Looking at God's Appointment Calendar

SOMEWHERE OVER THE NORTH ATLANTIC “Can you tell me what is in the Bible? I don’t know anything about the Bible,” she said. That was the request that was directed to me on my trip across the Atlantic between Europe and Boston, the shortest I could have ever imagined, as to my sense of it. After that question was presented to me, a movie came on the screens of that Boeing-747. When the movie was over and the screens went dark, we were still talking. We spoke about the Bible and the Gospel of Christ for hours. After boarding the plane in Frankfurt, Germany, I took my seat on the left side of the plane where there was a row of two seats. I always requested the aisle seat when I traveled to give me freedom of movement during the long trips. Lufthansa always granted my request. After a while, a young woman approached. She had the window seat next to mine. She was not very tall, so I assisted her in getting her carry-on up to the over-head compartment. I told her to please feel free to ask me to move anytime she wanted to get out into the aisle. She smiled. At that point I wondered as to her nationality. It was not until much later that she told me she was Hindu. She was from India. This was my last trip of nine that I made to Minsk, Belarus, to teach in a Bible College there. Each trip took about three weeks, including travel time, to teach one course of theology. I spent about 50 hours with the students each time. A Christian organization, now known as “Cru” recruited American pastors for these short- term mission trips. The school there, the Evangelical Bible College of Belarus, recruited the students. When Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot president Kennedy, defected to the Soviet Union, he lived in the city of Minsk and married a Russian speaking woman. I saw the house where he lived while there, as it was pointed out to me. This was to be my final trip. Each time I was over there I sensed a special presence and enablement of the Spirit of God. Almost every time I was there, I met and came to know someone who was not a part of the school. In addition to the students at the school I met other people with whom I could share the Scripture. At this point I would like to share the fact that by nature I am not an extrovert. I have always been a little on the shy side. As I have grown older, I am more and more less so. I could always speak on subjects in a class or from the pulpit, but I was not good at initiating conversation with strangers. That’s what makes these encounters the more amazing. Concerning my trips to Belarus, I would come home each time to my church and relate some unusual experience I had had on my trip. Prior to this trip I was leading singing at a Men’s Retreat when in response to the sharing of my special encounters with people, one man said to me, “You will meet someone on this trip also.” Well, I looked for such a person while I was there in Minsk on my next trip, but this time I met no one, that is until I met the woman on the plane. We said nothing to each other for a good while. She was reading a book and I noticed that it was “The Da Vince Code.” I said “How do you like the book?” “Oh,” she said, “it’s interesting.” She then left her seat to go to the facility. I then took that opportunity to go to the overhead compartment to retrieve my briefcase. I wanted to get a U.S News and World Report magazine that I had purchased at the airport in Boston at the beginning of my trip. In it was a several page article on the Da Vince Code. In those days the matter was very much in the news. I also wanted to get from my briefcase a pictorial church directory that showed my church and revealed what I did there as its pastor. When she came back, I showed her the magazine article and she was very interested. Then I showed her the church directory and she was amazed to learn what my occupation was. She had told me earlier that she was returning from a conference in Madrid. She was involved in scientific research as a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Ma. She was involved in research in the field of DNA. Now at this point I was astounded. As a student she was living perhaps ten miles from where I lived in Massachusetts. I began to wonder if this was something that the Lord had especially arranged. I do not remember exactly how it began, but I pointed out some of the historical errors in the Da Vinci Code. She said, “How can they write that?” She was believing what I was telling her. It was soon after in our conversation that she asked the question; “I don’t know anything about the Bible. Would you tell me what is in the Bible?” She said, “My friends tell me that I shouldn’t be interested in spiritual things because I’m a scientist. But I am.” This led to our long conversation about what was in the Bible. I was saying to myself, “This is extraordinary, this is amazing. Here I am many miles from home, sharing Christ with a Hindu who is also many miles from home, but who lives next door to me, so to speak. The Lord has set this up. He has brought us together.” It occurred to me that this was on His appointment calendar. She was seeking God before she ever sat down beside me. We kept talking. All too soon we had to leave the airplane. We exchanged names and phone numbers. As we prepared to go through customs at Logan airport it became evident that we would be in two different lines, one for American citizens and the other for non-citizens. She called to me from her line and said, “I will call you.” She was indeed interested in more conversation. But I also knew that her husband was meeting her at the airport. He would likely not approve of her getting advice from a Christian. She did not call. But later I called and learned that she was doing her research at that time in Boston. I encouraged her to continue her search in the area of spiritual things. Very often since then I have prayed for Illa; that is her name. I truly expect to see her in God’s presence someday. As I have become older, I am looking forward to seeing people there. Everyone I have ever known who were believers, I will see there. I will remember every name. There will be no language barriers, such as I encountered in Minsk and elsewhere. I look forward to renewing my conversation with the Hindu scientist that I met on the plane. Nevertheless, for me to have a seat next to a Hindu woman on a trans-Atlantic flight and have her ask me to tell her what was in the Bible, that was to my heart and mind beyond amazing. I know that the events of that day had been written on God’s appointment calendar. I relate the above story by way of instruction because this is a book about God -ordained appointments, often times very remarkable as to the details of His working.