by Steve Van Winkle
Some years before I attended BBC, I had tried another Bible “college,” and it was not a good experience. I will leave most of the details for you to imagine, but it helps if you think in terms of Storm Troopers, book burning, groupthink, and Dictatorships for Dummies.
Dating was strictly forbidden, but somehow, in this stew of repression, a girl got the idea we were a couple. To express her interest, she began doing something creepy. She drew enormous smiley-faces on my windshield. All the time.
The worst was at night when I would go out to an empty parking lot at work around midnight, start my car, turn on my headlights, and the reflected beams revealed another face about the size of a manhole cover. I screamed like a girl more than once. And, she left notes in my car; some of them hidden. I found notes from her expressing her hope for our future months after I departed, which made for awkward moments with Cheryl, the girl I would marry, as they would drop from under the dash onto her feet much later.
With all this and the overall college experience, my Christianity was hanging by threads. Only two things kept me from completely caving in to creeping cynicism and apostasy – ironically they too were faces.
I took a cleaning job at the Navigators’ building on the edge of the city. At least, it was on the edge of the city 26 years ago. The Navigators is an evangelical ministry known for publishing Christian books and materials for Bible study and discipleship.
One reason I took the job was because it was an escape. I had to remove myself from the predators stalking my sensibilities. Everything Christianity meant for joy had been dismantled over the previous months, and I had become a person whom none of you would have liked.
Anyway, pushing a vacuum one night at work, I noticed a picture on a desk. It was small and showed Jesus hugging someone who had apparently just arrived in heaven. After being in this Gulag a mere three months, I had come to think of Christ as an angry, vindictive old man who only created people so He could have a self-sustaining supply of disappointments.
I flopped down on a chair and just stared at it. I no longer recognized the Lord in that picture. The worst kind of darkness had found a place in my spirit. That picture was like a cold glass of water tossed over the shower curtain. I had to do something different.
The other face I discovered in an unlikely place. Most churches that open Bible “colleges” use students typically to staff the church’s “bus ministry.” A “bus ministry” in this case meant a church bus or van driven into the impoverished areas of a city where kids are picked up by total strangers and given a ride to church.
I imagine such a practice sounds abhorrent to many parents, but many moms and dads of these ragamuffins were completely giddy to be rid of their kids for a couple hours every Sunday. Most of them practically threw their kids at us, seeing our “ministry” as free babysitting.
The miseries of the bus ministry were varied. Between parents who cared more about the vehicle on blocks in their front yard than their own kids, to the children who hated each other because of skin color, to the filth of their homes, the time invested on the bus route was a sure cure for happiness.
Yet, among all the sadness, I met a sweet little girl. She was around eight, gregarious, full of life. And deaf.
Every Sunday, she bounded on with the same bright blue dress and anxious smile; she always sat in the back. I didn’t know a single word of sign language, and she couldn’t read lips, but I was captivated by how much she said with her face.
Because of her, I learned a little sign language, like “sit down” (for safety) and “no” (for when she tried to manipulate me). I also learned how to form sign-language letters so I could spell out her name and a few necessary words.
Mostly, I just watched her talk to me with her face; she was charming and adorable. At a time when joy, love, and happiness seemed like sins, I soaked up her smiles and playful glances like sunshine after a nuclear winter.
I don’t remember her name anymore. I’ve also forgotten all my sign language. But her face and that of Jesus on a desk rescued me from those who had weaponized Christianity.
Not long after, I left the college to go home. I got in my car, started the engine, and turned on the headlights. When the light bounced off the garage, a smiley-face the size of Neptune glared at me from the windshield.
I screamed, covered my neck, and checked the backseat in one seizure-like move. Certain the car was free of danger, I started to get out to remove the face. As I did, I put my hand on the seat, which was littered with notes asking me to stay “for us.” Except for the few hidden under the dash Cheryl would find later, I trashed them.
The last face I saw in that town was a fake and scary smiley – thank God I came across the other two faces.
You can follow Steve’s blog at 20fore20.wordpress.com. His email is felbap1@gmail.com.