I’ve been asked a few times why I’m a rideshare driver for Lyft and Uber.

The answers are easy.

It keeps me from spending money at local hardware stores.

I tend to drift into a few, earnestly thinking and believing I am good at fixing things, you know, minor home projects like remodeling the kitchen, adding a bedroom, after decades of knowing otherwise. Truth is, I’m not. I have hardly ever finished a single repair, paint, assemble, project I ever began and I have unused equipment to prove it. I’d rather drive a few hours and make a little cash than buy stuff I end up never using and see it sitting wherever I abandon it until it burns my eyes.

When I drive for Lyft and Uber — yes, New Castle, you have at least one rideshare driver I know of — I get the joy and privilege of meeting people who I would probably never otherwise meet.

Read the car correctly and there are riders who really want to talk and will tell you their life stories, most of which, if well-penned, could be best sellers, even movie franchises. Many riders simply want to rest or catch up on phone time after a very hard day’s work. Some sleep. That’s fine by me. It gives me time to be thankful for all the home-projects I am avoiding and calculate all the money I’m saving by not buying the John Deer foundation digger thing I found most attractive and fully believed I needed a few days ago.

I have long prayed that God would permit me to travel and teach young adult students who are rich in almost everything but money and who live in places I couldn’t find on a map. If I drive hard for a week I can earn enough money to fly anywhere in the world where I’m invited.

Paying my own way means I don’t stretch budgets of campuses in some of the most economically vulnerable and challenged countries on Earth.

My three trips, scheduled before 2024 closes are to Santiago – then home, Accra, Lome, Nairobi, Worcester, – then home. After Thanksgiving, it’s Bujumbura. If I drive it means I can go to such destinations. I think my prayers have been answered.

When I drive for Lyft and Uber I get the joy and privilege of seeing parts of the city of Indianapolis (and Anderson, Muncie, St. Louis, Fort Wayne, Elwood, Madison and Columbus, Indiana) I would never otherwise see, and there is beauty, stunning beauty everywhere, just as there is everywhere on this gorgeous planet.

I like to drive because I meet biblical characters. The woman caught in adultery cried her eyes out in my car one morning before 7am. The 19-year old told me God would never accept or forgive her for what she’d just done and cried all the more when I told her that would be most uncharacteristic of the God I’ve encountered.

I’ve driven men and women to and from all the major hospitals who express overwhelming joy in simply being alive.

When women ride with me and I hear them on their phones negotiating extra hours with three part-time jobs, scheduling care of several children – for their own and for the children of neighbors and friends – while also learning a language in a new country, I want to declare my 2013 Lexus holy ground.

Deep breath now: when 4 young men in their late teens got a ride from an abandoned fast-food parking lot and, after a short while started to tell me their stories and revealed that all had lost a dad, uncle or friend in a violent death, and all had been with someone who was dying, and that there were five weapons in MY car (among the four of them) and when I asked why and almost as one they said WE HAVE TO and I drive off leaving them behind, regretting I could not sit with them and hear more and more and more.

Yes. Long sentence. Full of run-ons, just like the conversation we had in the car.

Lyft? Uber?

It’s beautiful I tell you.

Maybe one day this week I will stay home and paint a room.

Maybe not.

Got to get to Burundi.