The road from Rome to Milan is a long stretch of highway. Except for the characteristic Italian foliage and architecture, a traveler would think he was on any average interstate in America.

It was on la Strada Romana or ‘the Roman Road’ that I met a man named Maurice. (read the full story)

We were making what should have been a five-hour trip by car from Rome to a town north of Milan called Luino. The trip actually took closer to eleven hours. Two of these hours were spent on about a two-mile segment of road in the Tuscany region. There had been an accident that had traffic literally stopped. In two hours we inched forward the aforementioned two miles before we were able to proceed. It was here that I met Maurice.

Maurice was an older man, probably in his fifties. He looked just like former NBC movie critic Gene Shallit, curly black hair, big moustache…the big glasses, everything! The van we were traveling in was hot; we somehow couldn’t figure out how to operate the AC. Anyway, since we were stopped dead in our tracks, we (the band I was on tour with) hopped out to stretch our legs. In the little white sports car to our right was our soon-to-be-friend Maurice. We were outside our van, goofing off like most typical musicians and acting like quintessential Americans; loud and brash! We struck up a conversation with Maurice and found out that he was a sandbag salesman; when we replied to his question as to what we were doing in his country, he came alive. In his youth he had played guitar in a band in London, his eyes lighting up as he told us of his love of American rock ‘n roll. We all sang along when he launched into ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. “I love your country and western music too!” he told us, as Maurice then started singing the chorus to the popular John Denver song, ‘Country Road’. Problem was, all Maurice knew was ‘Country road…country road…West Virginia…country road!’

Of course, no one thought to take a picture of our new friend. I wish now that we had, because when we offered him a book we had been handing out (the books of Acts, Romans, and some Psalms, all translated into Italian), his entire demeanor became shy and a bit nervous. He lapsed back into Italian, but we could tell he was uncomfortable accepting this gift. Carlo (our translator) quickly came to our aid, basically restating our mission and conveying our desire for Maurice to take this book as a sign of our friendship. With a tearful glisten in his eyes, Maurice took the book.

Almost as if on cue, traffic began to move. We all jumped into our respective vehicles and we were once again on our way. We waved goodbye to our friend Maurice and I have never seen him again.

About an hour later, we stopped for lunch (you’ve not lived until you’ve had Burger King in Italy). Scott Steelman, our American missionary contact, came up and began to talk with us about Maurice. He said that we didn’t realize what just happened. We answered with the basic facts about the trip and the accident, etc. Scott waved all that off. “Have you noticed that in Rome, most folks could speak English; but in the rest of the country, most cannot. God placed us in just the right place at the right time to talk to Maurice.” He went on to underscore that not only were we in the right place, etc., but Holy Spirit put a bunch of musicians in the path of a former musician-now sandbag salesman in Italy. What we didn’t realize at the time was that Dan Moran, our team leader, had been talking to a physician in the car behind us who also spoke English, and recently been living and working at UAB Hospital in our hometown of Birmingham, Alabama!

Needless to say, our collective jaws dropped. I now know and believe what the Scripture tells us; that God has opportunities for us to share our faith, even while acting goofy and singing ‘Country Road’ while on the Roman Road, la Strada Romana…

George Vinson
June 2002