It was on the night of April 8th, 2010, a Thursday night, that I had a sudden impulse to eat chicken. Not just any chicken, from say Albertsons, but chicken from KFC. It was around 9:30 pm at the time, and confident that KFC had to be open to at least 10:00 pm, I put on a jacket and left the house.

As I turned on the engine, I slowly backed out of the driveway, and for some odd reason, it felt like something was wrong. I checked the car and everything seemed to be in place. The lights were on, emergency brake was off, there was plenty of gas, and it all seemed to be fine. Suddenly, like a fly unexpectedly hitting the window, it hit me. The radio wasn’t turned on. Now it’s not as though I need the radio on all the time, but this particular night, I thought I’d turn it on, just to satisfy myself. Spirit 105.3. That was the channel that was currently playing music and not advertising.

After a couple minutes, I finally arrived at KFC. It was about 9:40 pm. Containing my excitement, I successfully parked the car and got out. Walking towards the door to KFC, I was drenched with misery. Kentucky Fried Chicken was closed. Now I know how desperate Cartman felt in one of the recent South Park episodes. Check out the episode; link below! I have to warn you, though. Viewer Discretion is Advised.

http://bit.ly/dtAoON

After passing through the state of shock and depression, I looked around to see people staring back at me from inside their car. Embarrased, I walked away from the door and took a longer route to my car. As I was approaching the car, I heard someone ask a question.

“Do you have fifty cents I can have for the bus?”

I scanned around to see no one except for the person who asked the question, and then immediately knew that the question was aimed towards me. He was an African American, not too dark, probably in his twenties. Imagine: it was almost ten o’clock at night and a pretty fair-sized African-American (stereotyping, but who wouldn’t in these conditions?) was walking straight toward me with nobody around our vicinity. Probably one or two lights around, and other than that, very dark. Not really a fun situation to be in, especially since I didn’t know him or his intentions. For some odd reason, I wasn’t scared at all; not even the slightest bit intimidated. Looking back at him, I answered back.

“I’m sorry, I only have a ten dollar bill with me. If I can buy some food, I can give you some change, but, uh, KFC is the only restaurant around the street and it’s closed.”

“Well, can you go ask for some change at some other store? Maybe like Dairy Queen across the street or something?”

“Eh, why not? I can go drive over there real fast and you can wait right here, or let’s go walk over there.”

“Oh, I can get in the car if you want. No big deal.”

Now at that moment, my mind was racing. Do I really want this guy in the car? Should I get rid of him? Thoughts started to flood through my mind in the short three seconds that I was silent. In the end, I let him in.

“Alright, then. Hop in!”

I know, I know. This was a very dangerous thing to do, but again, for some odd reason, I had an impulse to let him in. It felt as though nothing bad would happen, that God said he was protecting me. As he got in, I saw that he had to cramp his legs because there wasn’t enough space.

“You can pull the seat back if you need more space.”

He laughed politely. I don’t think he understood what I was talking about.

“Is this your car?”

“Nope. It’s my sister’s car.”

I started up the engine and I backed out, eventually making my way out into the driveway. I didn’t feel like going to Dairy Queen or any other restaurants around us.

“Let’s go to McDonalds instead.”

“Alright, cool!”

As I was making my way to McDonalds, I noticed that he started to laugh quietly, snickering in a sense. Suddenly, he started to talk about religion. I noticed why. Spirit 105.3 was on loud and clear with songs about love.

“You know Buddha, Jesus, Hinduism, Allah, and all those other gods and religions? It’s just driving me crazy! I’m getting tired of people trying to shove this things into my mind. You know?”

“Yeah, I can understand what you are saying.”

Then he started to go off on some things that I didn’t quite catch. It was something along the lines of spirits, or something along the lines of them, eating the shadows of him when the Sun was up, and some other religious views/things that he went off on. It seemed as though he was thoroughly confused and he didn’t want any more of it.

Eventually, we got to McDonalds and we went through the drive-through.

“Would you like anything to eat?”

“Uh, just one burger.”

“What burger?”

“A McDouble. That should be great. Thanks!”

