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It began, as these things often do, with an unexpected call and a cup of lukewarm Sanka.

Sister Thelma had just finished leading morning devotions in the parish hall of Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern, where the air always smelled like Lemon Pledge and a crisis waiting to happen. She was stacking leftover donut holes into a Tupperware tower when her flip phone buzzed loud enough to startle the resurrection itself. The number was unfamiliar—Amarillo area code.

She answered it like she always did, loud and suspicious.

“This is Sister Thelma of Our Lady of Immeasurable Concern. If you’re with the IRS or the bishop, you better talk fast or hang up.”

A breathless woman on the other end explained the unthinkable: Wu—the six-year-old Korean orphan they’d arranged to place with Pastor Peterson’s family—had just landed at Rick Husband International Airport. Alone. His new family, meanwhile, was knee-deep in potato salad and polka music somewhere near La Crosse, Wisconsin, visiting Grandma Elsie.

“Ma’am,” the voice crackled, “if someone doesn’t come claim this child soon, he’s getting re-routed back to Seoul.”

Thelma stood frozen in the middle of the church kitchen, donut hole poised mid-air. “Well, the devil is busy today,” she muttered.

Thirty minutes later, Angus Hopper pulled into the church lot in a cloud of mesquite dust and quiet suspicion. His left taillight was duct-taped and his bumper sticker read, If You Can Read This, You’re in Range.

He limped out of his truck, one hand on his hip like John Wayne and the other clutching a lukewarm bottle of RC Cola. “What’s this about a Korean boy bein’ air-dropped into Amarillo?”

Thelma didn’t waste time. “They lost him. The government. The Lord. I don’t know which. But that child is ours to fetch, and I need someone with grit, a map, and two good kidneys. One outta three will do.”

Angus took a long pull from his RC. “I ain’t goin’ to Amarillo in that Ford,” he said, nodding toward his truck. “It’s allergic to I-27.”

“You won’t be,” she said. “We’re taking the Chariot of Fire.”

The Chariot of Fire was what Thelma called the parish’s old 2002 GMC Savana G3500 school bus—converted, sort of, into a multi-use “missionary vehicle” that mostly hauled folding chairs and casserole dishes. It still had its bright yellow paint and bold SCHOOL BUS decals, which she insisted kept people honest around school zones.

Its rear seats had long been stripped out. The floor had been re-covered in gray rubber tile patterned like rain clouds and judgment. Inside, there was a humming roof-mounted Carrier A/C unit that only worked if you drove under 52 mph and downhill. The old cassette stereo had three tapes jammed into it simultaneously, all playing faintly at once: Amy Grant, Waylon Jennings, and the Book of Revelation on tape, narrated by someone who sounded constipated and Scottish.

Angus opened the rear door, looked in, and grunted. “Looks like it was gutted by a possum with a grudge.”

Thelma climbed up into the driver’s seat and cracked her knuckles. “I had it blessed after the VBS Glitterpocalypse of ’19. This bus has seen war.”

“Has it seen an oil change?”

“Not since Obama’s first term. But it runs on faith and premium unleaded.”

They loaded up: two changes of clothes, a peanut butter loaf from Lucinda at Grounds for Divorce, and a duffel bag full of gift Bibles in Korean and English (in case the Spirit moved them mid-trip). Thelma taped a paper sign to the back window that read:

HONK IF YOU’RE SAVED
(FLASH LIGHTS IF YOU’RE NOT)

The bus pulled out of the church lot with a wheeze, a rattle, and a wobbly swerve past the Dairy Twin. Rusty at the hardware store tipped his cap as they passed. “Lord help Amarillo,” he whispered.

Halfway through Crane County, Thelma began lecturing Angus on the dangers of spiritual apathy while navigating the bus with one hand and pointing to scripture verses with the other. Angus, who didn’t believe in multitasking or New Testament roadmaps, gripped the steel dashboard and stared out the window.

“You think this boy even speaks English?” he asked.

“He’ll understand love,” she said. “And discipline. And possibly mime.”

They hit a bump so hard the glovebox spit out a roll of toilet paper and a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Texas Edition.

By the time they rolled into Lubbock for gas and fried pies, the engine temp gauge was flirting with the red, and the Bus-Scan child reminder system kept shrieking “CHECK FOR CHILDREN” even though they hadn’t picked Wu up yet. Thelma slapped it with her purse. Angus poured a bottle of Ozarka on the radiator cap and muttered something about divine punishment.

Back on the road, night fell somewhere south of Plainview. The school bus lights cast long yellow shadows across the highway like halos on stilts. Angus stretched out in the back, using a folded baptismal robe as a pillow. Thelma turned the stereo to side two of Revelation, where the moon turned to blood and Babylon fell. She nodded along like it was a bedtime story.

They arrived at the outskirts of Amarillo just after 1:00 a.m., idling in front of a shuttered Love’s Truck Stop while Thelma checked her notes.

“There’s a woman named Darla at the gate who’s keeping him company,” she said. “We just need to check in, prove we’re his rescuers, and not smugglers or cult members.”

Angus raised an eyebrow. “You sure we don’t look like cult members?”

She ignored him. “Tomorrow, we go in, grab the boy, say a prayer of thanksgiving, and drive straight home.”

Thelma folded up her notes and turned off the key. The bus let out a sigh like an old mule finding shade.

Angus leaned his head back and muttered, “Only thing missing now is frogs or fire from the sky.”

From the dash, the cassette player clicked over to a raspy voice reading:

“And I saw a beast rising out of the sea…”

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