King's Corner: Fellow Travelers

One of the hardest parts of faith is that God rarely shows us the whole road. Instead, He asks us to trust Him with the next step and discover the rest along the way.

Just two days after his 13th birthday, Robert Mark King stepped off a Greyhound bus in Fargo, North Dakota, with $11 in his pocket and no idea what came next. It was not the way most boys celebrated turning 13. A few days earlier he had stood outside an apartment door in Elizabeth, New Jersey, suitcase in hand, fighting a battle many of us know well. Part of him wanted to go back inside. His mother was inside. Safety was inside. Everything familiar was inside. But another part of him knew that if he turned around, nothing would change. When Julia kissed Bobbie goodbye and confidently said, “You’ll be back,” the choice was made. Now he had to live with it.

The ticket had cost more than half the money in his pocket, and that had been intentional. He knew himself well enough to know that if going home remained easy, he might do it. So he made sure it wouldn’t be. Looking back, I suspect God had been preparing him for Fargo long before Fargo ever appeared on a bus schedule. Father Stone’s guidance, Julia’s sacrifices, the responsibilities he carried as the man of the house, and the lessons learned in Wisconsin had quietly shaped him. Most boys his age were still imagining what they might become someday. He was already finding out.

The bus carried him west through places he had never seen before. Somewhere along the way, excitement and uncertainty took turns sharing the seat beside him. The boy dreamed of adventure, the young man wondered if he had made a terrible mistake, and both stepped off the bus in Fargo wondering what came next.

The city wasn’t exactly what he had imagined. Nobody was waiting for him, and the bus station made it clear he couldn’t stay. He put his suitcase in a locker and wandered down the street looking for somewhere to go. What he found was a movie theater showing three Westerns, including the newly released Stagecoach starring John Wayne. To a 13-year-old who dreamed of horses, cowboys, and wide-open spaces, this seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to begin life out West.

Stagecoach followed strangers traveling through uncertain territory and becoming companions along the way. Mark didn’t know it, but he was about to do the same. He watched the morning movies, and when the theater closed for lunch he discovered another problem. He couldn’t afford a second ticket. Mark solved that problem the way an enterprising 13-year-old might. He hid in the men’s restroom until the theater reopened and then slipped back inside for the afternoon showing. Years later he told that part of the story with obvious amusement. Where many people saw obstacles, Mark often saw possibilities.

During the afternoon showing, three boys sat in front of him. They spent much of the movie confidently predicting who the heroes were, who the villains might be, and what would happen next. Unfortunately, they were wrong on all three counts. Having already seen the film once, Mark couldn’t resist joining the conversation. Before long he was leaning forward and correcting their theories, which only encouraged more questions. The boys demanded to know how he knew so much about the story.

“I already watched it,” he explained.

That answer only made the boys more curious.

Long before he became Oakland’s Singing Bartender, he genuinely enjoyed people and rarely met a stranger he wasn’t willing to talk to. By the end of the movie he was no longer sitting alone. One of the boys introduced himself as Robert.

“I’m Robert too,” he started to reply.

Then he paused and reached for his middle name.

“Mark.”

The name stuck.

The boys in Fargo never met Bobbie. They met Mark.

The conversation continued. Where did he live? He had just arrived in town. What was he doing in Fargo? He was looking for work. One of the boys looked surprised.

“Have you ever shocked wheat?”

As a matter of fact, he had.

“My father is hiring. Five dollars a day, room, board, and laundry.”

The adventure he had imagined involved horses, outlaws, and John Wayne. The adventure he found offered room, board, laundry, and a wheat field. Oddly enough, that sounded pretty good too.

He went home with the boys and the next morning started work. Looking back, what strikes me most is not that he found a job. Harvest season meant farmers needed help. The remarkable thing is that he found the boys—or perhaps they found him. Life often works that way. We step into unfamiliar territory afraid we will be alone there. We pray for guidance, answers, and certainty.

God often responds with people.

We think He is leading us to a destination. Sometimes He is leading us to fellow travelers. Mark arrived in Fargo looking for a future. Before he found a future, he found fellow travelers. Three boys in the front row made room for him in their group, and suddenly the road ahead did not seem quite so lonely.

Jeff Headley is pastor of the Dayton Valley Community Church, and a storyteller who blends humor, honesty, and hope. His weekly column reflects on resilience, grace, and the surprising ways faith shows up in ordinary life.