Donuts or Divine Guidance?

“I’ve got a hankering for a donut and coffee this morning,” said my buddy Wes.

He’d arrived at my house early to take a truck load of donations to the mission and to work revising his great great grandfather’s autobiography.

We loaded the truck and set out driving.

We drove right past a bakery on Edgewood Avenue. They sell donuts but every time I’ve ever been in there, the owners acted snotty and I refuse to buy anything from them.

We drove right past the old Krispy-Kreme Donut factory because it’s closed for renovations or something.

We drove right past the Dunkin Donut shop, because we were jabbering so hard that I forgot to tell Wes where to turn.

We drove out of our way to the Donut King on Normandy Avenue. A Korean family opened it recently. They make the best donuts I have ever tasted, and believe me I’ve tasted quite a few. In fact, donuts have made me the man I am today. Just look at any photo of me for proof.

Now, here’s where this gets odd.

Wes noticed that the young Korean man behind the counter was reading a book. “What’s that you’re reading,” Wes asked.

The counterman showed us a beautifully bound and printed Bible, a real work of art. He said his mother had sent it to him from Korea.

As we admired the squiggly incomprehensible oriental letters in this Bible, the young man told us about how he sends money home to his Mother who is a Christian. He told us how he is a highschool student and wishes to enter the Air Force Academy — or to become a dentist (Typical highschool student!). He told us how happy he is to be in the United States.

Wes asked a favor, “Can you read a verse for me in Korean? I’d like to hear how John 3:16 sounds in your language”.

The young man searched the table of contents in his lavishly ornate Korean Bible trying to find the Gospel of John.

He couldn’t.

A customer came in and while he waited on her, Wes took the Korean Bible. From the printing he recognized the separation of Old and New Testaments. He counted off the first four books of the New Testament — again without knowing a word of the language or Korean alphabet — just by recognizing changes in typeface. (Wes is a retired master printer).

Then he counted the first three chapters of that Gospel by heading typeface; then he counted 16 verses down!

When the young man came back from serving the lady he exclaimed in surprise that this foreigner had indeed located John 3:16 in the Korean language. The young man had never read or even heard of that verse before.

I can’t swear I’ve got the right on-line verse 16 here, but in case you’re wondering, it looks something like this:

In English that’s, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life”.

That’s all there was to this incident.

But when we left the Donut King, the young man was studying his Bible intently.

Makes me wonder if we had been guided to that spot for some purpose more than our own carving for donuts..

As we got in the truck I told Wes, “Now I know how God guides us in the modern world — He gives us a hankering for donuts”.

After delivering the truck load to the mission we returned to my house and spent the morning scanning, resizing, captioning and inserting newly-recovered family photos into the second edition of Wes’ book.

Doesn’t seeing such a photo make you want to rush right out and buy a copy of Wes’s book?

No? How about this next one?

This photo is from an old newspaper clipping about the Rev. J.P. King, M.D. Yes, Wes’ great great grandfather was both an evangelist and a medical doctor. Unfortunately Dr. King wrote and finished his autobiography long before this interesting marriage took place. The couple were married for nine years. Dr. King lived till just days short of his 100th birthday. The full clipping quotes the bride as saying, “Those years with Mr. King were the best years of my life — No matter what happens to me, I’ll always remember him”.