Pt. 1: In which me meet a young man named Jim

"Good bye and God bless!" the reverend said as Jim shuffled back into the bus depot. This was going to be a long trip.
In Cheyenne, WY the bus station is small and across the street from a truck stop with a Subway Sub Shop. There aren’t a lot of people waiting to catch the bus at this particular depot. Plastic multi-colored seats line all available wall space. The walls are littered with a variety of posters and ads.
Looking around at the few people in the depot, Jim realizes that Greyhound has a different kind of clientele. The real high-class kind. Oh great, he thinks, I have to cross the country like this?
About thirty minutes later the bus pulls into the parking lot. The waiting passengers stand to meet the driver and get on the bus.
The driver looks tired and distracted. He briefly looks at the tickets presented to him before going inside to check in.
As Jim enters the bus he notices the stale smell of people who have been wearing the same clothes too long. He cringes as he sits down next to a lonely-looking adolescent. She doesn’t even greet him.
Starting off down the highway, the bus rumbles away. Jim is sitting in his seat and opens the envelope the reverend had given him at the depot.
Jim,
I know this is a really hard time for you. You’re struggling to find how God could be using this situation at all. Just trust that He is. And we are all here waiting to love you and care for you greatly.
Steve
Jim wiped the tears from his eyes before any of his strange traveling companions could notice. This was going to be a long trip.

Pt 2: Where we learn a bit of Jim's predicament

There is a fact about Greyhound that you wouldn’t know unless you know. Greyhound buses frequently stop in every hamlet, town, village, and city along their paths. And some that entirely off that path. This makes for a really long and boring trip.
Jim is doing his best to sleep. Or he’s faking like he’s already asleep.
"Excuse me, can I put my head on your shoulder? I just can’t sleep," Lonely-looking Girl inquires of Jim.
"Uh, no. I don’t really know you."
"But I really can’t sleep."
"Whatever."
A little ways down the road Lonely-looking Girl has completely leaned over onto Jim’s shoulder. He tries at first to push her toward the window. She is not budging. How is he going to sleep like this the whole way?
He decides to just deal with it. He needs his sleep, and hopefully no one will notice that this less-than-attractive girl is sleeping on him. There were, after all, some cute girls near the back of the bus. Jim strains to see if they’re asleep. They are.
There is a funny-looking totem pole in front of the bus depot at Kimball, NE. Jim notices this because he is relatively acquainted with Native American cultures and realizes that the local tribe, Lakota, would not have made any such objects.
Right now he feels like that monument to cultural insensitivity: out of place.
His mind is still reeling from the past thirty-six hours. First the meeting where he was told he was leaving. Then a trip in the middle of night to a Greyhound station. And now he was headed across the country, away from his friends. All by himself.
And does he really belong on this bus with all these strange people? He couldn’t judge, but maybe we all belong on that bus at least once.