Happy New Year everyone!
Every year
around this time, all the morning talk shows are going on about losing weight,
stop smoking, decluttering and organizing our lives. I wanted to ride the wave,
but in a spiritual sense and then…life unscripted happened! And I needed to
write about it instead. Fear not—you will still get the other blog. ~Smile~
Tovah (my youngest daughter) who currently teaches in
Honduras was home for a 2 week Christmas break. (And yes, it did go by way to
fast.) She came in with one suitcase half full and left with two packed to the
brim.
A couple of months ago, we put out a call to friends and
family to help purchase a laptop for the son of one of the school maids she’s
befriended. There was also a need for more books for her classroom and other items.
And as usual, the Lord showed up big time and showed off. This is why she was
taking back so much. In fact she had to leave a couple of things behind
(apartment stuff) until the summer.
As people began to make commitments I started to pray the
suitcases would make it through customs and immigration intact! I knew Tovah would
also have some perishable items, such as candy, bacon bits and other goodies
she can only get here. And thus begins the story of life unscripted….
We said our teary, “Goodbyes” at the Philadelphia airport 4:30am Sunday morning. Her 6am flight to Miami, left a half an hour late. When
they arrived, they were in a holding pattern for 45 minutes and at one point
the pilot advised if they didn’t land soon they would have to go to Ft.
Lauderdale for fuel. Needless to say, she missed her connecting flight to
Honduras. But not before she ran to a gate only to find it was the wrong one and
was blessed to be driven to the right gate only to find her plane had left.
Oh, it gets even better. She had to stand in the booking
line for almost 2 hours and while there the last direct flight to Honduras took
off without her.
At this point she is tried and frustrated, but I reminded
her to be calm and if she had to stay to ask for food and hotel vouchers.
We were both praying.
When she finally got to the counter, she was told she would
have to spend the night at the airport for a flight the next morning. The agent
refused to give her any vouchers—flat out!
Her cell phone was acting up and I’m getting bits and pieces
of info via Facebook messenger.
The agent finally helped her to get a flight to San Pedro
Sula, Honduras, where she would get a flight to Tegucigalpa her original
destination. It took her 3 flights and
12 hours to get Home. Oh and did I mention her cell phone (with a Honduran
number) stopped working altogether! And her luggage didn’t make it with her.
Once she landed in Honduras, she had to go through
immigrations twice, had a body search because the underwire in her bra kept
going off, and ran into security that wouldn’t let her through without a paper she
had already given. And to top it all off, she forgot she had purchased a ginger
ale soda and when she came back through (from checking on when she was going to
get her luggage) they had to search her again! She was told her luggage would be coming in
the next morning on a 9am flight from Miami.
Praise God, she carried the new laptop in a backpack along
with hers and her tablet on the plane as her carryon.
The school van was waiting for her when you finally made it
to Tegucigalpa, but she was told there wasn’t enough room for her to ride back
the next day to get her luggage.
“Okay dear Lord—why? And what is going on here?!”
Tovah arrived at her apartment after 11pm (my time), exhausted,
hungry and with a throbbing headache. Sleep was all she wanted.
She found favor the next day and a teacher not only drove
her to the airport to retrieve her luggage, but to the market to get food.
Was her luggage at the airport when she got there? Well,
sort of. It had been bumped to the 11:15am flight and they were just getting
the luggage off when she got there. She was told to wait 20 minutes, still no
luggage. Sent to another place—still no luggage. “Please God, let them find my
luggage!” she prayed. Finally! Someone
realized it had been sent to the warehouse and she had it within a few minutes.
Needless to say it was a crazy 24 hours from the time she landed
in Miami, to the time she picked up her luggage in Honduras. And the entire
time, I kept asking God to show me the purpose to all this.
I’m sure there are things I may never know, but while skyping
with Tovah as she unpacked—He answered my prayers. Her bags were never checked by customs
in Honduras. Everything was there!
This was huge! You may not think so, but there is a
perception in Honduras that ALL Americans are rich. And when going through
customs, they can take your stuff at will. Someone from her school tried to
bring back 3 bags of a particular popcorn they like, and a customs officer opened
one bag (to see if it was okay to let through) and ate it in front of her face.
(She did get to keep the two bags.)
Tovah had a lot of books in English for her class library
which are hard to get in Honduras and cost a lot to ship there. Because of the
abundance, they could have easily said she had too many and taken what they
wanted. She had gifts of fingernail polish, sample perfumes, DVD’s, CD’s and
much more.
The events of her day was all part of God’s plan for her
bags to skip a customs and immigration check.
How, I wish I could tell you I took it all in stride, but
that wouldn’t be the truth. And yes, when the last communication I had with her
was a quick message that she was in San Pedro Sula, waiting to board the plan to Tegucigalpa
(which was a one hour flight) and I still hadn’t heard from her 5 hours later
that fear didn’t try to set in — I would be lying. Sisters, I had to fight fear with everything I
had and remind myself that God was with her and taking care of her. It wasn’t
easy though.
I even tried to contact a couple of her friends there via
Facebook, but no one answered, until after I had heard from Tovah. It was the
Lord’s way of making me wait and trust. At times trusting is easier said than done. But He
uses situations like these to grow our faith in Him.
Sisters, from the moment I realized Tovah missed her flight
(was tracking online), the Holy Spirit kept saying to me, “And [you know Ponnie]
that all things work together
for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His
purpose.” (My paraphrase)
Hindsight is always 20/20, and once I sat down and thought
about all the events that had occurred, I realized without a doubt that all the
things Tovah was taking back for others already had the favor of the Lord on them.
God doesn’t deal in foolishness and He would not have had so many give to meet
the needs of others to allow a dishonest customs officer (or anyone else) take
any of it.
I did contact the airline to find out what their policy is
when you miss a connecting flight and it is not your fault or an act of God. I
was advised to have Tovah file a complaint online so that she could receive
some type of compensation and they were very apologetic, because she should have
been offered vouchers for a hotel and food. (But the Lord had other plans.) We
will see how it plays out, but that would be just like the God, to put a little
icing on all of this…LOL!
I pray Tovah and my adventure encourages you to remember
that when life unscripted shows up and things are jumping off the hook and you don’t
understand why—remember Romans 8:28.
Until next week...
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