Free The Kingdom Land by Bart Tuma

such
chaos.Only those who fought by his side could relate. At first,
John didn’t talk about the war because he couldn’t. After meeting
Christ, he didn’t talk about it because he felt the Lord had done
such a miracle of saving and healing him from that hell that it
would be an injustice to take anyone there in stories.
    John was neither a wino nor a dropout. The war had
left him beat up, much like Erik, so he hit the trains as a bum
with nowhere to go. By the time he got to Fairfield, he knew the
fine skill of panhandling and the rituals of soup kitchens.
Usually, if the church had such a ministry, they would have food,
but the food would come with a price. The price was not dollars the
vagrants would not have, but a lecture on the greatness of God and
the need for salvation. John knew the ritual well and would bide
his time to get the food.
    At New Life Center it was different. They invited him
in, set real dishes, not paper plates, before him and let him eat
in peace. They had noticed a tear in his shirt and asked him if he
would like a different one from a collection the congregation had
contributed. It almost seemed to John the people felt it would be
an honor if he would take one of their shirts. It wasn’t like they
were doing him a favor. It was his favor to them. Somehow this
attitude confused John about the reason he was there. He was there
to get some food and be gone. Suddenly, he felt he was part of
their lives.
    When John asked the pastor when the sermon would be
given, the pastor looked surprised. “I’m sorry. I don’t have a
sermon prepared. I’m not sure I know what you mean.” What John
meant was that his experience with the church had always come with
strings attached. “We’ll do this for you, but you have to do this
and be this way and listen to that.” Here, there was simply giving
as if it had already been given to them.
    They had even offered to let John wash up in the
restrooms and use a new toothbrush and comb they put by the sink.
After he was done, John didn’t leave. He stayed to hear their lives
and then to hear the story of their Savior’s life. He had gotten
off a freight train because of hunger, but he didn’t realize the
food he would receive during those days would make him never hunger
in emptiness and loneliness again.
    The pastor of the church, Pastor Hodgson, had been in
Fairfield long enough to know its people. He knew they would
quickly brand John as a hobo, and that distinction would never be
lost. He was a man who wasn’t concerned about where a man had come
from, but where he was going. He made sure the people of Fairfield
would only know that John had come from the West Coast and that the
railroad had brought him. John had worked for the engineering corps
in the Army building bridges and temporary camps. It was natural
for him to become a carpenter. It was only a matter of days before
John looked just like a native Montanan.
    Fairfield was a town that knew everything about what
every person did in town. They didn’t know or care about what
happened in the world outside of Fairfield. Fairfield was its own
universe and life outside of it really didn’t matter. So it was an
easy place to start a new life. They would never know the other
life of John that had ended when he hopped off the freight.
    John quickly became part of the community. He was
strong and knew how to work, and that was what people respected.
The Lord had found a place for him long before he knew the town and
His touch healed John of many of the scars he had received during
the war. The greatest miracle in his life was that the Lord could
take a man completely demolished by the misery of war and heal him
so that his hard heart was a soft cushion for others and his faith
a strength to many.
    John could talk to Erik about the simplicity of
Christ because the simple touch of His hand had touched John. Those
people who knew him now would never guess the hell and mess his
life had passed through, and