In this special bonus episode of the Ask About My Faith podcast, we share a story that highlights how God can use us, even in the most unexpected situations. Brian Schulenburg, Wooddale Church’s Outreach Pastor, recounts a powerful encounter on a flight, where he felt prompted to connect with a fellow passenger through prayer. Even while feeling physically unwell, Brian chose to follow God’s leading, which opened the door for a profound conversation about faith and healing.
Brian’s story is an inspiring reminder that God is intentional in orchestrating opportunities for us to be His hands and voice—even in small, seemingly inconvenient moments. We hope his experience inspires you to strike up faith conversations wherever you are: on a plane, in line at the grocery store, or while waiting for your food order. Join us as we dive into this story of obedience, courage, and connection, and see how sharing faith can impact lives in surprising ways.
--- Please support this podcast @ giving.askaboutmyfaith.com
Join us online!
🧡 askaboutmyfaith.com
💙 facebook.com/askaboutmyfaith
💜 instagram.com/askaboutmyfaith
Wherever you are in your faith journey, you’re welcome here! Subscribe and find encouragement for the everyday moments that matter most!
[00:00:04] Welcome to the Ask About My Faith Podcast, where our hope is to inspire everyday faith conversations.
[00:00:09] I'm Abbey and I am so excited to share this bonus episode with you.
[00:00:13] I loved this story so much that Brian shared and I wanted to highlight it.
[00:00:19] It is the perfect example of how intentional God is in orchestrating moments to reach His children and how He uses us.
[00:00:27] Have you ever felt sick on a plane? It can be terrible.
[00:00:32] We often talk about being inconvenienced for the sake of being God's mouthpiece.
[00:00:38] And this story shows how Brian chose to push past the discomfort and respond with prayer and connection.
[00:00:45] I hope this inspires you to strike up a conversation with the person next to you on your next flight
[00:00:50] or in line at the grocery store, even while waiting for your food order.
[00:00:54] You never know how God might use you in someone's life.
[00:00:58] You just reminded me of, you went on a trip to Vegas.
[00:01:02] Yes.
[00:01:03] Yeah.
[00:01:04] And talk about, yes, like God opening the door, even when you were not quite in the mood for it.
[00:01:10] No.
[00:01:11] Yeah.
[00:01:11] Like I was, and it's probably been 15 years ago now.
[00:01:16] Okay.
[00:01:16] I've got a recent story, but it's a fun story.
[00:01:18] So I was, I was asked to be part of a team with my church to go look at some church database software
[00:01:23] and of all the places to go, we went to Vegas.
[00:01:25] It was cheap to fly into.
[00:01:26] Sure.
[00:01:26] It was a quick trip.
[00:01:28] And so we fly to Vegas.
[00:01:30] We, it's literally like a 36 hour scouting trip.
[00:01:33] We're meeting with two churches there and this company and they were flying back.
[00:01:36] And it was just brutally hot.
[00:01:39] I got a migraine headache.
[00:01:40] And I remember we were going to lunch at the cheesecake factory, like my favorite restaurant
[00:01:45] in the world.
[00:01:46] And I looked at my coworkers and I'm like, I'm going to stay in the car and just try
[00:01:49] to sleep this off.
[00:01:50] They're like, no, you're not.
[00:01:50] You're going to die.
[00:01:51] You're going to die.
[00:01:52] So I'm in the restaurant.
[00:01:55] I literally don't order a thing.
[00:01:56] I'm just sitting with my head down and just so much pain.
[00:02:00] And we get to the airport early and I went to the gate attendant and I said, is there any
[00:02:05] way I can get a seat alone?
[00:02:06] Um, and she said, yeah, actually it's a half full flight for sure.
[00:02:10] And it was enough time where I was like, guys, the only way this migraine gets, uh, get done
[00:02:16] with this is I'm either going to throw up or fall asleep.
[00:02:18] I'm going to try to fall asleep.
[00:02:19] So I don't have to throw up.
[00:02:20] And I fell asleep for maybe 45 minutes and they then start boarding the plane.
