Editor's Column

by Alyssa Brown

Then he asked the question I had been expecting: "So, why are you going to Bible college?"

How do you answer a question like that?

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The Greyhound Bus Not a Place for Invisibility

The Greyhound employee at the Eugene bus station picked up the phone on the desk. Standing 5 feet from him, I clearly understood what he said before it came fuzzily from the ceiling speakers.

"Now boarding northbound at door No. 2," he said. "Please have your tickets out of the envelope."

Pulling my ticket from my pocket, I reshouldered my backpack and began shuffling forward with the line. Riding the Greyhound bus home almost every other weekend is an experience because I never know whom I might sit next to.

At first, traveling alone with a bunch of strangers was scary; lately I've come to regard it as a price worth paying to get home.

I have a fear of strangers, so to avoid talking to any I usually sleep or listen to music. Anything to be as invisible as possible. But my plan doesn't always work.

The driver took my ticket without checking my identification. Greyhound has a policy that no one under 14 rides the bus alone. Apparently being under 5 foot 2 inches makes me look like a 14-year-old because the drivers often check my driver's license to verify that I make the cutoff.

I followed the smoke-scented man in front of me onto the bus. Thrilled to find a pair of empty seats, I slipped in, hugged my backpack on my lap and prayed no one would sit on the seat next to me.

The driver climbed on, closed the door and pulled onto 6th Street. He started the usual announcements: "No smoking, alcohol or illegal drugs. . . ." But I wasn't listening. Lying down across the two seats and tucking my knees up against the window, I smiled to myself. No one had sat with me, and that meant I had enough room for some overdue sleep.

We passed the state Capitol building three times before the driver found the Salem bus station. Apparently he hadn't driven this route before.

Twenty or so people boarded the bus at the Salem stop, and a sandy-haired man in his early 20s squeezed into the aisle seat beside me. He bounced his right knee continually and rapidly punched buttons on his cell phone with his thumbs. I'd forgotten my headphones, so I looked out the window.

After five minutes, he started a conversation by asking the usual ice-breaker question: "So, where are you going?"

At first I was uncomfortable. Although I answered his questions with polite rejoinders, I half hoped he'd stop talking to me. I had family in Eugene. He was on his way back to Portland after visiting his mom and sister in Salem. I usually traveled south every other weekend. So did he. I liked reading and horseback riding. I was attending Bible college. He was studying to be an astrophysicist and had toured in a band for several years.

Early in our conversation he found out that I am a Christian and said he thought Christians believed a lot of ridiculous things. Then he asked the question I had been expecting: "So, why are you going to Bible college?"

How do you answer a question like that? My original reason -- that Multnomah gave me a scholarship and my parents wanted me to go -- isn't true any more.

Because of my seatmate's question, my attitude toward our conversation shifted completely. I now saw the guy beside me as a nice man who was blinded by lies. I wanted to say, "So I can be more equipped to reach people I meet with the truth of Jesus."

But having heard his opinion of Christians and not wanting him to dismiss me as a fanatic, I said, "Because it's a good school."

Yet the real answer to his question reverberated in my head: I was attending MBC for him as much as for me -- so that I would have the tools to share Christ with him and all the "strangers" I see on my trips to and from Eugene. But how can I when I try so hard to be invisible?

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