Do You Need Facebook To Make New Friends This Christmas?

What's Facebook got to do with life? One reads that if you are not on Facebook then life is passing you by. Hmmmm.

The last 20 hours has been a period of time that lifts up the heart and causes a real sense of joy and goodwill toward men. It started yesterday evening....

After a hectic day which saw friends missing their flight to visit family because the nearby International Airport security was so slow, re-arranging their tickets for later in the day (and yes, they had to pay for another set of tickets - the airline said it wasn't their fault that security was so slow), fitting in Christmas shopping, another trip to the airport to deliver the friends a second time and more Christmas shopping, it was no wonder that with all the parcels and a 10 year old in tow, I lost my book of 'cards'. Bus pass, debit card and another 10 personal bits of information which made up part of my little identity. All lost, and what's more, I hadn't even realized it.

Soon after arriving home in the evening the phone rang. An Asian voice spoke at the other end having the usual difficulty with the pronunciation of my surname. Feeling as though the patience of Job was called for I suffered his attempts at identifying me and was waiting to tell him that, in fact, we didn't accept telephone sales and that our number was ex-directory so therefore, how was it that he had got it, when he asked me if I had noticed that my cards were lost.

Well, you can imagine my swift change of attitude! After arranging a time to meet in the morning and him identifying himself (so we could recognize him) as tall, dark and handsome, we met him this morning for coffee and this was his story.

He had just purchased an item from a shop in the shopping Mall and was on his way home when he felt prompted to go back and sit down in the nearby central seating area for a few minutes. Doing so, he noticed a paper bag on the floor partly under the bench. A few seconds later another man close-by, picked up the bag and asked our new found friend if it belonged to him.

Our new friend again, feeling prompted, said, 'yes, it is mine'. Looking inside, he found my plastic folder of cards. Going home, his first thought on how to deal with the situation was to report it to the police, which he duly did. They wanted him to come up to the Police station. At night, in the rain, and walking! Well, the Officer said, bring it tomorrow.

Still feeling unsettled by the incident, he decided to try to find me personally. First, he tried Facebook. No joy. But among the cards was a Postal delivery note for collection from the nearest depot. This had our badly written address on it, which meant finding us on Google maps was ruled out, as Google didn't recognise the street address. Next, he typed my name into Google and finding my telephone listed under a Church, he rang.

What amazed him was the persistent feeling that God loved this unknown person very much. Our new friend could not divest himself of this perception.

Although he was brought up in a family where his mother was a strong Christian and, apart from her own job, also voluntarily preached the gospel, he himself had only recently had a born-again experience.

He was now actively asking the Lord, (as we call Him) to show him how best to live his life. Discovering that I was a Christian - as evidenced by my contact to our Church, he could not wait to tell me what a blessing the experience had been for him, and I myself found it so special, I could not wait to write it down.

Christ, the Giver. Even at this Christmas time, 2011 years later, still giving. Still uniting man with man, still working so that the love and unity which He determined so long ago in Himself - as His kingdom - making in Himself, people from every nation, one new creation! Who can find words to express the absolute beauty of this?

Two other little points. I had asked our Church secretary to please remove my phone number from the internet. She never had. And my own pronunciation of unfamiliar words which occur in people from a different tongue and culture to my own, is far from perfect.

So Facebook, can you deliver an experience like this? The answer is just a plain, simple 'No'. Do I really need you then? No, Facebook, I don't. Long after your day has come and gone, Christ will still be with us. That's reason for a shout of 'Hallelujah'!