The Woman on the Bus | by DREW GORDON |


burg, Pa. Entrenched in work and social spheres that surrounded me with Chris- tians but offered few opportunities to meet non-Christians, I had earnestly prayed about this bus trip. I petitioned God to place me next to people who needed the gospel. As an introvert who once had been painfully shy, this request was a stretch, but my drought of having significant conversations with non-Christians had reached the point of exasperation. I boarded the bus convinced that God would answer my prayer. As I had imagined this moment, my


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fear was that I’d see rows of empty seats and take the easy path by sitting alone. So I gulped when I saw a full bus and dozens of faces pointing toward me. I slid into the only available seat, next to a grandmotherly woman whose head was bent over her knitting. She was sending out the universal signal for “leave me alone,” and normally that would be the only hint I needed. But I trusted God against all appearances and uttered the most painful word in the introvert hand- book—hello. She looked up at me with a start, her steely glare seeming to size me up. Then she responded with a warm hello—followed immediately by so many sentences that it was hard for me to find a gap for a reply!


The trip took about five hours. There was scarcely a second of silence. I tried to be a good listener, and this woman was easy to like and to engage. As she shared


DREW GORDON is editor of the Witness.


ith anticipation and appre- hension, I stepped onto a Greyhound bound for Harris-


I trusted God against all


appearances and uttered the most painful word in the


introvert handbook— hello.


about her family and her life’s blessings and struggles, it became easy to share in kind. At many points in the conversa- tion she cried as she told me about loved ones and struggles that weighed on her heart, and I shed a few tears as well—a rare occurrence. I brought up the mat- ter of faith, and she, a committed Roman Catholic, spoke freely about God and her faith, as I spoke about God and my faith. This was everything I had prayed for!


It was a golden opportunity to talk about the good news of Jesus Christ. I had no doubt that, with this surprisingly fast friendship we had developed, she would at least listen to the gospel from me, even if it was something she didn’t believe. At that very point, my tongue was tied. I had no clue how to bring this up. The return bus trip also resulted in some good conversations, but I went home deflated and guilt ridden. God had answered my prayer beyond my imagina- tion, and I had shown I was not worthy of His kindness and not equipped to help that precious woman. Sure, I had invited people to church over the decades and had even shared the gospel a number of times with friends and acquaintances. But when I compared those times to the


number of non-Christians in proximity to me and the number of days I went without saying more than a few words to non-Christians, I was without excuse. Around that time I had been disci- pling someone my age who had come to our church from a difficult and godless background. With the encouragement of adults, he had become addicted to mar- ijuana at age 11, which had colored the rest of his life. After coming to Christ he gobbled up every Christian resource he could. That included radio messages, some of which had better theology than others. To him, evangelism should be done the way he imagined he would do it—walking up to people cold and tell- ing them about the gospel. I gave him many defenses, including some scriptur- al reasons why evangelism was a broad- er task than he believed; but it reached the point where I was a stumbling block to him. He wouldn’t believe anything I said about evangelism if he didn’t see me sharing the gospel with strangers. We agreed to distribute tracts in Squir- rel Hill, perhaps the most religiously


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Testimony


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