One Body of Believers

My flight to Japan was an interesting experience.  I’ve been to Japan three times before.  Previously, we had learned to buy an M fare class ticket then call and get an upgrade using air miles.  Always worked.  This time, it didn’t work.  No upgrade, but at least I had an aisle seat and wasn’t in the middle.  Aisle good, window okay, middle bad.  So, I’m sitting in my seat and awaiting the plane to fill, a young military couple with a baby in a car seat comes up and the airline has assigned each of them in a middle seat on three consecutive rows.  They, naturally, ask if any one of us in the three rows will move and allow at least one of them to sit next to the baby.  There are six people who could move, three are women, and no one budges. … sigh … I move, even though, I didn’t want to as I already felt slighted by the airline for the lack of upgrade ability even with miles to use.  Now, I’m in a middle seat and getting ready for the 14-hour flight.

The flight attendant then comes over to me and says she has an aisle seat for me, but I see she’s making a woman move from it.  I insist it’s okay, but then the woman says she’s an employee of the airline so it’s okay for her to move (she was probably flying for free).  So, I go ahead and move.

My new seat is next to a younger Chinese gentleman.  He is very friendly and talkative.  He spoke good English and it turns out he majored in English in college.  As we converse I notice he asks somewhat unusual questions.  They weren’t inappropriate, but they were more about life’s purpose and the emptiness of religious spiritual exercises that Chinese do and the downward morals of entertainment.  After some of this, I just said, “Well, you may stop talking to me, but I believe God is real and Jesus is His Son and He establishes those things and any worship outside of that is worthless.”  He immediately answered with enthusiasm that he too was a Christian.  Wow.  I’ve met one Chinese person in my whole life and he was trying to witness to me.

We proceeded to have hours of conversation during the flight.  We discussed the struggles of living in the world and being Christian, how the world pulls at us to keep us away from God.  He admitted to struggling in his new marriage and I was able to offer some hard learned advice.  It just happened to be fresh on my mind since Julie and I had been asked to and gave a 20-min marriage class discussion at our church.  We also talked about each other’s cultures and learned a lot about how each of us live in our countries.

The whole experience was somewhat surreal.  Yet, it was very refreshing, somehow, to speak with a complete stranger in a foreign culture who is Christian and experiences the very same struggles with the world.  To hear how he wants to know more about God and see him read his Chinese Bible.  And it was somewhat troubling to recognize his efforts in conversation as he tried to purposely steer the topic to allow for a way speak about God to me.  Shouldn’t I be more willing to do the same to strangers and friends?