Mexico

He was thin and unkempt, with an unusual meekness about him. He had been telling me his story, how he had lost his wife and his family, and spent time in a Mexican prison - all results of a relentless drug addiction. In the middle of a sentence he paused and lifted his face to look over my shoulder.

Tinny praise music was coming from somewhere in the house behind us. Surrounded by the casual bustle of aid workers making a late breakfast amongst the mess of a suburban back yard, I hadn't noticed. But he was transfixed. His eyes glazed slightly, and his face softened with wonder.

After some moments he looked back at me and apologised. Since becoming a Christian in prison he had listened to praise music constantly. When released into the custody of a local church rehab centre, the music continued to sustain him. During the most desperate time of his life it became his lifeline. Now, even in this mundane setting, a thin line of audio emanating from an old plastic tape deck was irresistible. I could see as much as feel its effect upon him. Too distracted to continue, he excused himself and shuffled toward the house to warm himself at the music's source.

Entering the beginnings of middle age, he had nothing. Even his ill fitting clothes were borrowed from friends in prison. He was estranged from his loved ones, and penniless. Yet, amongst the score of aid workers who had taken weekend furloughs away from lives in Arizona to make early morning drives across the Mexican border with food for families living on a city dump, he alone had responded to the music.

It is a strange paradox that broken people are often the most spiritual. As he passed out of view I felt a prick of Godly envy and knew that of us all there, at that moment, he was richest by far.