James Raffan works as a miner in a small town in Southern Alberta, Canada, and when he was nineteen, he experienced a Christmas event he’ll never forget.  “At the time I was dating a girl from a nearby town and I was at her house on Christmas Eve goofing around and opening presents with her family,” James says.  “About midnight it was time for me to drive the twenty miles back home.”  James warmed up his mother’s car, which he had borrowed for the occasion, and got on the road quickly.  The night was cold, the road deserted and he was looking forward to getting home and into bed.  About seven miles into his journey, he came through a covered bridge---and almost passed a hitchhiker. 

“He didn’t have much on, just a jean jacket and blue jeans,” Jim reports, “and it was so cold that I had to stop.”  The man approached Jim’s car. Possibly mid thirties, dark, curly hair, and in need of a shave….  “When he got in the car I caught a whiff of booze but not really overpowering, he kind of struck me as a guy just down on his luck,” Jim says.  The two introduced themselves, and James headed for the next major town, where he lived. Silence descended for a few minutes; then Jim couldn’t resist asking the obvious question:  “How come you’re out hitchhiking on Christmas Eve?” 

“Well, I had a big fight with my wife, and I took off,” the man explained.  “We just got married here 2 weeks ago and I guess it was a little much for me, and I ran out on her.  But now all I want to do is be with her on Christmas.  I called her and told I was sorry and I was coming home to be with her.  I got no money, so I have to hitch hike.” 

“Where is she, where do you need to get to?”  James asked. 

“She’s in Winnipeg.  I ain’t gonna be there by tomorrow at this rate.”   

Winnipeg.  It was almost a thousand miles away.  It could easily take the stranger a week to hitchhike that distance.   James thought hard.  “If I could get you a bus ticket to Winnipeg, would you use it to get home?” he finally asked.

 “Really, man?” the hitchhiker turned to him.  “Could you do that?  I mean, that would be the greatest… of course I would go home, it would be the best Christmas…her parents are supposed to be coming in to town to be with her. I could see them again and, you know, make up for leaving like I did.”

 He seemed pretty excited, James noticed.  And---coincidentally----James’ father then owned a small truck stop in town, which was the Greyhound bus depot for the area.  Furthur, James often worked late at the truck stop, and had a set of keys.

 “We chatted a little bit more, and eventually pulled into the station,” James says. “I unlocked the door and we both went in.  It didn’t take more than ten minutes to fill out the ticket.  We grabbed some goodies for him to eat while he waited for the bus and headed back outside.  The bus wouldn’t be there for another couple of hours so I took him over to my old pickup that I kept at the store, so he would have a warm place to wait for the bus. 

 “You can run the pickup to keep warm.,” James told him  “The express bus should be here at 3:30 a.m---it will be heading straight through to Regina, then Winnipeg, and you should be there by about 6:30 pm.” 

 The stranger smiled.  “Thank you,” he said simply.  

 “Do you need anything else before I leave?”

 “No, thanks, Merry Christmas.”

 “You too.”

 The men shook hands, and James turned to walk back to the store to lock it up.  When he turned around---just a few seconds later----he noticed that the pickup wasn’t running.  Maybe the hitchhiker was having difficulty starting it.   James walked back and looked inside. There was no one there.

 “Initially I was worried,” James says.  “I thought that maybe he had more to drink then I suspected, and he could die in weather this cold.”    But as James began to look around, the wide open expanse of driveway and buildings, the fresh newly-fallen snow covering everything, he realized that no one could have disappeared that quickly.  And where were the stranger’s footprints?  The snow was still undisturbed, He had completely vanished.

 A few days later, James spoke with the bus driver on the Winnepeg route.  “He told me that he hadn’t picked anyone up at our stop on Christmas Eve,” James says.  “And the ticket was never used.” 

 James has no “reasonable” explanation to offer for this experience.  “There were no heavenly hosts openly proclaiming an unfathomable truth,” he says, “but instead, a kind of encouragement to continue.   Maybe these experiences are God’s way of supporting us in our choice to believe.”  

 And may more of us believe this Christmas than ever before.

 (C) Copyright 2006 Joan Wester Anderson

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