A drive across Canada helps bring a friend to Christ.

Here we were driving all the way across Canada, and I remember thinking: This friendship is either going to sink or swim based on this trip! Sometime in the days ahead I will talk to my friend about Christ.

It was a pretty neat experience. Hope and I were driving a car she'd bought in Maine back to California. We took the northern route, drinking in the Canadian landscape. We were in our 20s, camping out in the most gorgeous scenery. One day we saw a moose just munching on grass by the side of the road. We slowed down and got a good look. Hope's car was a 10-year-old Volvo in mint condition. Usually we slept in a tent, but one night we stayed in the car because of the insects. Good thing it was a station wagon.

I don't know how many times during the three-week trip Hope asked me: "Is Christ really who He says He is?" I told her it would come down to her taking that step of faith on her own, that I couldn't convince her based on my own experience. She had to find out for herself. She finally did.

Hope and I had known each other for about a year when we took that trip across Canada. We met in Oakland under funny circumstances. As a graphic artist at a firm, she'd been given the assignment of designing a brochure advertising a conference for Christians who worked in the medical profession (before I became a wife and mom, I was a nurse). I was a workshop speaker at the conference. We still hadn't met, but later she said she thought the person in the photo looked vaguely familiar.

Well, turns out Hope and I both had studio apartments in an old Victorian mansion. These were charming but cramped little units with Murphy beds stored in the wall to save space. One day she saw me in the building and recognized me from the picture in the brochure. So we struck up a conversation.

Hope wasn't a Christian, but I really liked her. Sometimes we'd pool resources and eat our dinners together. She had a cooking habit that really cracked me up. As an artist, she'd describe her moods as colors and cook her meals accordingly. So if she was in a yellow mood maybe she'd fix pasta. A green mood might mean a big bowl of broccoli with a green apple for dessert, that sort of thing. Anyway, I would invite her over or take whatever I had fixed to her apartment (even if my food didn't match her crazy color code!). That's when she'd pepper me with questions about my faith.

I had a feeling the Lord was putting us together for a reason. I decided to make myself available to her, since she seemed to be searching. But it was scary in a way. I wanted her friendship and approval, and I was afraid I'd say something that would make her back away. It was hard to put her needs before mine.

We've stayed friends the past 20 years, and now she's a career missionary. I'm glad I invested that year in getting to know her and talking about Christ.

--Cindy Uttley, 45, Sisters, Oregon