I stuffed my hand luggage under the seat and settled in for the short journey back home.
“Miss F__, why are you leaving town? School only finishes tomorrow.”
I turned to face the voice. He sat there, gazing at me with a slightly amused look on his face. I squinted, dumbfounded. How did he know me?
“It’s Waltons,” he said.
With a newly acquired tan and casual open-necked shirt, he looked nothing like the Education Inspector who had been at my school.
“Uh, Mr Waltons, I’m sorry. I didn’t recognise you. I thought you’d left last week.”
He grinned. “Well, yes, I did leave. But I headed to Cape Town. Spent a week there, relaxing, and now it’s time to get back home. And to work, of course.”
And that’s why he was now on this flight. But to have the seat right next to me?
I was caught out!
“I did apply for leave,” I explained, as I fastened my seatbelt. “I have a staff conference with my new job, and it starts tomorrow.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, “I heard you were leaving. Tell me more.”
As the flight took off, I told him how my life had been radically changed when I became a Christian and that though I was still new in the faith and had a lot to learn, God had called me to be trained to learn how to serve others.
“So you’re certain this is what you want to do?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
It had been a wonderful first year of teaching. Scary, tough, different and fun in a small seaside town. In addition to school, I taught a Scripture class at the local church and led a Bible Study group. I met relatives I did not know I had, who lovingly shared their home with me. I had wonderful times of encouragement with fellow Christians – a pastor and his wife, joining in with their Sunday evening meetings.
But I knew it was going to be temporary, even before the year had started. My plan had been to teach for just one year, and save most of my salary so that I could pay back my student bursary, leaving me free to go into mission work. And now at the end of that year, I had just enough saved to pay it back in full, but with nothing left over for anything else. My new vocation would mean raising a support team, but I still had not been trained in that. I would also need some funds to see me through the training course until my support came in. I knew God would provide, I just did not know how!
“Well,” said Mr Waltons, “I see that I cannot change your mind. So, tell me, how can I help you?”
I dared to mention it. It was, after all, the one major obstacle – the Education Department’s demand for immediate repayment of the bursary. It was not his portfolio, but he had asked, so I told him.
He thought for a while, then said. “Don’t pay it back now. Go off to your conference, have your break over Christmas and come and see me at the office in February.”
So, two months later, I did go to see him at the Education Department and he organised it such that I was able to pay the bursary back in monthly instalments with no interest at all.
It was no accident that God placed me right next to him on the plane and certainly not a coincidence that we happened to be on the same flight. Furthermore, the fact that he recognised me at all, was astonishing, especially since I was a new teacher, and had hardly any contact with him when he visited the school. He knew my name, though.
But God knew my need. And He has a seat, not on a plane, but in Heaven – on a royal throne! Yet He cares enough to call me by name. He knows you by name, too. And He knows exactly what you need. He is a personal God, and he tailor makes events and circumstances so that we can be continually travelling with Him.
HIS VOICE:
“… and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”
John 10