Christianne Udoh from Nigeria

I left from Dulles at 7:07 on my way to Frankfort. I was thankful for an aisle seat as I knew I'd be getting up frequently to use the lavatory (lava laboratory?) many times during the flight. I quickly retrieved my copy of "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan from my draw string bag. I couldn't wait to dive right back in after my hour of waiting at my terminal. However, the woman next to me started to strike up a conversation. She asked me where I was going. I said, "Prague", but she stared back with a confused expression, so I said "Frankfort" after a short, awkward pause. Well, of course she understood that. We were both on the same flight.

She told me that she was going back to Nigeria. I pretended to be interested and then went back to my book. Then God told me, "You're going to have the entire trip to read that book. Can't you talk to that woman for ten minutes? What if she needs to hear the Gospel?" I'm like..."Aight, God." Lol. So I put my book away. I ask her why she was staying in the U.S. She was there to visit family and go to her sister's wedding. She's one of six sisters. She has four kids. One graduated from a school in Malaysia. Another is just starting in Alabama.

Then she asked me if I was a Christian. I said yes. She asked me how I became one and I told her my two sentence testimony. She asked me if I felt like I had been changed. I said, over time by the grace of God. It was a very interesting conversation. I couldn't help but notice a difference in how we spoke about our faith. Perhaps it was her lack of understanding of more complex English. Maybe it was because we focused on different things. I always felt more "intellectual". I was trying to address things like sanctification (although I never used that word), but she only spoke of who God is and how important it is to have faith in him. She asked me for my bible and opened up to John 3. I asked her what her favorite verse was. She answered, John 3:5

"Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.""

Towards the end of the flight, she lent me a book she had with her for the remainder of our time in the air. It was called, "The Fourth Dimension". Odd title, I thought. The fourth dimension is time, but aightttt. The guy began with a story of how he thought we needed to pray for very specific things. How prayer wasn't answered because our prayers were too vague. He gave an example of how he prayed for a desk, chair, and bike for six months because he was living in extreme poverty as a preacher in Korea. He then heard a voice from God, telling him to be specific. So he prayed for a very specific kind of desk, chair, and bike. He then went to his congregation and told him that God had delivered those things to him. They were amazed. They wanted to see these things. And he was terrified, because he didn't have any of them. They went to his place, where there was obviously nothing there, and he told them that God was growing them inside his faith.

Now...this kind of sounded like heresy to me. Not going to lie. I asked Christianne about praying specifically. She kind of brushed that off and focused on our need to have faith in praying to God. Her faith seemed very simple and very focused on God. I felt silly for trying to focus on the intellectual side of my faith.

Luke 18:15-17

"Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.""