together again.

It was the moment he needed. 

     We took a walk down to the lake 

          where the moonlight was reflecting on the water

                  and sat on a park bench, 

                          quietly soaking in the last few moments we were together.

Or so I thought. 

    But he was nervous. 

        He smiled into my eyes. 

              He told me he loved me. 

                   Then he dropped on one knee. 

                          And proposed.

My breath caught, of course, and my heart did a double-back-flip and I answered, “I would be honored.”

The next morning when the sun barely opened its eyes, I crept over to my parents, shiny-eyed, and said, "She said 'yes'!" 

Almost three months later, on December 2, 2006, we were married in a blue and silver-themed winter wedding.

We love our story. We love how God impressed similar values and lessons into each of our hearts in the days leading up to our courtship, how God made that email land in my inbox on the day I was fasting for answers, and even how purity was so ingrained in us that physical touch, though we looked forward to it a lot, wasn’t something we were tempted with during our courtship. We had what we call a ‘hands-off courtship’, in which we saved physical touch of any kind until we were married. That looks different to different couples, but to us it meant that we didn’t even kiss or hold hands until our vows were said. (And, no, there were no emotional stresses or hindrances on our honeymoon because of it. Just pure happiness that we were finally married!)

I thought I was in love when I married him, but living with John has caused me to admire and love him more as the years go by. 

Today is our tenth wedding anniversary. John is a real gift, one I still don’t feel worthy of. I know. Twenty years from now I’ll probably laugh at the self I am today, saying I knew nothing about love in 2016.  

July 2016