[00:02:26] And I'm looking around and it's like, that looks like a little more crowded than half
[00:02:29] of playing.
[00:02:29] Well, one of the flights to the twin cities was canceled.
[00:02:32] And so our full flight was now full.
[00:02:35] And I remember walking to my seat and I was supposed to sit with a pastor and like my
[00:02:40] group and I'm sitting with a complete stranger.
[00:02:42] And this, uh, woman looks up at me and says, Hey, how are you?
[00:02:45] Were you in Vegas for business or pleasure?
[00:02:48] And I was like, well, I was there for business.
[00:02:50] And she goes, what kind of business do you do?
[00:02:52] And that time I wasn't in real estate.
[00:02:53] I said, well, I'm a pastor.
[00:02:54] And she's like, I'm a pastor in Vegas.
[00:02:57] She just starts laughing and, uh, and just like extrovert to the extreme.
[00:03:03] And my head is just, uh, I could have been sitting next to my introvert boss.
[00:03:14] You know, but, uh, uh, so then, you know, because she'd found out and outed me as a pastor,
[00:03:22] she just starts sprinkling all these questions before we even take off.
[00:03:25] And like, right before we take off, she goes, I have a question for you.
[00:03:28] She goes, you don't really believe that God would send anyone to hell.
[00:03:32] Do you?
[00:03:33] Well, and I remember right.
[00:03:35] That's a big one.
[00:03:35] Oh, and I just prayed a prayer.
[00:03:37] I'm like, I'm on a three hour flight back, Lord.
[00:03:39] And I don't want to be in a debate the whole time.
[00:03:42] This is, I don't think debates have ever really won people to Jesus.
[00:03:46] You know, it's just not, it's just not real effective in my mind.
[00:03:49] And so I just silently prayed a prayer.
[00:03:52] And I'm like, Lord, I have a raging migraine.
[00:03:55] I know you've put me here for a reason.
[00:03:58] God, would you just do something with it and give me the words to say?
[00:04:02] And Abby, my headache went away instantly.
[00:04:06] And I remember asking her, I said, her name was Jessenia and she was from Guatemala.
[00:04:10] And I said, Jessenia, who do you believe Jesus is?
[00:04:16] Do you believe he's God?
[00:04:17] And she said, oh yeah, I believe he's God.
[00:04:19] Because she had kind of a Catholic background.
[00:04:21] And I said, okay, if he's God, do you believe that everything that he said is true?
[00:04:26] She said, yeah, I do.
[00:04:27] And so I took her to John 14, 6, where he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
[00:04:32] And I said, you know, there was a translation in the Bible years ago that tried to change
[00:04:35] that word, the, to a.
[00:04:37] And if Jesus is a way, a truth, and a life, well, then he's just one of many.
[00:04:41] But if he's the way, the truth, and life, then he's the only way.
[00:04:45] And we began to just, we kind of started there.
[00:04:47] And for about two hours straight, we talked.
[00:04:50] But remember I said how our stories intersect in every chapter of our life?
[00:04:54] Well, there was a chapter in my life when I was a youth pastor where I led trips to Guatemala.
[00:04:58] And I had been there several times.
[00:04:59] Oh my gosh.
[00:05:00] She was from Hutiapa, Guatemala, which was a kind of a cowboy Guatemala city.
[00:05:06] Like if you were going to film a Western film in Guatemala, that would be it.
[00:05:09] Like the cowboy cats and they were, I mean, ranchers.
[00:05:12] And I'd been to her town many times.
[00:05:15] I knew people in Hutiapa.
[00:05:17] I knew people she knew in Hutiapa.
[00:05:19] Wow.
[00:05:20] And it was like, she couldn't believe that I'd been to Hutiapa.
[00:05:24] Then I found out she's an architect at a firm in the Twin Cities.
[00:05:30] And that she worked with the guy who led the adult trip for our church to Guatemala for all
[00:05:37] the years that I was leading the youth trip.
[00:05:39] So this guy and I would work together in tandem.
