randomness

So I just had an interesting encounter.

I was sitting outside of a coffeeshop in downtown Grand Rapids talking to my good friend Alexis and eating some ice in a cup when this old white guy in a leather jacket comes up and says,

"Hi, first of all, my name is Stephen. I'm a Sunni Muslim. I speak Arabic and Spanish really well."

Me: I speak some Arabic.
Stephen: what do you speak?
Me: I speak some Egyptian arabic.
Stephen: What do you say?
Me: izzayak? Ana ismi Kirsten. (hehe, that's all I could think of)
Stephen: No, the first Surah of the Qur'an is.. (And he proceeds to recite the Qur'an for like a minute!)

I was pretty impressed I must say. So then he started asking for bus money and stuff and telling us he could tell we were in college and that Alexis wasn't American (her parents are Korean but she's from Guam, which is a U.S. territory, and therefore definitely American). Anyway, weird.

But then I started asking him about when he became a Muslim, evidently 12 years ago when he was in prison. I asked him how and he said, because I believe in Allah. He told us we should read the Qur'an and I was so happy I could tell him I'd read a lot of it.

Anyway, it was quite random, but it was kinda just like a sign or something, and made me so glad I had done MESP for yet another reason.

I miss you all!