On one flight I got talking with the man next to me whose name was Paddy. We exchanged pleasantries and soon he asked me what I did. I told him I was the Director of Wycliffe Bible Translators (NZ) – which I was at the time and am no longer. From that moment on our conversation took a different tack. He was so open and began asking all kinds of questions. I was the fragrance of life to him. He was brought up a Catholic and was like God turned the switch for him and gave him the opportunity to return to faith. The Kiss of Life.
On another flight I was seated next to a woman. We started talking and the same question came up. What do you do (for a job)? I told her the same thing. Her reaction was immediate and final. She simply turned her back to me and looked out the window for the rest of the trip, and it was a long trip. At one point I looked at her and thought she was asleep, but then noticed she was not asleep; she was pretending to be asleep. How sad! How very sad. Something had happened in that woman’s life to make her react that way. To her I was the stench of death. Nothing I had done. She had reacted to the things of God and His Christ, the remedy for her sins, in such a way that cut her off from the very help she needed. There was the smell of spiritual death all over her.