“‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”—Revelation 1:8

WHILE DRIVING WITH the family from New England to Philadelphia, it was a last-minute decision to spend a couple of days in New York. After checking several area hotels, we boarded at the cheapest one we could find and asked how to get downtown. The girl kindly handed us a worn-out itinerary for the bus that stopped within walking distance several blocks away. We put our luggage in the room and departed for the bus stop to spend our first night in town.

We must have looked like disoriented tourists, because when we came to the bus stop, a man in a semi-official bus waved at us. He asked us to enter and said he was going downtown, to the bus station. “How much will it cost?” I asked, with some suspicion while noticing another person in the bus. “You will pay at the end,” he replied, and off we went. My anxiety rose, especially when the only other person disembarked just some blocks after we got on. What would he charge? My trust in fellow citizens was tested, especially when he started using his cell phone and spoke in a language I identified as Arabic and when he clearly did not use the direct road downtown. Did I put my family and myself in trouble? Where would he take us?

After a journey that took much longer than expected, mostly due to evening rush hour, we arrived at the intended bus station, where I saw the official buses. It took him some time to find his parking place and I reluctantly asked the cost. He said: “$7.65 for the three of you.”

We learned another lesson. For God to be our Alpha and Omega, we have to start trusting all of his children.

—Wim van Klinken, director
International Headquarters