That hot, summer day we’d slept in, picked flowers to put in vases, gone for a bike ride, spent most of the afternoon at the city pool across the street, just gotten home – most of us still in our nearly-dry swimming suits, towels hung up haphazardly in the downstairs bathroom. I didn’t even hear the doorbell, focused as I was on cutting vegetables and stirring the rice noodles in that hot, bubbly water – nearly suppertime. And so I looked up from there in the kitchen, old polka dot apron over my swimming suit, to see a young man standing in our entryway, my proud-looking 5 year old son – who’d answered the door himself – standing next to him, both of them smiling at me.

He looked to be about 18 or 20 years old, tall with short yellow hair, wire-rimmed glasses – harmless enough, I guessed. And still, I heard my own voice coming now, filled with caution and surprise, “Can I help you?” He began walking toward me then and I noticed for the first time, he had something in his hand – a book. His mouth started making sound, though I had to listen carefully to understand his halting English. Made out that he wanted to talk with me about some educational books he was trying to sell. Thinking quickly, silently willing him to disappear, “Well, this isn’t a very good time…” And him, graciously, “I see you eating now,” motioning toward the stove where the rice noodles were boiling furiously. “I come back later.” An inward sigh of relief from me – “Yes, yes, that would be good. Come back later” and me, thinking I would never see this yellow-haired boy-man again.

Not two hours later, there he was again, back on our front step, doorbell ringing, asking hopefully, “This is a good time to talk now?” Again with my inward sighing, “Sure, come on in…” So the three of us – this stranger, Nathan and I, we sat down there at our dining room table, us hot and sticky with big glasses of ice water. He introduced himself – Damien, from Poland – and spent the next half hour trying to convince us to buy his books, did a lovely job actually with his words, always smiling and upbeat, connecting well with us. But no, we didn’t have the money for this right now, we told him. And when he got up to leave, we realized a storm had blown in – rain pouring down in sheets, thunder and lightening, trees blowing billowy. And Damien was on his bike.

No books, we said, but since it is raining, can we drive you somewhere, save you from getting wet? “Yes, to the Walmart,” he said, to buy some groceries and to meet his friend who had a car. So Nathan drove him there and then called me, “Damien and his friend just found out they don’t have a place to stay anymore. The folks who owned the house where they were staying just sold the place; they don’t know where they’re going to sleep tonight.” From me, yet again with the sighing, “Can you drive them to a hotel?” From Nathan, “Sure, will do.” And I thought that was the end of it, until my phone rang again. “I drove them to four different hotels in town and they’re all full up, no rooms left, and the storm’s supposed to get worse…” And me, “Alright. They can stay here, but JUST for the night.” So home they came, Nathan, Damien from Poland, and Damien’s friend, Karl-Erik, from Estonia.

Wet hair, wet clothes, wet shoes, wet suitcases, dragged through to our dry guest room. Then handshakes and “nice to meet yous” and showing them where the bathroom was. By now it was late, but still we sat for a time, hearing bits and pieces of their stories, how they’d come to America to work, just for the summer, selling books, heard about their families and their ambitions and their hopes for the future. Then off to bed. I told Nathan we should sleep with the baseball bat nearby, just in case.

But no need. In the morning, they were gone before we awoke, the only evidence of their presence with us a big Hershey’s chocolate bar and a sweet thank-you card, left carefully arranged on the kitchen table. All day long, those two boy-men weighed heavily on me. They’d asked for nothing, and yet, I felt an enormous pull toward them, burdened somehow. By the end of that day, both Nathan and I knew we were to ask them to come, to stay with us for the remainder of the summer. So Nathan called Damien up, inviting him and Karl-Erik to make our home theirs. And they came.

The six weeks they were here were precious – full of miscommunications and laughter and oodles and oodles of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, their absolute favorite. Spent a whole bunch of time trying to teach them how to make the “-th” sound correctly, so “teeth” didn’t sound like “teets” anymore. Cooked them veggie fried rice and BBQ chicken, baked cupcakes and put up our birthday banner over the door on Karl-Erik’s birthday, took Damien on a hike through the city park on the edge of town. Heard about the happenings of their days, like the time a dog peed on Damien’s backpack and he went around the rest of the day smelling stinky, so no one would listen to him talk about books then. Hosted a couple of friends of Karl-Erik who were in town visiting, slept there on our brown sofas. Met Damien’s girlfriend back in Poland via googlechat and repaired the flat tire on his bike. Always polite and kind and grateful, these boy-men worked their way into our hearts while some around us thought we were a bit crazy, to have welcomed these strangers in.

Conversation moved to the Unseen off and on as the weeks passed. We heard how mostly only old people go to church in eastern Europe, and they go because it is a tradition, part of their culture, what they have always done – not because they expect to meet Anyone there, to be changed or molded or moved. And the young people, they don’t see any point in religion, have no need for it, can live their lives just fine without it. But, these young men said, it is different here in America, here in Nebraska. People here are changed in their hearts by knowing Him, they seem to live differently, the beliefs of their minds and the passion in their hearts intersecting and influencing and drawing people close.

The evening before Karl-Erik was set to leave, we had taken these young men, along with our four young children, to a local pizza place for supper, as a send-off. And as I looked around the table that night, seeing the smiles and hearing the giggles, all the voices blending together, a family – my heart sang. And I marveled at His goodness in bringing these boy-men, these sons, to us. Marveled at His timing and His love for these, his children. Marveled too at His mercy in softening me, at His giving me eyes to see and ears to hear when every fiber of me was hard there at the beginning of it.

A few days later, it was Damien’s turn to leave, so I drove him to Omaha to catch his bus – three final hours together on the road in our black Jetta, to squeeze in every last thing there was to say. He was nervous about going back home, he said. He said that he had changed so very much over the summer, here in America, that he didn’t know what home would be like now, if people would be glad for the changes in him or not, if he could maintain the new person he felt himself to be, or if he would revert back to his old ways. Words of encouragement and blessing, I tried to give him. Gave him too my cherished Bible, old and worn, with my maiden name engraved there on the blue leather cover, teased him that he would have to practice his reading in English now that he had an English book in his possession.

And when Damien got on the bus that night, it was like saying goodbye to my own flesh and blood. He was ‘mine’ just like the children I am raising are ‘mine,’ and he was ‘on loan for just a little while’ just like the children I am raising are ‘on loan for just a little while.’ And we never know how much time we will, all of us, any of us, have together here. And we never know when a stranger might become family, when Love will arrive yet again, surprising us in its advent.

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