Content to Simply Be Christian

"We are on our way home, too," she volunteered as we settled into our neighboring seats on the plane.  "We had a foreign exchange student a few years ago who is now living in San Francisco that we were taking our grandsons to visit."

The truth, however, was more complicated -- and better -- than that.  It turns out that this "foreign exchange student" was simply a young man that this woman and her husband met, once-upon-a-time in the Amsterdam airport while waiting for their common trans-Atlantic flight -- they, returning from a European vacation; he, on his way to college from Africa.  He had earned a full scholarship to Drake, and since they live just over a half-hour away, they took him under their wings -- both on the remainder of that trip to Des Moines and for the several years he was a student in university housing. 

And they took on this assignment in earnest.  After visiting with the youth minister at the church in which they were active, they concluded that he was insufficiently open to non-caucasians; so they shopped around the area until they found one more inclusive -- in a completely different denomination, in a neighboring town a few miles away.  They kept in touch, they took him to church, they fed him meals, they housed him during holiday dorm closures; and they celebrated with him when he graduated and accepted his first job as a pharmacist. 

Little wonder that they continue to keep in touch.  And visit.  With their grandsons.  Except that part doesn't turn out to be literally true, either.  Only one of the teenage boys is actually their grandson.  The other is simply a best friend of their grandson whom they welcomed along on the trip, so "for these few days he is a grandson as well," she asserted.

Well, of course.  He was in good hands. 

I am of the humble and often embarrassed mind that Christians persistently and deservedly have a less-than-desirable reputation.  We can be pathetically small in our passions, and distractingly loud in our narrow-minded pettiness.  We commonly pick silly fights while ignoring breathtaking injustices.  In transformational matters where we should be taking the lead, we are often the last to begrudgingly tag along, having squandered our time instead preoccupied with trivialities of no enduring consequence.  But here, in an accidental conversation where I most try to avoid them -- on an airplane, trapped for the duration of the flight beside a total stranger -- I was blessed by the matter-of-fact witness of the Gospel from a woman who had no idea she was being an evangelist.  Without thinking it anything out of the ordinary or special, here was a woman who understands the Kingdom of God...

...and reflects it...

...and welcomes into it anyone who could use a place to stay.

She hardly used any "Jesus language" in the course of our conversation, but it was very clear that she had met him, and was determined to follow him.  In contrast to all those who trumpet and grind others beneath the word, she seems perfectly happy to simply be...

...Christian.