His name was Robin

From It's Like Herding Cats - A pastor's life

And there's not a whole lot else that I know about him. Thing is, I won't have another opportunity - Robin died last week.

One of our New Hope hearts, Pam Roberts in this case, came to us with an idea a couple months back. There was a program called "Supper on Saturdays" that the local UMC hosted and that several local churches participated in. A thousand meals every Saturday were being delivered by ordinary people following an extraordinary God. She checked it out and then asked for the opportunity to tell New Hope about it. And so it began.

During the last few weeks we've had people step up to help us participate as well as help us resource our Wednesday night ministry which delivers meals to some of the same people plus a few more. We've seen some of the people we reached out to come to our movie night, and had an opportunity to help one couple. When their bike tires were slashed, Joe Stoy went and fixed them so they would continue to have a means of transportation. So some are going, some are helping, and many are praying for this ministry.

Robin stepped out on the stoop on one of our Saturday deliveries. He was at a house that we had delivered to before and we thought was the home of a family with kids. So just seeing him there was strange, but his appearance was a shock. Tall and gaunt, his skin was the color of dried mustard - and it shocked us all. Pam is an RN and she immediately started asking him about getting looked at by a doctor, and specifically at the free clinic just a few blocks away. He looked awful and wasn't very clear in his responses about where the family was. We gathered and asked if we could pray for him. We finished our prayer, left a meal with him, but went down the road concerned about this man we just met.

On the Wednesday following, Pam again urged him to get medical help and provided the days and hours that the clinic was open.

The next Saturday, he died.

We don't know anything about him really. His relationship with God, now forever fixed, we will have to learn later.

We don't even know whether we were the last people to reach out to him with the love of Jesus or whether if we had known him longer we might have been able to persuade him to get help.

But we do know this - on a Saturday afternoon, we prayed for God to touch a dying man with His love and mercy.

And had we not been there that day, we'd missed another reminder of how much every single human being needs to know that there is a God Who cares for them. Before it's too late.