By Philip Vaseekaran
IT is reported in the Talmud that the Biblical Prophet Isaiah (The Book of Isaiah is one the major Prophetic books of the Holy Bible) who lived around 700 BC was ordered to be sawn in two by King Manasseh who was annoyed at his prophetic and other sayings that were directed at the people of Israel who were straying away from God and indulging in practices that dishonoured God.
At JC’s Café, we have been following a practice of gifting custom made mini bookmarks (1 inch by 3 inch) that have Bible verses on them to customers along with the bill. And these bookmarks are randomly chosen from a small box at our Cash Register and depending on the number of guests, we include these in the bill folder. We have been religiously following this practice irrespective of the perceived faith of our customers since most of these verses are of a “blessing” nature. Some customers pick them up and some leave them behind. On a few occasions we’ve had customers jump in delight or close to tears when they get a “Word” from the Lord through these little bits of paper board. A few months ago we had a lady from St. Andrew’s Kirk who attended our “Bible and History” session and was almost in tears when she called me over. She held this bookmark close to her chest and whispered to me; “I haven’t told anyone about the surgery I am about to have tomorrow and was very worried; till I received this verse from you which said, “Fear Not, for I am with you”
I also had Joshua from Emmanuel Methodist Church, Vepery (which is on the other side of town) who brought to the Café a bunch of these bookmarks that he had with him since his youth group days at EMC and showed me these worn out pieces of paper that he treasured since they ministered to him almost 12-14 years ago. But little did we know that we’d get into trouble because of one of those bookmarks.
A few weeks ago, a gentleman driving a blue car dropped in our café and picked up a few pastries which he wanted packed up and as usual Roy who is part of our service crew dropped one bookmark inside the paper bag which had the pastries neatly arranged in a cake box. Within the next half hour, I had another gentleman screeching onto our parking lot on a scooter and rushed inside our café with his right hand extended out with a little bit of paper on it. He had an enraged look on his face and I immediately stepped from behind the Counter and asked him what he wanted. His face flushed in angry red, he stuck out his hand right at my face and announced dramatically, “I have come to return this” and thrust one of our bookmarks towards me. Since he looked as if he was ready to punch me in the face, I took back the half crumpled bookmark and apologized. He angrily barked at me, “How could you put these in without taking permission? It is food d#@##@#” He seemed to suggest that somehow we had tainted his food with a Bible verse. I was at a loss for words and mumbled another half hearted apology and blatantly lied to him that we will take permission, the next time.
Amused and rattled at the same time, I looked at the verse and it was from Isaiah 40:29 which said, “He gives strength to the weary” with the reference written in small fonts with our Café address in even smaller fonts…. No God, No Jesus, just “He”.
This person could have just thrown it away or considered it as unwanted promo material from our café and ignored it, but he was so angry that the food that was brought to him by someone else had a Bible verse in it. I now realise how very important it is for us to continue on this journey of taking God’s Word into this hostile world.
We are humbled and grateful for the amazing support that we had got from so many people to keep this ministry going as we have completed 6 amazing months (we re-opened on 12 August 2023).
You can reach Philip Vaseekaran at pvaseeka [at] yahoo [dot] com
