Last July I wrote about a most remarkable experience in the Seoul, Korea airport. This post relates a different encounter in another airport, Sea-Tac, in Washington state.
In the 90s I traveled between Oregon and Alaska two or three times a year. Almost always I took the (cheaper) late flight from PDX to Anchorage, arriving about 1 a.m. And, on the way home, the red-eye.
One of those 2 a.m. departures from Anchorage found me by the window, and, in the middle seat next to me, a young man, a little rough around the edges. Unwashed, I think. I figured he was a commuting fishermen. Lots of commercial fishers traveled between Alaska and the Pacific NW.
He seemed grumpy (turned out he wasn’t feeling well) and I was tired. I didn’t want to talk. But I felt compelled (later I knew it wasn’t just an intrinsic compulsion; Someone was compelling me) to start a conversation in an effort to share the gospel. I could never have imagined what the Holy Spirit was up to, but I was about to find out.
He freely shared about his life. Yes, he was a fisherman. The only other thing I remember: his uncle was a preacher. That provided a natural segue to my testimony, and the gospel. He listened politely, interacted a little, but wasn’t interested. I tried to be clear that his eternal destiny was at stake, and what it meant to trust Christ. I asked him if he wouldn’t like to do that right there. But he wasn’t ready.
America’s heartland. We rode our bikes all over town till sundown and played kick the can after dark. We hunted rabbits on the Woodruff farm above the Niobrara River and ate fried chicken on Sunday. 
ek Road. Two or three times a week we spent an hour each way bumping over gravel roads that exacted revenge on our 1972 Olds Cutlass for the pounding of log trucks.
