Three years ago this August I met a man named Frank. He lived in Montana while his wife resided in Missouri. His main reason for being in Montana was (1) He could make more money(he believed) and (2) the fishing was better. He was officially a storm chaser.
My chance encounter with him happened because I was in the mood to talk to a telemarketer one day. After saying hello and realizing he was not a telemarketer but a roofer I was intrigued and told him to stop in if he got down our way.
We kept in contact and 5 weeks later he stopped in . After meeting Frank in person I could tell doing business with him would be a stretch. We each governed are lives on different principals.
I was with him that day for 3 hours talking and sifting through his thought patterns . We both agreed to sleep on it and talk in the morning, with a final decision about him helping us with roofing projects. But that next morning he called me from Omaha and said he had to catch a plane to go see a friend dying of cancer.
We never did business together. But he did send one of his guys,Juan, to help us that year. Every summer he always called 4-5 times hoping there was big hail in our area, that maybe he could come help us reap the benefits. He believed in storms, just not the creator of them.
He called from various places such as New York , Delaware , Georgia, Texas , Wyoming , Arizona, and Montana.He was a hard man living a hard life. I did try to to point him to Christ with the small opportunities I had, but now I wish I would have done more.
On Wednesday Juan called to inform me Frank had died in an accident . He was not wearing his seat belt and was ejected through the windshield of his truck. He died when his head hit the pavement with the truck landing on top of him. Unless he changed since I last spoke with him, I fear he found a storm bigger and more destructive then he ever imagined. Have I done all I could with the "chance" encounters I have had?
~Matt Burkey
This is a true story with names changed for privacy purposes.
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