Lucky Ticket #18

The Reality of a Street Level Missionary

If you ever wondered if your monthly financial gifts to a “Street Level” missionary makes a difference; here’s one experience that may keep you motivated.

One of our missions teams needed to travel to a city for a full week of serious ministry in a neighboring state that required a nine hour bus ride; however our budget demanded we ride the community limousine (with real money we could have taken a two hour flight; but that’s with real money). Believe it or not, the only bus to Belo Horizonte from our location in Sao Paulo, a megacity of 24 million people, departed at 8:30pm. – Imagine that; riding overnight on the only bus out of a concrete megajungle. – And to reinforce the reality of being a “Street Level” missionary was having the luck of purchasing seat number 18.

Oh! That Lucky Ticket! Seat Number 18. – And sitting immediately in front of me in Seat 16, became the reason I am pleading with you to faithfully send your money to us… your Street Level, Bus Riding Missionary’s.

There she sat; a woman of considerable girth and before my carryon’s were even stowed, my nostrils were visited by a most unusual and unpleasant odor. Of course being a man of the cloth, I thought better of the moment and shrugged it off as only my imagination getting the better of me. Besides there’s no way in the world a person could release such a ghastly aroma from their body. No stinking way! But this horrible misfortune became reality for your Street Level, Bus Riding Missionary when before the bus even pulled away from the platform, the Big Girl in seat number 16 let another one rip… and this time there was no imagination required. The pain was real. It burned the insides of my nostrils; and for the next eight hours and fifty minutes it was painfully obvious she wasn’t getting off soon. It was horrible!

We’re riding back next Monday and you bet I’m scared. Please send your money! I’ve tried splashing Listerine up my nose to fumigate the smell, but I’m still having troubles getting away from the painful memory. I hope you’ll understand, but if Big Girl in seat number 16 is anywhere in sight, I’m staying overnight in the bus station to make sure she’s far enough away from me.

Please let me fly once where I can at least control the flow of air.

Street Level and Smelling It