abbey abroad :)

I was sitting on bus 20 in the aisle seat, knowing I still had 20 minutes or so to go until I got to Shutka, when I saw her get on--an older Roma lady carrying three big sacks of clothes, struggling to find a seat on the crowded bus. I scooted over next to the window and motioned to her (hands down, palm facing me, the way they do here) to come sit down.

"Thank you, devojce," she said, followed by a string of mutterings I couldn't quite understand. And before I knew it, we were chatting.

I asked her all the usual questions.

"Do you work? Do you sell clothes?" I asked, motioning to the bags. "No," she answered.

"Where do you live?" "Shutka."

"Are you married?"

My heart squeezed tight as tears sprang to her eyes. "My husband died. Three weeks ago... he got sick and wouldn't listen to me when I told him to go to the doctor... he died. He died." She kept saying it.

I looked into her face--tears now running down her leathered cheeks before she could catch them with the corners of her headscarf. And I saw only pain, hurt, loss. Hopelessness. The laugh lines and crinkles around her eyes that had lit up her face when I tried speaking Romani were now smooth, her forehead creased.

I took her hand in mine as she cried, knowing we were making quite a scene on the quiet bus.

"I understand," I said, my own thoughts going to my precious dad, whom I seem to miss more every day instead of less. "My dad died about ten months ago. I know it's hard. I understand."

But really... I don't understand. I know what it is to lose a father I adored more than anyone on the face of the earth (okay, he ties with Mom!). I know how it feels to know that he's gone but to still have a teeny sliver of hope that maybe it didn't really happen, that you can still call him and talk to him and feel his whiskers on his cheek like you used to. But I don't know what it is to lose a husband. And I don't know what it's like to lose someone so close and have no hope of seeing him again. Praise Him, I don't know what that feels like.

But this woman only knows that hopelessness.

As we got closer to my bus stop, I asked her if I could pray with her. She agreed. So I prayed for the sweet baba in Jesus' name, including all of the Gospel I could manage to fit in. And when I said amen and looked back up, she was crying again.

"Thank you," she kept saying. I told her I had to go, but I asked her if I could come visit her sometime. I gave her my number and practically begged her to call me, not thinking she really would. But a few hours later, she did! She told me our conversation made her feel "very good." I went to their house last week and plan to go back soon.

I often hear people pray for "divine appointments"--and it's something I pray myself sometimes. But maybe... maybe we aren't supposed to only talk to the people next to us on the bus if we think it's a "divine appointment", if we feel that "special prompting"? Maybe every person we come into contact with is, in a way, a divine appointment--someone He has put in our paths. Because, after all, they are in our paths. At the same time, though, may I never be compelled to share out of guilt but out of love and a passion for His glory.

The woman I met on the bus is named Bada. Please pray for her and her son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren to hear and be receptive to the Truth.