Last Saturday I was accompanying a group of high school boys and girls for a monthly service project. This first one of the year was visiting a local nursing home.
On the back of their missions t-shirt was the quote in Spanish saying “Jesus calls you to be a disciple in action” by Pope Francis. It caught the attention of one elderly resident.
“What’s that you got there on the back of your shirt?”
When the teenager realized what she was asking and translated it, the elderly woman gasped.
“No one is going to believe me when I tell them I met a disciple!”
She said it so seriously and emphatically, as if she could hardly believe the words she had heard.
A smile crept over the teenager’s face. “Yes, we are disciples!”
With that, she insisted that the teenager and the others around her come over to her, so that they could sign a little notepad she carried with her. It would be her proof that she had, indeed, met not just ONE disciple, but multiple disciples!
Witnessing their interaction made me wonder whose life was most impacted that day: that lady in the nursing home or the teenager interacting with her.
“Go, do not be afraid, and serve” (Pope Francis).
