My last stop on my first trip to the East was Formosa. It was time for me to move on so I went to the travel agency in Taipei and gave a list of all the places I needed to go on the next leg of my journey: Hong Kong, Sydney, Aukland, Cape Town, Tel Aviv, and finally back to Amsterdam.

The travel agent wrote it all down and then asked, "What is your final destination?"

"Heaven," I answered simply.

She gave me a puzzled look. "How do you spell that?"

"H-E-A-V-E-N," I spelled out slowly.

After she had written it down she sat looking at the paper. At last she looked up. "Oh, now I understand," she said with a smile. "But I did not mean that."

"But I meant it," I said. "And you do not need to write it down because I already have my ticket."

"You have a ticket to heaven?" she asked, astonished. "How did you receive it?"

"About two thousand years ago," I said, noting her genuine interest, "there was One who bought my ticket for me. I only had to accept it from Him. His name is Jesus and He paid my fare when He died on the cross for my sins."

A Chinese clerk, working at the next desk, overheard our conversation and joined in. "What the old woman says is true," he told his companion.

I turned and looked at the Chinese man. "Have you a reservation in heaven?" I asked him.

His face lit up in a smile. "Yes, I have," he said, nodding enthusiastically. "Many years ago, as a child on the mainland, I received Jesus as my Saviour. That makes me a child of God with a place reserved in the house of the Father."

"Then you are also my brother," I said, shaking his hand.

. . . He smiled broadly, and nodded. I felt confident he would continue to witness to his fellow worker now that I had opened that door.

(Excerpted from Tramp for the Lord, First published 1976)