And yet again, for some reason, the wait at the drive-through was super long. We remained silent for a bit while waiting, and Spirit 105.3 was over playing music. It was now a man and a woman talking about religious views and they discussed many things. I could hear the guy laughing and snickering to himself again and I guessed it was probably due to the statements that they were making over the radio.

Soon enough, I got the food and we started to make our way out of McDonald’s drive-through. I received a little over six dollars in change and I handed him the money.

“Here, you can have the five-dollar bill. Actually, you can also take the dollar for easier convenience with the bus.”

“Thanks, man! What’s your name?”

“It’s Kyong.”

“Chon?”

“Kyong. What’s yours?”

“I’m Clifton!”

“Oh, Clifton. Do you live around here?”

“Well, I was actually adopted, and you know, I don’t really have a place that I stay in now. I used to hang around Marysville, though.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You know what? Let me try to find a pen and I’ll write down my phone number for you. If you’re ever around Everett and you need something, you can give me a call!”

I found paper, but I couldn’t find a pen. Well, it felt as though Clifton felt safer and he started to talk about himself more. I couldn’t quite grasp what he said as a whole. He talked a little more about his legal adoption, and I could tell it was a little harder for him to say. Then he went on about a Clifton Prophet being this and that, how someone in his life was an atheist and some other person was religious. And what caught my attention was when he also started to talk about people telling him more and more about religion, trying to engrave it into his mind. The impression that I got was he was sent to some religious thing where they probably tried to make him religious practically by force. Kind of like boot camp. Maybe it was his foster parents, or what, but they probably had good intentions for him. During that time, he also took out his wallet to put away the money that I gave him. I happened to notice his driver’s license and it was from out of state.

After some other things happened, I was near the bus stop. I tried to find a pen, and still couldn’t find one.

“Do you think you can memorize my phone number? It’s kind of easy.”

“Um, actually, I have amnesia and schizophrenia. A lot of things come and go so I might not be able to remember it.”

Right then, I noticed there was something more to this guy and that meeting him was more than just me meeting him. God was stirring up something. He also listed some other illnesses, but those two were the main ones that I caught. In the end, I dropped him off at the bus stop, without any contact information. I wanted to really meet him again, see what I could do, but in the end, that wasn’t part of God’s plan.

Clifton ended up being a really friendly guy. I probably shook his hand around eight times.

As I got home, I started to reflect on what just happened, along with all the key details. Out of thin air, I was suddenly craving KFC. I met Clifton when I was about to leave KFC. I happened to feel the need to have Spirit 105.3 turned on when I left. Clifton had a really interesting background, along with being the one to bring up religion and even Jesus.

That one experience made me want to do more. I regret not having a pen so much. That I couldn’t leave Clifton with a contact number. But, hey. Maybe that was God’s purpose. To make me thirst for more. To make me want to take action. To make me understand the urgency of saving more people. There are many out there that aren’t that hard to save if you just give in the time and effort. Honestly, I think Clifton would’ve been easier to save than most other people that I’ve met. It really made me open my eyes. There are people out there that just needs a little bit of your time and effort. It’s not asking for much. We’re just so caught up in our own little worlds.

Love. We have to show it more towards others that we may not know. Isn’t that what we should be doing in the first place? To pour out God’s love, that others may experience it and submit to Christ Jesus.

1 Corinthians 13 (NIV)

Love

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

This classic passage from the Bible about love has dumbfounded me after this experience. Verse 3 stuck out a little more than the rest. Even if you help the poor, but you don’t follow it up with love, then there’s no point. Show love. Show God’s unconditional love. Another way I like to look at this passage is to replace every single “love” with “God”. God is love. That truly adds more meaning to the passage in a different sense.

I also found a video about showing love and I’d say it relates to my experience somewhat. Please check it out by going to my Xanga page. Link down below!

http://kyoungyu.xanga.com/725087880/love/

It’s been a while since I last wrote on my WordPress, but I’m hoping to make a better comeback than last time! Oh, and more pictures that I personally took with my phone since my Facebook is no longer active. Actually, the camera on my phone broke, so we’ll see. Hahahaha, but the two pictures in this blog post are ones that I took a while back. Thank you for reading, and remember to check out the video on my Xanga page!

“Love never fails.”

“God never fails.”

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