Update #6.1 - Pure Goodness.

The experience was almost like the first time a little boy sees penguins. After watching the cartoonized Scamper the Penguin, playing with his Macaroni Penguin playing cards, and renting every Animal Planet video on the subject, he walks into an aquarium and there they are, in the flesh - before his very eyes. I did that once, and it was grand. Pure goodness, in Alan speak.

But this was infinitely better.

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When we walked into the bakery, the first thing that struck our eyes was the lemonade. So we got it. I drank mine before we got through paying and Denny did a number on his as well. We found a seat next to a 20 something year-old woman who was by herself reading a book in french. A sheep was on the cover, which meant good things were in store.

As I wondered how to start a conversation with her, Josh called and gave some words of encouragement, telling me a thing or two about life back home. Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to me, Denny had initiated a discussion. Upon noticing this, I hung up on Josh suddenly and joined in. (No, I did actually tell him I had to run...)

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What were they talking about? I don't clearly remember. But at some point Denny mentioned that she was from Paris. "Paris!" I said, "I was there for the weekend just a few months ago. We rented bikes and rode around the grounds at Versailles and we did the 2 and a half hour version of the Louvre and we got to go to Notre Dame for Palm Sunday. It was all pretty neat."

"Wow," she said with a smile, "that's quite a lot for one weekend."

As the conversation continued, we learned that she was a well-traveled French woman who had spent a good deal of time in Oxford. Finishing up a graduate degree in Law, she was currently on a 10-day vacation visiting an old friend.

"Alan just got back from a long trip to England," Denny explained.

"Really? What did you like most about it?"

There was no internal angst over how to answer this one - "The sheep!"

"Sheep?" she was clearly surprised. "He's a strange guy," Denny kindly added.

"I can see that (!)" I gave Denny the evil eye and we all laughed.

As it turns out, she was actually reading a book about sheep at the time. She showed me the french novel, and there it was - a blessed sheep taking up the greater part of the cover. I wish I could read the title, but alas! I am no French scholar. What I did know of French literature, I asked her about.

"One of my favorite authors is French," I mentioned.

"Oh? who?"

"Well, this is probably a terrible pronunciation, but Antoine de St. Exupery."

"Actually, I know exactly who you're talking about and that was quite a good pronunciation!" We were fast becoming friends.

Denny expressed his own interest in Law, and the two of them chatted for a while about French and English law while I tried to get those last few drops of lemonade that had gathered at the bottom of my cup. Success.

Eventually, the conversation steered to our road trip, and we asked her our question about what one message she would give us. While some of the others had cringed at our asking it, she thought it was a grand question. "What are some of the other answers you've gotten?"

We started with the pneumonic baptized cat. She was slightly horrified.

Next was the "life is meaningless" chap. She said that was sad, but could be true from a certain perspective.

At this point she gave us her own - "Enjoy every moment - do your best to find something good about every situation, because if you look hard enough, you can find something." Expressing our support for her answer, Denny told her that someone we talked to just yesterday had said something similar - "everything has meaning."

After some thought, she asked us ours - "What one message would you give."

"You know," I said, "part of the reason we ask others is in hope that they'll ask us just that." And Denny and I went on to tell her that we were both Christians and our lives were animated by His Grace.

At this point, she could have easily gotten up and said she had to meet her friend. She could have simply dismissed us as loons and gone back to reading. She could have openly cursed us in French and we would have never known what she was even saying. But instead she moved her purse closer to us and scooted in, intrigued.

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What was so exciting about the conversation, other than the fact that we could see lights going off in her head, was the fact that almost every story from the past week made it into our discussion of the Gospel. The homeless man in Knoxville, Bruno, the Cracker Barrel waitress, Jack and Pam, Jared, and even an Islamic woman we met yesterday who we never blogged about. Suddenly, this one conversation made the purpose of our other experiences exceedingly clear.

She was so excited to hear something she'd never heard. She had been raised in a religious family, but never liked organized institutions. "Well," she said at one point, "I agree with pretty much everything you're saying, but I don't like 'religion'. Still, the way you put it, it's not the way I've ever heard it before." We told her that we didn't want her to get into 'religion' but we wanted her to have a personal relationship with God. She was very pleased with this, and before long pretty excited too.

We were all excited. I really wish you could have been there. Not because I think Denny and I were just jolly grand evangelizers - if that's what you think this is about, it's really a shame. But to share in the excitement of someone realizing for the first time that God is there. That God wants to have a relationship with *you*. That God is Love.

I'm still slapping my knees with joy.

We talked about God's justice (since she was interested in law) in why he had to send his son to die for us. We talked about eternity and how we could do things now that had eternal, and not just temporal value (since she had expressed interest in protecting the environment for future generations). We talked about human nature and how a loving God provides a way out from eternal doom (since she herself said she deserved to go to Hell). And the more she listened, the more she was riveted, the more we were reminded that Christianity has real power, real meat.

When Denny offered her his Bible, she said she didn't want to deprive him of it. When he insisted, she exclaimed that she'd love to have the gift if he was alright with it. When he pulled it out of his back and handed it to her, she took it with glee. "I'll definitely read it," she assured us, "and it's a pleasure to have met you both."

We shook hands and were on our way. I have never felt so much like I belonged than I did that hour and a half.

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And did I mention that she was reading a book about sheep?

~Alan T. Halbrooks