Bibla?

Don't think it's a mistake.  I did intend to entitle this entry, "Bibla?"  It's the Albanian translation of, "Bible".  Every Thursday for the last number of months, weather permitting, we've placed a small dusty white table with one leg shorter than the other three on the sidewalk out front of our church.  After wiping off the dust and soot that settles on it each week from the constant burning of the wood stove, we cover it with a  funny looking white table cloth with purple flowers.  Then comes what sanctifies this little, busted up, imperfect, not all that worth looking at table.  Bibles, New Testaments, copies of Psalms and Proverbs, children's books, calendars with scriptures, and various other books that explain the Christian faith.

Our most recent Thursday morning included an encounter like I've never had before.  Two men approached our table.  We exchanged customary greetings as they stood a short distance from the table.  They came closer for a better look at the titles on some of the books, then they each began picking them up...one at a time...flipping through them, exchanging them with one another, putting them back down.  One small stack of books caught the eye of one of them.  It was a stack of Bibles...uhh...Biblas.  They come wrapped in plastic to protect them from the elements.  This young man reached out and said, "Bibla?" as he picked it up.  "Po (Yes), Bibla.", I responded.  He turned it over in his hands.  Seeing nothing written on the back he turned it back over.  I watched him run his fingers along the top, side, then bottom as if looking for an opening in the plastic.  "Bibla?", he said again.  His confused face and body language said more than his words, his fingers visibly pressed against the plastic in an effort to break the seal.  Then it hit me...I didn't want to believe what I was thinking...so I said yet again, "Po,  Bibla....you know?"  He shook his head saying, "Jo (No)."

This man had not only never seen a Bible, he had absolutely no idea what one was.  I stood there speechless.  It was like unknowingly coming face to face with an albino deer or something, and then all the sudden realizing it.  He had no idea what a Bible was, so he couldn't have known anything that was in it.  And if he didn't know anything in it...I had no idea what to do next.  I did the only thing I knew to do.

I asked for the Bibla, unwrapped it, and handed it back to him.  There must be this instinct in humans that causes them to do this, but he placed his thumb roughly in the middle and slid it open.  He curiously turned a page, then a few more, then a large number of pages.  He was completely oblivious to everyone and everything around him.  He looked up at me, and asked how much it cost.  This question makes me chuckle every time, because there's a sign taped to the front of the table that says in Albanian, "Everything Is Free.".  I explained there was no cost.  He closed the Bibla, staring at it gripping it tightly with both hands.  I can't even imagine what could have been going on in his mind, let alone in his spirit.  He looked up at me, thanked me, wished me a good day, I wished him the same, and he walked away with the Bibla tucked under his arm.

A seed planted.  The first seed planted.  Pray for rain.