tow-truck Jesus

Today sounded quite a bit easier when I wrote about it last night.

We finished the Presidential Gathering with a service and communion, and as always, it was with mixed emotions we said good-bye to friends old and new.

After a few hours of debriefing, we finally made it back to our hotel around 3:00 pm, right when Matt and Lisa had to head to the airport, Lisa for Denver and Matt for Philly.

This means our remaining time together, already SO very short, was literally to be the one hour car ride, something I was cherishing, nonetheless.

We have been using another missionary's car this week, and about 20 minutes after we pulled onto the highway, the clock stopped working, then the power windows, then the air, then the turn signal...then the brakes.

The Lord protected us, truly, and Dad managed to safely cross many lanes of traffic without brake or turn signal lights, and pull us off right before a huge bridge.  Matt and Lisa were very pressed for their flight, and we weren't sure what to do! 

After about 20 minutes of phone calls, a taxi came (though not on the road we were on, and they had to scale a wall and overpass in the middle of the freeway) and whisked them off to the airport.  This wasn't the ideal good-bye, with tractor trailer trucks whizzing by, Sofie bawling for Daddy and the hot car and uncertainty.  My time with them was done.

They made their flights, thank goodness, and another 45 minutes later, a tow truck and a rather rough Ryan (or as he says, "Rhine") came to the rescue.

After a very posh weekend with a hundred members of OMS leadership and faithful donors, catered meals and dangle earrings, I must say, this quickly became a very cross-cultural day.

I ain't no country girl.

The cab left black on our hands and shirts, and was littered with cigarette boxes and Arby's wrappers.  The cup holder directly in front of me held a plastic bottle full and dripping with black chew and spit, country music was blaring. 

With a girl illegally perched on each of our  laps, Dad and I quickly found ourselves whizzing down the highway with car in tow, running a red light, running a car off the road, listening to a rather amusing-slash-terrifying story about the day he ripped the tops off four brand new cars going under "that there overpass" and lots and lots of "pardon my French"es.  Lily's eyes were wide as saucers.

I know French.  That was not it.

I suddenly realized that the ministry of the last few days was only one kind of ministry: that of loving on, encouraging, praying for and supporting other believers.  And now, I was in the overbearingly smelly middle of another kind of ministry, smashed in a cab next to one of the millions we'd spoken about so many times the past few days...one entirely without Jesus.

I was tempted to frustration and pouting.  I was robbed of my last moments with my sister and husband, was watching dollars we were supposed to be saving by using a friend's car flying out the window, my girls were at risk, and my cute little flower top was getting grease on it, the indentation from my missionary name tag still on my lapel.

Sometimes ministry is oh-so-sweet.  

And sometimes, oh-so-sweaty. 

But it's all ministry.  And I can't walk out of a missions conference and ignore THAT.

So, I took a good look at Ryan, and as  I looked past the grease, chew and beard-age, Jesus (Blessed One present in that grand hotel and in this stinky cab) just showed me Ryan, and Ryan, dang-it, was worth dying for.

And Ryan, turns out, is broken.

The more I asked and showed interest, the more he talked, and soon I heard his whole story.  Joined the army the day after he graduated high school.  Been in just under a year when 9/11 happened, and literally 2 hours later was getting on a plane.  Four tours to Afghanistan.  One to Iraq.  Sniper.  Horrific stories. One party week in Haiti in 2005 with his Haitian spotter.

Many broken relationships, many broken friends.  His French improving as we went, we learned of how he got out of the army, how he got into trucking, what he thinks about Obama, gun-control, government and international aid.  Learned about his neighbors, his ex's, his grandma's battle with cancer, and his dreams for his own truck.  Told me about several highly unethical ways to save money at Disney World.

Said he wished he'd never joined the army, and never woulda if he had known.

Said, nodding to me, that everyone knows "the book" says there will be fighting 'till the end of time, fighting between religions over a piece of land that's not even worth a thing.  Says he laid in wait for days to kill someone, and now they are dead, he's not, and nobody's won a thing.

Asked what my husband did, and told him Matt teaches at a Seminary in Haiti.

"Teachin' the preachers?" he asked.

"Yup, pretty much."

"The Book?"

"Yep.  Just the Book.  Helping them share it with others.  Seeing lives changed."

"'Cause of the Book?"

"'Cause of the Book and Jesus."

"(Bleep), seems like they could use that down there."

"Yep.  Sure has made all the difference in my life."

"Hmm.  Wish Josh Turner would decide whether he's gonna sing country or go mainstream."

Got the car dropped off at Ford, piled back into the truck, and he offered to take us all the way back to our hotel.  When we pulled off into "Golf World Village", he quickly said he'd never been through the gates.   He pulled up to our beautiful hotel, and the valet rushed to park the car, looked, and then quickly ran back inside.  

I grabbed Ryan's greasy black hand, anyway, and he stuffed a piece of paper into my hand with his name and address.

"Hey...will you send me a few of them Cuban cigars?  I had me some of those when I was in Haiti with my spotter, and I sure would love to get me some of those.  You send me some'a them, and you tell me what you want, and I'll mail snacks or whatever back to you.  K?"

I laughed out loud and agreed before thinking.

Just hours earlier, I had stood right there on that front step, kissing weathered cheeks good-bye and having my own cheeks patted and prayed for.   Jesus truly had helped me to meet people where they were at, to minister to their faithful hearts and to love on them.  Men and women whom I had very little in common with and who were complete strangers a few days earlier were calling me daughter and saying some of the most encouraging things I've heard in months.  

A terrible picture of some wonderful people!  Praising God for our table group of brothers and sisters David, Jim, Kiki, Myron and Buddy.

And now, by His precious grace and nothing else, He had helped me tap into a very different heart, to reach out to a very different place, to reach through the grease, as He did for me, and to love.  

And that love, His love, had Ryan, standing sheepish in front of a five-star hotel in his Carharts and smelling to high heaven bold enough to ask a missionary and her blond babies to mail him Cuban cigars.  To keep the relationship going.

Praise the Lord.

When Zaccheus was despised, and rightfully so, for being a selfish robber, and yet wanted to see Jesus SO badly that the shorty shimmied up a tree like a child... Jesus went to hang at his house.

When the promiscuous woman busted in on a righteous-only dinner, wasting value on muddy feet and embarrassingly bawling and...cringe...wiping toes with her hair...Jesus was moved.

When Bartamaeus would NOT shut up and would NOT be polite and would NOT blend in but kept screaming out inappropriately, "JESUS!" even to the point of everyone around him begging him to knock it off... Jesus held his hand.

When the bleeding beggar woman stuck out her dirty hand and touched the robes of the Son of God, without permission, without right...Jesus reached down and lifted her up.

When those things happened, MAN, Jesus was touched.  We talk so much about all the ways Jesus blesses us, all the ways we want him to.  But do we really understand that WE can bless Jesus?  That we can touch the heart of God?  That He gives us opportunities all the time to bless HIM?

I realized right then that I wanna be a tow-truck kind of missionary.  And a sweet little old lady missionary, too.  The American missionary.  And the Haitian kind.  The "good Book" kind, and, when necessary, the cigar kind.  

And if I'd been in our free ride, chatting with my sister while the girls watched a DVD and kissing my husband goodbye at security, I would have missed Ryan all together.

Maybe, just maybe, those cigars and the note that will be with them from a friend, not a missionary, from His follower, not a Christian, will bless God's heart...and bring Ryan closer to it.