Stories- Ipod Story

I would like to share a story with you that I will never forget… ever. It’s one of those things that I know is going to be part of the “the Lord loves me” testimonies of my life. I pray that you will be ministered to by it and that your faith will be increased as I try to get this story across in writing.

To give you a little background of the events of the day before that point, I had been standing on O’Connell bridge (it’s like THE bridge in Dublin, right in the center of the city), handing out flyers.
Yeah that’s about the whole background right there, but at one point it started to rain, so I took shelter inside Burger King for a couple minutes. When it stopped I came out and started handing out flyers again and after handing out about ten of em’, it started to drizzle agin. I was determined however to get through the stack of 200 or so flyers i had left for the day.

As I got about half way through, a guy passed by me and his wife and baby. I offered him a flyer, without recognizing him until i saw him with his wife and child. It was one of those weird things where you wouldn’t have recognized any one of them on their own, only all together. Anyway he rejected the flyer as i took a couple of seconds to kinda realize who they were, once I did, i ran after the two of them (cause there was quite a crowd).
When I caught up to them I said, “Are you the Pastor of Calvary Chapel Cork?”, and he was like, “yah, wow, who are you.” I began to tell him who i was and when i gave him my last name: Corcoran, he and his wife almost jumped out of their shoes. Inside i was thinking “so my reputation proceeds me, eh?” just kidding.
So he says, “Did you lose your IPOD?” and at this point I’m already a little blown away so this was like insane. I said, “yah, actually i did, about a week ago.” So they proceeded to tell me that a girl in Finland had found it and had called them to see if they could find me.

Here’s the thing, I didn’t know them, i met them once about four years ago, but they didn’t specifically remember me from that, i had been with my parents. The only reason I had recognized them was because i was surfing the net about 6 months ago and i checked out their website with their picture on it, that’s how i knew who they were.

Oh and I made a comment on it, but never heard back… and that’s how the Finnish girl ended up calling them. Apparently she was quiet the little detective and she googled my full name, she found a direct hit as a comment on their site. I made a comment, 1 comment, i’ve made comments on loads of other sites but this was the one she picked.
Almost forgot, she had found out my name by i guess looking through my IPOD and finding one of my messages which were entitled “Karl Corcoran.” She then (once again i’m guessing), matched that with “Karl’s IPOD” that came up when she hooked it up to her computer. That bit was for those of you were wondering as i was… HOW ON EARTH?

Not the end of the story though, I told you I was Irish remember. So she called them anyway (a day before he lost his cell phone, (no joke) and told them about the IPOD. The thing was they didn’t know where I was or anything, i could have been in Siberia for all they knew, so they sorta kept it in mind (personally, don’t tell em, but i think they kind of forgot about it, lol).

Anyway, now for the grand finale… the only reason they were in Dublin (a city of over 1.5 million, to give you an idea of the chances) is because they had just missed their flight from England (they were coming back from the pastor’s conference over there) to Cork, which is 200 miles south of Dublin! In other words they weren’t even supposed to be in Dublin! They had missed their flight, do ya get it!?

The other little thing is, even if they had been coming to Dublin, i dunno what they were doing walking across O’Connell, the closest bus station that has buses to Cork is before the bridge. I need to ask them about that, but they probably didn’t know cause they aren’t very familiar with Dublin.

After that whole mind blowing experience the lot of us, did the one thing that can help with a blowing mind… coffee. We had some coffee at Seven Wonders, the shop i had been handing out flyers for (the owner, Billy, goes to Crosspoint) and had a grand old time sharing and expressing our mutual amazment at the days events. What was awesome about it too was not only had i been blessed, but so had they. They told me, “we were all bummed out because we missed our flight, but now we’re just so uplifted.”

Not the end of the story though (there isn’t an end! just kiddin), remember I don’t have my IPOD yet, still need to get that, right? Anyway Mike and Rebecca (my new found friends) gave me the Finnish woman’s contact info in the form of an email address. I sent her an email about the IPOD but didn’t recieve a reply…….. for days… but I did recieve a reply. She told me she had my IPOD and that she’d send it to me if I could tell here some of the artists on it. However that’s all fine and dandy but the biggest discovery that I made from her email is this… she is a Christian!!! Here’s a little excerpt of what she said, “my friend was very keen of getting the player for herself, so someone is watching over you…me…that it was me to find it as we walked together.”

Hate to say it but… that’s still not the end but trust me you want to keep reading, it gets even more shocking.
So the info I gave her checked out (regarding what was on the IPOD) and so in her next email to me she told me that she hadn’t taken it to Finland, she had left it at her husbands house here in Dublin. Not only that though, but her husbands address in the city is # 3 Leinster Road… that’s the same street I am living on… and I didn’t move there until a week after I lost my IPOD… is that not absolutely insane!? Nah, it’s not, it’s the Lord.

Karl Corcoran
Staff Evangelist/Asst Pastor
Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa