Where the River Meets the Rose

Dear Friends,

I know, I know, I said I would continue my rose story and I will. One such sign of the rose came in Ireland on the year we led this old gent to the Lord.

The November chill was in the air that night. We , my clown team and I, took the risk to enter a nice hotel for a sandwich after a children's special service. Why was it a risk? Well some of our group were not sure they would let us in dressed like this. It took some guts to do it, but God had a plan.

In Ireland the people are not accustomed to clowns coming into bars, restaurants, or hotel cafes. Our other Irish clown is not pictured here, for she was taking the photo. When we joyfully entered the restaurant the whole place stared. The old man in the photos with us was in the hotel restaurant drinking coffee and talking to a woman who was clad very scanty. He began blubbering wildly when he saw us clowns. He was very drunk, and causing such a ruckus over us zany looking clowns.

The management was disturbed about his grabbing us and murmuring in his drunken stupor. So they threw him out. He was crying so hard we could not resist his desperate sadness.

A struggle began for them to throw him out, he blubbered, "I am going next door to the tea shop." As he begged they threw him out the door. But there was no mistaking his trembling voice screaming out to us, "Come see me when you get through, please!." I will never forget this dirty little man, his name was Shawn. After prayer and a sandwich we all ate sadly, we agreed to talk to him. When we entered the tea shop we saw him in the last booth, crying. Tears streamed down his face onto the table. We began our way toward him. I can still see the owner in his white apron drying a dish. He was frozen in time watching us buzoons go to talk to this old man.

A joy I have seldom seen came across his tear stained face. He leaped up, inviting us to sit. Tears streamed and mucous dripped from his nose. I must say it was not a pleasant sight to see. But our hearts filled with compassion as he told us his story. "I saw you and it took me back to my childhood. I have been sad and a drunk since I was a young boy. I can only remember one time in my life being happy. It was when I was nine and at the circus. I saw the clowns and they made me so happy!" He began a life time of regrets, fears, terrible abuse, and a need to forgive. A new stream of tears came as we helped him wipe his nose and dry his eyes. "You brought that one happy memory to my life again." Shawn stuttered for words as he took big gulps for air along with his wailing."

Other guests were witnesses. They and the owner bowed their heads as he shouted out the words to receive Jesus as his savior. He wept and wept. We hugged him and told him to go to church with our Irish friend.

My friend later told me he never did visit the church to her knowledge. About six months later he died on the streets. But he was a man saved because of the obedience of a bunch of crazy Christians in clown suits. Jesus had saved him even if he had not visited church. He was in his 80's he had told us. I wept and thanked God that we had obeyed to go visit him even in his drunken state. How long must one human be humbled and left alone to die desperately? I am so glad he is in heaven now living with the Father, in eternal joy.

It was on this same journey in the same room where we had ministered to the children, that a rose had been left on the floor for days. No one who had attended those meetings knew about my rose prophecy. But, on the last night of services God used a little child to pick the rose from the floor where it had laid for days. "Here Tigi this is for you." Her little smile and kind heart made the faded rose look beautiful.

It was only later that I began to see the smallest things that God would use to show me the sign of the rose. It was also that year that a small child in another church tapped me on the shoulder to give me a box, of guess what? A box of chocolates which bore the name "Roses." Simple, but it was to become no coincidence, when small or large things would appear to bring the rose to me.

During my passages to other nations many odd ways have become anything but happen chance. Tomorrow, I will share with you the story of the dozen roses in North Africa. May God bless you in these troubled days and strengthen you to reach out to a lost and dying world. Look up and rejoice for He comes!

Your friend and sister in the Lord,

Dale Davis (Tigi)