When I was around 13 or so, I traveled with a church youth group to a remote Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona. The published intent of the journey was to assist the Native Americans in building a community center. I was eager to go for a number of reasons, not the least of which was getting to spend a week with friends away from the confines of my much too conservative home. The journey itself was an exciting one as we rented an old school bus and bumped and jerked the 600 miles toward our destination.

When we arrived, I discovered slowly, for I was not the brightest of children, that I had been lured to that reservation not for the expressed purpose of building that community center but rather for the salvation of my soul.

Each night I noticed that certain of my compatriots would return from a command meeting with the resident missionary, strangely changed. They were no longer interested in staying up late and talking about Gil Hodges’ batting average or the shape of Brenda Johnson’s behind.

All these guys wanted to talk about was Jesus.

Something was happening to my friends that struck me as both terribly disturbing and infinitely intriguing.

My turn came on the next to the last night. After dinner, the missionary cornered me before I could escape from the dining hall and told me he wanted to go for a walk. I was perfectly content in allowing him to do so but he insisted I join him. There was an ominous air about him and I was reluctant to go but my curiosity got the better of me so I went.

He immediately began to question me on the most personal and profound of issues. He inquired as to my values, my behavior, my sexuality, my philosophy and theology. Now, at the time, my mind was quite incapable of even understanding his questions let alone offering up any kind of reasonable answer. I figured I was failing whatever test he was giving because the missionary was growing more and more frantic with my stupid replies. Finally he offered up the coup de Gras.

"If you died tonight," he queried, "would you join the heavenly chorus or burn with all the fallen devils?"

A little river of sweat began running down my backbone. I wasn’t sure if this guy was going to kill me or convert me. All I knew was I wasn’t going to take any chances and so I began to give him what he wanted, which, it turned out, was nothing less than my soul.

In such an atmosphere of terror and trepidation, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. It was a mildly euphoric experience and lasted all the way back home and ended only when, shortly after my arrival at the house, my brother and I began to duke it out on the kitchen floor.

He was ridiculing my new-found faith and so I decided to kill him.