“Did you meet the visitor today?” I asked another Reformed Presbyterian. “His name is John Williams.”

“No,” she replied. “How did you meet?”

My answer was unusual, but true: “We met him on the side of the road this morning on our way to church.”

“Are you serious?”

I started to laugh, but admitted it was so.

It was a cold Sunday morning. The skies had just begun to snow, and the forecast was for five to eight inches. We were running our typical ten minutes late when we spied a man in a wheelchair, pushing himself along the sidewalk. He was missing parts of both legs. It was quite a picture of hopelessness. My husband and I looked at each other. Should we stop to help? Where could he possibly be going in weather like this?

We did stop, turned around, and pulled into a parking lot adjacent to him. We had decided that we could at least help push him to wherever he was going.

His name was John Williams, and he was trying to get to Zion Church in Mount Clemens. This was not exactly local. He was trying to get to a bus stop. Being Sunday morning, the buses were not running their usual routes. We didn’t know exactly what to do next.

Let me disillusion any of you who may be imagining us as the “truly sanctified.” We don’t have verses on our lips at the ready for such situations. We do not actively practice evangelism. We don’t even invite people we know to church on a regular basis. God had to be pretty obvious for us to get the hint. Others may not need such things spelled out, but for us it took a double amputee pushing himself in a snowstorm with no bus service available.

“Well, John, since you are on your way to a church, would you like to come with us to our church? We can take you home afterward,” we offered. He agreed. We rearranged ourselves so we could fit three adults, two kids in car seats, and wheelchair in our ‘93 Honda Accord. It was rather tight, but we did it. John did not seem to mind the small space because he slept almost the whole way to church.

Providentially, our church building has a wheelchair accessible entrance. He was able to get into our building with no problem, and operated the lift himself. Sunday school was not yet finished, so we sat in the back with him. He listened, but fell asleep for most of the class. When the class finished, he chose to sit in a pew; so we helped him into our pew. We tried to help him find the right psalm to sing and the Bible passages, but we were not sure how much he was really following. He kept falling asleep.

After the service he sat with us for the fellowship lunch that we have each week. Several people came to introduce themselves and talk with him until it was time to start the second service. For this we got him a more comfortable chair at the back of the auditorium.

The trip home was slow. At least 5 inches of snow had fallen, and the roads were not plowed. We talked with John and discovered that he was going to Zion Church because that was the next homeless shelter on the rotation. The shelter rules were that everyone left at 9 each weekday morning, returned at 8 at night, and had to leave for the next shelter each Sunday morning.

Although he looked 70, he was younger than 55 and had been living on the streets for a year. He was not on speaking terms with his older sister; his twin had died a year ago, and his mother a month ago; and he had another brother living in the area. This information was not easily accessible, because John mumbled and never offered more information than strictly answering the question being posed to him. However, even after we extracted all this from him, we were still a distance from the shelter.

Sitting wedged in the backseat between our two kids, I thought, We have a captive audience. We should say something. Thankfully, my husband had the same thought. He asked John if he had heard the gospel today. Then he reviewed the basics of the gospel: that God demanded perfection; that we are sinful, the opposite of perfection; that this results in death; that God sent Christ to be God-man on earth, who lived a perfect life and was killed so that men could be saved from their sin… .

I listened from the backseat. After my husband was done, I asked John if he had read the Bible before. Yes. I said that this is important because the Bible tells us that the sign that we truly do love God is if we want to obey God and His commandments. I told him the Bible tells us how to obey God, otherwise we would never know how. “You are going to a church, John, and if you want a Bible, you just ask for one.”

We dropped him off, joining four or five others that were waiting in the snow. It was about 5:30 p.m. We left a church bulletin with him, telling him to call our church if he ever wanted to go with us again.

Will he call? Will he ever ask for a Bible? Will he find shelter under the wings of the Almighty, and not just under the roof of a warm church building? I don’t know. I probably will never know. But I thank the Lord for teaching me obedience to Him, helping me share His gospel with another person.

The author, whose name is withheld at her request, is a member of an RPCNA congregation.