[00:05:41] And we'd visit some of the same missionaries and go to some of the same places.
[00:05:44] And he had been sharing Christ with her.
[00:05:46] And this is, again, where you talk about the spiritual evangelists.
[00:05:48] He'd been so faithful in sharing Christ with her for years.
[00:05:52] He'd talked about his trips to Guatemala.
[00:05:54] They didn't go to Hutiapa though.
[00:05:55] They went to different parts.
[00:05:57] He would go to lunch with her and have her teach him Spanish.
[00:06:01] She was a Spanish tutor.
[00:06:02] I mean, there's just so many cool things.
[00:06:04] He'd been trying to share Christ.
[00:06:06] And somewhere over in Nebraska on that trip, it all came together for her.
[00:06:09] And she became a follower of Jesus.
[00:06:11] And at the time, I had a CD like walking.
[00:06:15] And I had been given the New Testament on CDs.
[00:06:18] She thought that was the coolest thing ever.
[00:06:20] Well, she ended up getting my New Testament CDs.
[00:06:22] And then we got her a Spanish Bible.
[00:06:25] And Bill would just continue to work with her.
[00:06:30] And Bill and his wife got involved in discipling her.
[00:06:33] And it's just such a beautiful thing.
[00:06:35] And only God could do that.
[00:06:36] Think about that.
[00:06:37] He loved her so much that he made sure her flight got canceled.
[00:06:41] He made sure I got a migraine headache.
[00:06:42] So I would ask to change seats.
[00:06:44] And the only way that I would sit next to her is if her flight was canceled.
[00:06:47] I'd change seats.
[00:06:49] Like only God could orchestrate that.
[00:06:51] But he just knew that there was going to be an interaction there.
[00:06:58] And but he also ordained that Bill would work with her for years.
[00:07:03] Yeah, right.
[00:07:04] I was going to say it's such a good example of, yeah, like being all the different seeds
[00:07:09] that were planted.
[00:07:10] Yeah.
[00:07:11] And you got to be a part of that story.
[00:07:13] But you know that like, yeah, all the other seeds that had been planted along the way.
[00:07:17] Here's the deal.
[00:07:18] Like God's the hero of the story.
[00:07:20] Totally.
[00:07:20] I just get to be a part of his story.
[00:07:22] And that's that's a beautiful thing.
[00:07:24] You know, I have the gift of evangelism.
[00:07:27] I get to see a lot of that that I get to harvest a lot of the incredible work that people have
[00:07:33] put into planting those seeds and cultivating those seeds.
[00:07:37] It wasn't me that made Jesus look good in her life.
[00:07:40] It was Bill who made Jesus look good in her life.
[00:07:42] I just got to be part of whatever.
[00:07:44] And maybe there were just some decisions made in Vegas or maybe there were some things
[00:07:47] she was I don't know.
[00:07:48] But for whatever reason in that trip, she was open.
[00:07:51] She was ready.
[00:07:52] Like never before.
[00:07:54] And so if you don't have the spirit to get to evangelism, going back to like our conversation
[00:07:58] last week.
[00:07:59] Yeah.
[00:08:00] You're still part of the evangelistic process.
[00:08:03] And you're probably way more of an important part because my partner was so short.
[00:08:08] She needed all these faithful people around her who, yes, shared words and deeds.
[00:08:15] But I just I love that story because I think that's probably almost everybody's faith story.
[00:08:21] You know, like there's so many people in our lives that we saw something different in them.
[00:08:28] We saw a peace in them that passed understanding and shouldn't have been there.
[00:08:32] We saw faithfulness to going through an incredible challenge with faith, whatever it is, and being
[00:08:41] able to go, okay.
[00:08:42] And so, yeah, just saying, God, here's my story.
[00:08:45] My whole story is yours.
[00:08:47] You're writing my story.
[00:08:48] I write it different, but you're going to be writing it better.
[00:08:51] Use whatever chapter you want today.
[00:08:53] Yes.
[00:08:54] And let it be a blessing in somebody else's life.