Michael Love noticed the Bible on the table next to the man’s computer. He and his teammate, Emmett Grant, had walked into a café in a diverse European city hoping to meet Aaron, the shop owner. Love asked a simple question: “Do you read the Bible?”
Aaron said he did. Love asked if he was a Christian.
“No,” Aaron replied. “But I think I’m going to be.”
Love and Grant serve with the International Mission Board among Central Asians in Europe after doors closed in their former countries of service. In one week Grant can hear six or seven languages. They focus on Central Asians, yet they will not turn down anyone God puts in front of them — including a café owner with an open Book.
Aaron came from a Catholic background but did not practice the faith. He had struggled with drug addiction. About four years earlier he should have died from an overdose. He felt that God had stopped him from dying. He did not yet know what it looked like to know God, so he began exploring other religions — Islamic, Buddhist, and Jewish texts. In some of them he kept noticing references to Jesus. “It seems like everybody wants a piece of this guy,” he said.
So he picked up a Bible. He started in Genesis, slowed in Exodus, then skipped ahead to the Gospels and read about the life of Jesus. The more he read, the more convinced he became that it was true. “What he read in the Bible just made sense to him,” Grant later said.
Earlier that year, volunteers from Texas serving with Love’s team had come into the same café and been surprised to find a Bible on the table. Aaron was open about his spiritual journey. He took their visit as a sign from God. The team tried to connect him with the local missionaries, but schedules did not line up before the volunteers went home.
When Love and Grant finally found Aaron with his Bible open and heard his story, Love shared that he had been a Christian for thirty-five years, that he read the Bible every day, and that they would gladly answer questions. Aaron ran to a billboard in the café and grabbed a postcard the Texas team had left — a Bible verse on the back and a note that they were praying for him.
He told them what had almost happened the day the volunteers walked in. He had been reading the Bible, put it down, and decided he was not going to read it anymore. He was ready to move on to something else. Then strangers started asking about his spiritual interest. Meeting Christians who cared felt like a sign that this was where he would find hope and joy. “This is what I’m looking for in the Bible,” he said. When Grant and Love walked in later, it felt like “a double sign from God.”
Love encouraged him to keep reading, beginning in the Gospels, and to message night or day with questions. Aaron asked to read with someone who could offer guidance. Love began meeting with him weekly; Aaron even invited friends to join. Before Love returned to the United States for stateside assignment, the group was already studying together.
Then came an unexpected message from Aaron: “I really need to talk to you tomorrow.” He had big questions about the Bible. Love was in America, so Grant met him the next day. Grant walked slowly and clearly through the gospel — the importance of putting faith in Jesus, not only knowing the right information about Him. Aaron prayed to receive Christ. He wanted to take the steps toward baptism.
Discipleship since then has been gritty and slow. Aaron had to close his café when it struggled financially, and a job search has made regular church attendance hard. Grant still says Aaron professes to be a believer, and that you can still see God working in him. The missionaries keep pursuing him — ordinary presence in a post-Christian city, the same kind of presence that first found a Bible on a café table.
If you have been reading and wondering, putting the Book down and picking it up again, or waiting for a sign that God has not forgotten you — Aaron’s answer is welcome here. Jesus does not wait for a perfect café, a finished search through every religion, or a life already cleaned up after addiction. He meets seekers who are honest enough to say, No, but I think I’m going to be. Ask. Seek. Knock. “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you” (Matthew 7:7, WEB). And if Jesus has already met you through an open page and an unexpected conversation, you are welcome to share your story.
Adapted from “Finding the source of hope and joy in the city” by Elizabeth Ligon, International Mission Board (13 August 2026). Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. Original article. Names in the original report were changed for security. Except where otherwise noted, IMB site content is CC BY-NC 4.0 (Legal Permissions).