Home to Harmony by Philip Gulley Page A

Impact Our World!!” article.
    Dale said, “We’ll have them right there on the bus. They’ll have to listen. We’ll drive slow and wear ’em down.” Dale thought the gospel was not compelling in and of itself, that people needed to be coerced into believing it.
    I suggested donating the bus to the fire department so they could burn it for practice. Or maybe towing it to the county fair and charging people a dollar to hit it with a sledge hammer. Better yet, we could sell it to a rock band.
    I said, “The Lord has put up with this bus long enough. Let’s give it back to the devil.”
    Then, the very next Monday morning, I read the Quaker newsletter about Brother Norman and the Choctaw youth in need of transportation.
    I called Brother Norman on the phone to tell him his prayers had been answered. Then I phoned Harvey Muldock, who towed the bus to his garage. It took a couple weeks, but he got it running. Dale sanded off the snake and Follow Me to Harmony Friends Meeting! and the word Venom. He painted the bus red, with a paintbrush.
    I walked over to Dale’s house to see it.
    â€œIt needs a Scripture passage,” he said. “Something that might bring people to the Lord if they happen toglance at it. I’ve narrowed it down to two verses—John 10:14 about the good shepherd, or Revelation 13:16 about the mark of the beast.”
    â€œI’ve always been partial to John 10:14,” I told him.
    Dale frowned. “I was leaning toward Revelation,” he said.
    â€œLet’s flip a coin,” I suggested. “Heads I win, tails you lose.”
    â€œFair enough,” Dale said.
    I flipped the coin. It was heads.
    â€œYou win,” Dale said.
    â€œThen we’ll go with John 10:14,” I declared.
    So that’s what he painted down the side of the bus: I am the Good Shepherd; I know my own and my own know me.
    A fine Scripture.
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    T hat Sunday I announced from the pulpit that Dale and Harvey and I would be driving the bus to Oklahoma. After church, the Friendly Women’s Circle surrounded the bus and prayed for our safe journey as we went forth onto the mission field. Then they counted out six hundred dollars into Dale’s hands, money they’d raised at their annual Chicken Noodle Dinner. Six hundred dollars! Cash!
    â€œYou be sure Brother Norman gets that money,” Fern Hampton warned him. “Don’t be spending it on wild living.”
    I looked at Dale in his plaid shirt, seed-corn cap, and orthopedic shoes. He didn’t strike me as a candidate for wild living.
    We left for Oklahoma the next day. By late afternoon we were crossing the Mississippi River into St. Louis. There was the Gateway Arch, rising up from the west bank of the river. We’d never seen it before except on television when the St. Louis Cardinals played.
    Dale was driving. “Let’s stop,” he said. He veered the bus across four lanes of traffic and just made the exit.
    We parked the bus, went into the Arch and rode the elevator all the way to the top. We crowded against the windows. We could see all of St. Louis, including the baseball stadium. It was beautiful, like an emerald. We felt like angels looking down from heaven. We could see the groundskeepers rolling the diamond. A trickle of ant people was moving into the seats.
    Harvey said, “I think there’s a game today.”
    A man standing next to us said, “That’s right. The Cardinals and the Cubbies. Mark McGwire’s going for the home-run record. Number sixty-two.”
    We climbed back in the bus and drove past the stadium. There was a man out front scalping tickets. He held up three tickets and yelled, “Six hundred dollars!” which we took to be a sign from the Lord.
    Harvey said, “You know, we could pay it back. The Friendly Women would never know. We could write Brother Norman a check. Wouldn’t that be something to see the record home-run