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by Len Neufeld
It was near midnight when we finally boarded the plane for our night flight from Chicago to Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Things were not going according to plan.
Our team, which consisted of myself, George Klassen of Amazon Evangelism, and four other people, had originally set out from Vancouver to Los Angeles with the intention of continuing on to Sao Paulo. We were on our way to spend a week showing the JESUS film on board a passenger boat that travels up and down the Amazon River.
However, once we arrived in LA, we found out our flight had been changed. We had to be re-routed to Chicago where we would take an overnight flight to Brazil. It had already been a long day and it looked like we were going to have a long night as well.
As I made my way to my aisle seat, I noticed a young lady sitting by the window. I'm not usually this direct, but the first thing I said after taking my seat was, "I see they've put us in the exit row. I don't expect we'll need that emergency door, but if we do, I know where I'm going. How about you?"
"I'm a Catholic. I think I'm okay," she said.
I asked her if I could show her something and she agreed. So I got up and dug a Four Spiritual Laws booklet out of my bag in the overhead compartment.
As I shared it with her, she expressed many times how beautiful the booklet was and asked if she could keep it. When I was finished, she said she was ready to pray the prayer but wondered if she could do it in Portuguese. I told her of course she could. The woman was very happy to keep the booklet afterwards because she wanted to share it with family and friends.
The woman, who happened to be a producer for HBO in Sao Paulo, had many questions. Our lengthy flight allowed for a lot of discussion on spiritual matters.
Our team eventually arrived in Sao Paulo only to discover that the boat we were to do our ministry on had broken down. Not knowing what else to do now that our main ministry activities were cancelled, we decided to change our emphasis to personal witnessing, of which the above is just a sample. We had our plans, but God re-routed us for His purpose.
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