The Bus Stop
Unbelievably, bus stops and roadside vegetable stands have had a great impact on my life. You find some very interesting and friendly people at these two places, but sometimes you find much more.
We live in Poland as missionaries. Four years ago, while traveling to a distant lake for vacation, I asked our friends who were traveling with us a question that was to change my life forever. I had heard that Poland was doing very well economically after surviving almost 50 years of Communism and wanted to know if this was true. I was not ready for the reply I received.
We listened as our friends told us that in many small villages of Poland, depressed, hopeless husbands and fathers were committing suicide, children were going hungry, and parents were keeping their children home from school because they had no shoes. This greatly impacted me and opened my eyes to an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of poor people in this nation.
Previously, we had served as missionaries to Mexico where we would frequently load up the van with 50 lb bags of beans, corn meal, flour, shoes and used clothes and anything else that we felt the people could use. It was a source of great joy to see the smiles on the faces of the people as they accepted our meager attempt to make a difference in their lives.
In Poland, Karen and I loved to spend Sunday afternoons driving through the countryside and exploring small, off the beaten paths leading up into some secluded valley. The road always ended in some poor village where society had all but forgotten the people. I thought we surely could do the same thing here in Poland that we had done in Mexico. For me it was simply the willingness and desire to meet a need, but I still needed to know that this was what God wanted me to do.
That weekend we had a wonderful time of sailing and swimming on the lake, but just under the surface my mind was constantly filled with scenes of barefoot, starving children and different ways that we could help alleviate their hopelessness and desperation. I still had not heard from God, but I knew that His answer would come soon. I didn’t have long to wait.
It happened in a rainstorm. It is amazing how many encounters I have had with God during rainstorms. The sky was ominous with sinister thunderheads that seemed to be woven together with jagged streaks of lightning. The rain began to fall in torrents as the wipers fought to keep the windshield clear. That was when I saw her. She was just a wisp of a girl, torn between seeking shelter under the overhang of the bus stop and standing in the rain so that she would draw the attention of anyone who might stop to buy her last two jars of blueberries. The money from one last sale could provide a paltry breakfast for her breakfast the next morning.
It happened so fast that I was already past her before I realized she was there. Abruptly, I pulled to the side of the road, made a U turn, and drove back to the bus stop. It wasn’t the blueberries, freshly picked from the surrounding forest, that made me return. It was she. For me, she was the lone symbol of every poor, starving, forgotten child that I had seen file past my mind that weekend. I didn’t need the blueberries, but I bought both the jars she had left. I offered her a ride home, but at that instant her father appeared to collect her so she wouldn’t have to walk home alone in the torrential rain.
As I pulled away from the bus stop, I had a very difficult time seeing the road ahead of me. It wasn’t the rain falling from the sky, it was the tears falling from my eyes. You see, in that small bus stop, almost hidden from the road behind the sheets of rain, He had spoken.
© Copyright 2005 by Paul Whitley. All rights reserved.
We live in Poland as missionaries. Four years ago, while traveling to a distant lake for vacation, I asked our friends who were traveling with us a question that was to change my life forever. I had heard that Poland was doing very well economically after surviving almost 50 years of Communism and wanted to know if this was true. I was not ready for the reply I received.
We listened as our friends told us that in many small villages of Poland, depressed, hopeless husbands and fathers were committing suicide, children were going hungry, and parents were keeping their children home from school because they had no shoes. This greatly impacted me and opened my eyes to an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of poor people in this nation.
Previously, we had served as missionaries to Mexico where we would frequently load up the van with 50 lb bags of beans, corn meal, flour, shoes and used clothes and anything else that we felt the people could use. It was a source of great joy to see the smiles on the faces of the people as they accepted our meager attempt to make a difference in their lives.
In Poland, Karen and I loved to spend Sunday afternoons driving through the countryside and exploring small, off the beaten paths leading up into some secluded valley. The road always ended in some poor village where society had all but forgotten the people. I thought we surely could do the same thing here in Poland that we had done in Mexico. For me it was simply the willingness and desire to meet a need, but I still needed to know that this was what God wanted me to do.
That weekend we had a wonderful time of sailing and swimming on the lake, but just under the surface my mind was constantly filled with scenes of barefoot, starving children and different ways that we could help alleviate their hopelessness and desperation. I still had not heard from God, but I knew that His answer would come soon. I didn’t have long to wait.
It happened in a rainstorm. It is amazing how many encounters I have had with God during rainstorms. The sky was ominous with sinister thunderheads that seemed to be woven together with jagged streaks of lightning. The rain began to fall in torrents as the wipers fought to keep the windshield clear. That was when I saw her. She was just a wisp of a girl, torn between seeking shelter under the overhang of the bus stop and standing in the rain so that she would draw the attention of anyone who might stop to buy her last two jars of blueberries. The money from one last sale could provide a paltry breakfast for her breakfast the next morning.
It happened so fast that I was already past her before I realized she was there. Abruptly, I pulled to the side of the road, made a U turn, and drove back to the bus stop. It wasn’t the blueberries, freshly picked from the surrounding forest, that made me return. It was she. For me, she was the lone symbol of every poor, starving, forgotten child that I had seen file past my mind that weekend. I didn’t need the blueberries, but I bought both the jars she had left. I offered her a ride home, but at that instant her father appeared to collect her so she wouldn’t have to walk home alone in the torrential rain.
As I pulled away from the bus stop, I had a very difficult time seeing the road ahead of me. It wasn’t the rain falling from the sky, it was the tears falling from my eyes. You see, in that small bus stop, almost hidden from the road behind the sheets of rain, He had spoken.
© Copyright 2005 by Paul Whitley. All rights reserved.
posted by GrandFather at 11:19 AM
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