Orange-vested helpers

The call to observe and help panicking people

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“For help with your connecting flight, look for people in orange vests.”

With headphones pushed off my left ear, I listened attentively to the pilot’s announcement from the cockpit. My friend Adilynn and I were on our way home from France, and we had a very short layover in Portugal. 

On our way to France, our layover was also here, where we got a taste of their long passport lines that inched along. It hadn’t been a problem, though, because we had an eight-hour layover then and had made it out with time to spare to explore Lisbon, their colorful capital. 

But this time, we only had two hours, which felt like one with boarding that started an hour before takeoff. We were nervous to say the least. While we loved Portugal, we were anxious to get home. It had been a full week in Europe, and we were tired! But we were unsure of what kind of line awaited us.

We stepped off the plane and were immediately met with a woman in an orange vest. She was calling out to those who had connecting flights. We told her we were heading to the USA, and she pointed us in the right direction. 

As we hurriedly rounded the corner, the scene opened up before us… what started as a zig-zag filtered into one, very, very... very long line that just kept going. It seemed that they had run out of those retractable barriers that condensed a line’s length. 

We started our trek to join the end of the line, and as we walked, we passed shops, restaurants, and sitting areas, signifying we were no longer just in the passport zone, but in the middle of the airport because of how long this line was. We prayed for God’s favor. 

As we got closer to the end of the line and prepared to join it, I saw a man in an orange vest giving someone directions. Knowing we’d never make it to our next flight if we waited in this line, I walked up to him and asked for help.

He took one look at my boarding pass and said, “Follow me.” With relief, we did. 

We made our way around the line and walked for what felt like a mile, all the while I was thinking to myself, “Surely, he’s going to turn around and tell us that he can’t help us.” It felt too good to be true. 

We made it to the front, where he handed us off to his colleague dressed in an orange vest. We thanked him emphatically and proceeded to get our passports stamped, making it through easily to the other side.

In all, we waited about 5 minutes when we should’ve waited 5 hours. The bulk of our waiting was in the time it took to walk to the front of the line. God had heard our prayers!

Ironically, we had made it through with so much time that they hadn’t even announced our gate number. So, we found a place to plop down, and it just so happened to be right outside of customs. Adilynn went to the bathroom, and I sat and observed my surroundings. 

Side note: I learned while on this trip that being in a foreign place leads to a lot of observation as you are trying to get a feel for your surroundings and know what you need to do next. I was still in this mode, apparently, because instead of getting my phone out, I just watched those who walked through the gate after getting their passports stamped.

Some walked through leisurely, thinking about grabbing a bite to eat or looking for a place to sit and take a nap during their long layover.

Others passed through with panic in their eyes. They were about to miss their flight to Miami, and they were frantic.

How did I know it was Miami they were headed? Because another hero wearing an orange vest came on the scene and called out with a loud and unashamed voice, “MIAMI.”

I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, he doesn’t care if he looks like a fool shouting the way he is, even if no one answers.” As he shouted, I watched those panicked people hear and breathlessly respond with, “Yes, Miami! I’m here!”

It sounded like a search-and-rescue mission, when the team looking for the lost person calls out their name, and that person cries out, “I’m here!”

This happened to a handful of people, and each time someone would respond, the man in the orange vest would find them and tell them what their gate number was. And then he would speak into his walkie-talkie and say what I am assuming was, “Hang on, we’ve got a few more heading your way.”

As I sat and watched, I felt the urge to join in this search-and-rescue. At one point, he disappeared, and I started racking my brain trying to remember what the gate number was in case I saw any more panicked people in his absence.

As I thought about it more after making it to our own gate, I shared it with Adilynn and realized why I was so caught up in and moved by what I had observed.

I too was a panicking person, both not moments before when I was on the other side of the passport line, and over 3 years ago, before I was truly walking with Jesus.

But in my panic and fear that I wasn’t going to make it, I cried out to Jesus, just as I had asked that man in the orange vest for help. And just as that man said, “Follow me” and showed us the way, Jesus too took my hand and gave my life direction, pointing me to the Way with His Words, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

This, too, felt too good to be true, yet it was and is and forever will be!

I was encouraged and led to humble gratitude as I thought back on the help God brought all throughout our trip and the deliverance He brought at my lowest and most panicked time of life.

I was encouraged, and I was also challenged…

Like those coming through the gate, there are panicking people all around the world – and if not now (most are, in fact, leisurely walking through life without a care about their eternal destination), they will be when inevitably met with the reality of death, not knowing the way to life eternal. 

There are multitudes (billions in fact) of lost, panicking people in need of being found and shown the way.

And just as the next man in the orange vest called out to those panicking people, offering them peace and direction, I, too, need to join him and share the Way... the Jesus who conquered death and saved my life.

And there is much more at stake than a missed flight. Eternal destinies are what are on the line.

I felt the Lord connect what I had observed to the Great Commission in this step-by-step way:

Speak the name of Jesus to people UNASHAMEDLY. 

Seek those who respond.

Share the truth* with those seekers.

*I learned as I sat there trying to remember the gate number, that in order to share the truth, you must know the truth. “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)

Direct people on the path that brings peace to their panic. 

As I wrote all of this out, this challenge, straight from the Bible, pointedly struck me:

“How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard?” (Romans 11:14)

If people don’t know Jesus, how will they know to call on Him for help? That’s where God’s beautiful search-and-rescue plan plays out:

The helped becomes the helper. Those who have been shown the path are now tasked with showing others the way they should go.

This perspective was reflected on and lived out in a powerful book I finished on the trip called Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, by a devout Muslim who became a Christian. His conversion was a huge challenge for him, with his fear of breaking his parents’ hearts. He eventually surrenders his life to Christ, unable to deny the truth any longer, but he was right about this breaking their hearts... His mom ended up in the hospital. 

As he bitterly cried out to God, wishing he could have died right after he accepted Christ, so that his family wouldn't have found out, he observed something he had seen countless times before: a man walking down the street.

In the book, he wrote, "What I saw was a man who needed to know that God could rescue him, that God had rescued him. This man needed to know about God and His power."

After pondering all of the wonderful things he had discovered and recently believed about God, he thought to himself, “Does he know?” And in that moment, his perspective shifted. It was no longer about his woes, but the woes of people who have not yet met Jesus.

He, too, was challenged by this truth: “This is not about me. It is about Him and His love for His children.”

I pray that we all would be like those orange-vested helpers – that we would look up from our phones and observe those around us, boldly calling out to the lost, without fear of how we may look. And that we would be quick to direct those panicked faces to the God who died for both of us, securing peace with Him so that all people might come to a saving knowledge of the Truth and live with Him for all eternity!

Just like this man led people to their gate, let's be people who lead people through the narrow gate.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7:13-14)