The Missions Trip No One Wants to Be On

It was one of those days. The day I knew it was time for me to fulfill my small part in the Great Commission. I had been putting this off for most of my life, so when our youth leader encouragingly half-forced us into a mission trip, I knew I had no excuse not to go.

Sidewalk missions. The bane of all mankind. Walk up to a stranger and say, "Sir, do you believe in Jesus?" I think it was more awkward when they answered "Yes" than "No," because it was this really hesitant "Yes..." And they looked at you like you were half-crazy. Screw them, I told myself. I'm carrying out the Great Commission, at least. What are you doing? Nothing, that's what.

That's how I dealt with the clammy hands and hammering heart of my short-lived missionary days.

As it turns out that most of the people in my local community were Christians, at least the half-hearted not-carrying-out-the-Commission "Yes" kind of Christians, I figured my time was about up. Just to show I had done my honest best, I walked up to a conservative-looking woman with short brown hair and a long jean skirt.

"Ma'am, do you believe in Jesus Christ?"

I will never forget the look she gave me. Quizzical, melting into an evil smile. "No," she answered firmly.

Well, at least she had a firm opinion. "Well, ma'am, do you believe in a heaven and a hell?" I asked.

"No," she said, still staring at me with that quizzical smile.

"Well, um..." I paused to catch a nervous breath. "Would you consider yourself a...a good person?"

"Define good."

I'm pretty sure this response was not in any of the pamphlets. "Um, well, um...good is, um, anything that comes from God, I guess..."

"I just told you I didn't believe in God."

She wasn't attacking me or anything, but I still felt like I was in a courtroom. I bit my lip and glanced at my watch. "Well, just let me give you one of these pamphlets, Ma'am, but I'm afraid I have to get going --"

"Call me Elaine." The woman crossed her arms. "Sit down. I'll buy you coffee."

Sitting in a Wal-Mart Starbucks with a woman I'd never met before was not on my list of things that happen on a perfect youth group trip. My idea of a perfect youth group trip was where you went in, shouted some religious things, and got back to the van before anything threatening happened. Like this. Elaine bought me a latte and drummed her fingers on the table as I nervously spilled it down my new jacket. On the outside, she wasn't a very intimidating woman. Just your average white forty-year-old female. She kept her eyes narrow though, as though trying to see inside of me. I avoided those eyes like the plague.

"May I ask you a question?" she asked after a few horribly awkward minutes.

"Uh-huh, yeah, sure," I said quickly.

"Do you believe in God?"

I frowned. "Well, yeah. Obviously."

"Why?"

I think that's the question every teenage Christian is secretly afraid to hear. "Well, um, my parents were, and --"

"My parents were atheists."

"Yes, well, um...God does miracles." I groped for some sort of information to give her. "You see it on the news sometimes, and..."

"You see a lot worse than miracles on the news," Elaine said. "How can you explain all the bad things that happen to people?"

At least I had a cut-and-dried answer for that one. "Oh, God allows some evil to happen because it can lead to greater good." Thank God for lessons on Joseph in Sunday School.

Elaine looked thoughtfully out the window. "But what about evil that doesn't lead to a greater good?"

I licked my lips. "Doesn't all of it?"

Folding her hands in her lap, Elaine fixed her gaze on me again. "I live in a little trailer park in the back of some old woods. The other day I came across an old tree lying across the ground. No one cut it down, it just rotted where it was and fell. Underneath, there was a dead raccoon. It hadn't been killed by the tree when it fell. No, that poor thing had its leg stuck where some of the bark had split in two. Probably starved to death. You know that takes several days. For days, then, this poor animal lay suffering in the woods, waiting to die. Humans weren't involved, and as far as I can tell, neither was any greater good." By now I was wishing I could disappear. "Tell me, sweetheart...where's the greater good in that?"

"Um..." I swallowed. "Um..."

"Surely you have a reason for your own religion," Elaine pressed.

My throat tightened and I blinked rapidly. I hate this part. The part where people challenge you until you realize you just don't know. A flash of inspiration from something I had seen in a movie hit me. "Ma'am, if you're bitter at God for something that happened to you in the past --"

Elaine laughed. Actually laughed, not a bitter laugh, like she thought it was actually funny. "Dear, I had one of the best lives a girl could ever know. My parents loved me, my husband loves me, and my children love me. I don't have a grudge against God at all. I'm only an atheist because I have rational grounds to believe that God does not exist." She shook her head. "Do you assume all atheists have some unsolved grudge? Have you tried to understand their beliefs at all?"

I hate crying in front of the people I'm trying to convert. It's so self-defeating. Instantly, Elaine stopped smiling and stood up.

"Oh, sweetheart," she breathed, putting her hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."

"How -- how am I supposed to answer those questions?" I asked tearfully, trying to be angry. "That's not fair!"

"Those are very logical questions," Elaine insisted, patting my back. "If people weren't so emotional, we'd be asking them much more often. Sweetheart, look." I sniffed and forced myself to look up at that hateful woman. "Look at me. I'm not actually an atheist."

"What?" I stopped crying.

"I know what I did was mean," Elaine conceded, going back to her side of the table. "But I hate this emotional approach to witnessing that has caught on lately. It just doesn't answer any real questions. How are you supposed to convince me I'm going to hell when I don't believe in the God that's supposed to put me there?"

The gravity of my situation hit me. "You just put me through a lot of undue emotional discomfort," I sniffed, standing up.

"Well, no one said witnessing was going to be comfortable," Elaine replied. "You have to understand the people you approach. And you," she added as she turned to leave, "had the incredible misfortune to approach a professor of philosophy."