On the Trolleybus Tonight

As we were coming home on the trolleybus tonight, I had a 'funny' thought. It was dark outside now that we've already changed time and are no longer on daylight savings time. Because it was dark, the lights were on in the trolley. As I sat in my front seat, facing backwards, I could see all the other passengers, except for two who were behind me. Mel was sitting a couple rows back from me and we were facing each other. Way back in the back were two men speaking in sign language. the trolley was about 3/4 full. Three older teen girls were sitting across the aisle from me, talking and laughing. I was sitting beside a young man and the girls would occasionally look over at him and laugh. At least I hope it was him they were looking at and laughing, and not me! :-) Only because if it was him, it's because they were really trying to get his attention and impress him. If it was me - well, we won't go there. Ha ha! But my thought was - we were a traveling community, there in our little lighted world, the dark outside invisible, strangers together for a short period of time, traveling down the street, together yet totally apart.

As I sat there, the conductor woman came up and stood right behind me. I'd been on the very same trolley on the way over to church for prayer meeting and she'd made a big impression on me. Not a favorable impression - but a not so favorable impression. She was very rude to several older women, demanding to see their pensioner cards which allow them free rides on the trolley system. I've never seen old people "carded" before here - and older people ride the trolleys all the time. She took my money, gave me change and a ticket and then totally ignored me the whole way over. On the way home, however, it was a totally different story.

You see, on the way home I was with Mel!

Mel looked really good - khakis, his Denver Bronco jacket that I gave him for Christmas several years ago, his hair looks really good right now, as does his beard - and he was so very, very, very American. Yes - he looked good. Now this conductor woman was probably 60 years old herself, but oh my did she sparkle up at him and smile coyly and even flirt a bit, with me right there.

So, I was surprised when she leaned down and started talking softly in my ear. I understood 100% of what she said: She has this horrible job, working on the trolleybus all day long, back and forth, up and down the aisle for a measly 10 griven a day, and she's a pensioner and pensions are SO SMALL... And I smiled and said, da, da, da, it's true. And tried not to gag at the smell of her rotten teeth hot against my ear. And thought to myself - without Mel, I am nothing in her eyes, but with Mel - she talks to me as if I'm a person, a person that she can beg money from in a round about way, but a person none-the-less. When we got off, she was standing right beside us and wished us good luck and asked us to come back again - like it was her own personal trolleybus or her own home.

I felt so sad for her!

I thought about all the other people - the good looking blonde young man standing there so serious in front of the door, the two deaf guys talking up a storm with their hands, the grouchy looking mother with her young daughter, the other pensioners, the girls beside me. And I wondered - how many of these people know the Lord? How many are headed straight to hell when they die? Is this the best it's going to be for them? Or are some of them Believers already, other going to believe before they die or Jesus returns?

I don't know. I will never know until heaven.

But we were a traveling community for a short period of time, different paths joined together down a simple street in a little city in Ukraine.