In 2018, I was walking out the front door of the YWAM Ships Kona base – a repurposed hotel right on the water in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. I was rounding the front of the building when I saw someone taking pictures of the base. Thinking about security, I asked him, “Hey can I help you?”
We started talking and he became quite emotional, sharing that his life had been a mess the year before. He was homeless, living on the pier near the base.
Then he met a few students from YWAM and they started hanging out every week. They introduced him to Jesus and his life started to get better. He left Kona and moved to Hilo, on the other side of the island. He was just visiting Kona now and wanted to stop by the place that had changed his life.
He explained, “This place means so much to me, I just wanted to take a picture to show it to my friend.”
The students who spent time with him might not even know what became of him. He showed me the Bible they gave him. The pages were well read and covered in highlighter. While they probably don’t know the fruit of what they did, we got to see it. We don’t know who they were, but they played a part in helping this man get off the street, back on his feet, and back to living life.
Ben Fontaine