As a young minister, I was asked by a funeral director to hold a grave-side service for a homeless man, with no family or friends, who had died while traveling through our area of southeastern Ohio.
The funeral was to be held at a new cemetery way back in the country, and the man would be the first to be laid to rest there.
Since I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost, and being a typical man did not stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late.
I saw a backhoe and a crew, who was eating lunch, but a hearse was nowhere in sight. I apologized to the workers for my tardiness, and stepped to the side of the open hole where I saw a vault lid already in place.
I assured the workers I would not keep them long, but this was the proper thing to do. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. I poured out my heart and soul.
As I preached the workers began to say "Amen," "Praise the Lord," and "Glory."
I preached, and I preached, like I'd never preached before, from Genesis all the way to Revelations. Then I closed the lengthy service with a prayer and walked to my car. I felt I had done my duty for the homeless man, and that the crew would leave with a renewed sense of purpose and dedication, in spite of my
tardiness.
When I was opening the car door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of the workers saying to another, "I ain't never seen anything like this before and I've been installing septic tanks for twenty years."
ixie:lightning 
