WHERE IS GOD?

 

When we received tickets to fly to PNG on Thursday, April 6^th, our prayer focus changed to having God go with us and protect us throughout this trip instead of asking God to open the doors of this serving opportunity.  I know most of our friends and family have been praying the same thing.  So with all of this prayer, where was HE? So we started taking note of our “God sightings” through the trip.

That made us think back two weeks when we were discouraged that paperwork just wouldn’t come through.  We wanted to be good stewards of God’s money that so many people had generously contributed as they partnered with us on this mission we felt called to.  With that in mind we were praying and had penciled in April 1 as the date we would pull the plug on this school year and begin preparing to serve in Kudjip next year instead.  March 27^th God showed up with Gayle’s visa  (4 days ahead of April 1^st) and everything changed; the trip was on. God showed us again that He was directing the calendar and events.

Then it was on to get plane fare arranged once we had the passports stamped from the embassy in Washington D.C.  The agent that the missionaries typically use was unavailable until after Easter.  So Katherine Radcliffe was able to find a highly recommended agent who would assist us and have understanding of the complex travel patterns of reaching Kudjip safely.  So our plane fare was scheduled to depart on April 10^th since there were few available spots for booking seats in that short amount of time.

Our son, Ryan, was going to take us to the airport.  He had shared that there were a couple dates that he would be unable to take off work due to some training sessions that he was required to attend.  April 10^th was one of those dates.  We were uncertain as to what to do about our departure date.  That was when our son contacted us sharing that his training session had been cancelled and he was now able to take us to the airport.  That was a praise since we now had a ride to the airport and a time for a brief last visit during the drive.

When we entered the airport, HE was already there, along with two of our missionary friends Dave and Sylvia Potter, who made the trip just to pray with us and give us one last encouragement boost before we flew out.

When we initially checked our baggage in, we were told by the American Airline agent that our luggage was only authorized to go as far as Singapore.  They said we would have to inquire in Singapore as to the next steps.  Meaning possibly claim our baggage and having to recheck it in again to get it to PNG.  We had many friends/ family praying for God to direct our steps and work the situation out since we are not seasoned travelers and this was of great concern. It was while we were in Chicago O’Hare Airport that we found out how God was going to work out the details. We didn’t even have to wait until Singapore.

We didn’t realize American Airlines had messed up our boarding passes for our flight from Chicago to Qatar until the Air Qatar agent showed up at gate M11 in O’Hare airport where we were waiting for our next connecting flight.  An agent walked up to us and asked if we were heading to Doha Airport and redirected us to gate M37, over a half mile away through the airport.  Thank you JESUS!   We didn’t miss our longest flight of 13 and ½ hours!

We also found out American Airlines had initially made errors on issuing our first boarding passes in Grand Rapids, so they called us to the Air Qatar desk and gave us new boarding passes.  Since we were working through that we also asked if they could route our baggage on from Singapore to Port Moresby. The agent who processed those new passes was amazing.  She was able to route our baggage all the way through to Port Moresby which the American Airlines agents had not been able to do.  Another huge blessing.

In our first flight HE had us seated in the next row behind first class, where we had more leg room than we have leg.  How comfortable!

In our second flight HE provided two open seats across the aisle from our seats.  Bob was able to jump across the aisle and we both ended up with an empty seat beside us for more room on our longest flight of the trip.

Gayle’s phone was not working on the international plan when we arrived in Doha, but between our son and the Verizon agent, it was fixed in a few short minutes so we could communicate with our family, friends and the missionaries at Kudjip.

At Port Moresby we bought and had a Digicel sim card installed into Bob’s phone.  It started out working okay, but soon quit sending messages to all but one other phone.  It was no accident that phone belonged to Jordan Thompson, the missionary picking us up at the Mount Hagen airport which allowed us to stay in contact.

In Port Moresby our initial flight out to Mount Hagen was cancelled.  We were supposedly booked on the next one but got bumped.  We eventually secured the next flight.  This was an answer to prayer because these connecting flights frequently get cancelled and moved without notice and you are required to rebook and wait some more in hopes that your flight will go through. With only about a four hour delay we made it safe and sound to our temporary home at the Mission in Kudjip, PNG.

We had some smooth flights and some turbulent rides.  Some smooth landings and one very rough landing, one plane ride with temperatures in the 80’s with minimal air making us feel like we couldn’t get enough air to breath and others with quite cool temperatures.  We had some rides where the plane seemed it didn’t have enough power to get us safely to our next destination.  Through it all we felt your prayers and God’s peace. God was with us all the way.  Maybe when we catch up on our sleep, we may be aware of even more blessings from the trip.  Thank you for your prayers and your words of encouragement that helped support us through the travel portion of this journey.