People
An Act Of Kindness
CAROL KURUVILLA
A Christian pastor would have been heartbroken as he started this new year if it wasn’t for the help of a stranger from a different religion.
Pastor Todd Gaston, of Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Stafford, Virginia, USA, was visiting family in North Texas over the holidays when a thief stole his backpack straight from the front seat of his rental car.
Inside, Gaston had kept a Microsoft Surface laptop, a Kindle, and an iPod nano. The financial loss was tough to bear, but what really hurt was the fact that the crook had also taken his Bible and the prayer journal he’d kept for the past year. Gaston has been journaling for most of his spiritual life and likes to write down prayers and thoughts documenting the time he ‘spends with God‘. He had also starting mapping out his sermons for the next year.
“The technology stuff, yeah it’s expensive. But those things can be replaced,” Gaston said. “But those books marking my relationship with the Lord are very important to me.”
But fate was working on the pastor’s behalf.
A Sikh man found the backpack dumped on the side of the road and immediately recognized that the books belonged to a person of faith.
“Even though we believe differently in terms of faith and truth and Jesus, he saw this as valuable to someone and he was going to try to return them,” Gaston said.
The Sikh man found Gaston’s business card and contacted the pastor’s church, Mt. Ararat Baptist Church in Stafford, Virginia. Then, he left the books at a local library in Texas for Gaston to pick up.
The two later met up and Gaston was able to say thanks. He says he plans to continue the relationship.
The Sikh man told the pastor that he doesn’t want to be identified.
“I’m grateful, very grateful,” Gaston said. “To be able to get that act of kindness from someone who doesn’t know me. It makes me more mindful. If I found a something similar that belonged to a person of his faith, would I go out of my way?”
[Courtesy: The Huffington Post. Edited for sikhchic.com]
January 6, 2015
Conversation about this article
1: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), January 06, 2015, 7:45 PM.
This is Sikhi getting down to business. All these acts must be reported and shared ... they also serve as teaching moments. There have been countless such cases ...
2: Gurbux Singh (Chatsworth, California, USA), January 12, 2015, 9:42 PM.
In late 1974, while struggling to make a living having come to the Midwest as an immigrant, I found work as a technician at a new car dealership. A lone Sardar in the whole town. At work one day a new vehicle was given me to fix a seat problem where the driver's seat would not adjust electrically. I found a thick envelope that was stuck in the seat rail and pulled it out and saw that it was a money bag stuffed with a lot of money. I notified my manager and he took it away. It was the only problem with the seat. I was later paged that day to come to the owner's office and it usually means that something is wrong. I went to the Office and saw that the owner of the business had a gentleman sitting there and he got up and shook my hand and thanked me for fixing his seat in the new car. His next statement surprised me when he said, 'Do you know how much money was in the bag and why did you not just take it'? Without hesitation, I said to them that it was not mine and why would I take what was not mine. The owner of the dealership then told me that this person is the President of the largest bank in town and there was $38,000.00 in the envelope which his wife had forgotten where she had put it a week ago and were in the process of reporting it stolen. I refused to take the reward he offered me. He then handed me his card saying I should give him a call if I needed help at any time with banking. Twelve years later, I bought some land to build a house and remembered the card I had in my wallet and decided to call him to get help for securing a construction loan for my house. I was asked to come to the bank the next morning and my wife and I were pleasantly surprised when he handed us a checkbook and said start writing checks and advised us about liens, etc. His secretary kept reminding him that he had not asked for a guarantor or collateral and he told her that he was handling it as a personal loan and he was absolutely sure that he was doing the right thing. We built our dream home in six months and unfortunately had to sell it a couple of years later and moved to South California as our son had allergies which were very bad in the Midwest climate.