In my post on Monday I told you what a hard month I had before we left for Panama. Richard Hodson was to go with me. Rich had a rough year. He had lost his wife and we are having a serious drought. He farms and I don't know if you are aware but we are in the middle of the worst drought we have had in a long time. Rich wasn't sure if he would go. Steve Goley, the President of Big World called him to encourage him to go. One week before we would leave, he still wasn't sure if he would go. I still wasn't sure if I could go and we didn't have tickets to fly to Florida. Ticket for round trip were over $1,000 and neither one of us could do that. We were to be in Florida Saturday June 30. Tickets were $300 cheaper to fly out Sunday morning. We had both been leaders before so we could miss Saturday nights sessions, but at the last minute we were able to get tickets to fly there on Saturday for a very good price. We still didn't have tickets to come home.
My grandson's took me to Ansley to meet Rich at 4:00 am on Saturday. We had been under so much attack that we were just relieved to finally get on the road. Paul and Lois Smith, a couple from our church met us at Grand Island to see us off. We got there just as they were loading the plane so we really had to rush, It was so awesome to have friends to see us off though. We arrive in Dallas airport with only an hour to get to our next flight. We take the tram to our gate. We get there in time. A friend of ours from other mission trips, Elaine was waiting to catch the same flight so we were able to chat with her.
They announced the flight was over booked, they needed someone to volunteer to take the next flight. Rich and I volunteer. We each received a voucher for $300. Is that cool or what. We talked to the ticket agents and if we flew out of Fort Lauderdale it would be $302 but that would mean a taxi from Miami to Fort Lauderdale. We were to land from our international flight at 1:30, could we make it to catch a 4:30 flight? We didn't buy the tickets until we could check things out. As we waited for our flight to Fort Lauderdale, we met one of the leaders from our team and her daughter Brenda and Ericka. We had a great time waiting for the plane.
We had two days of training and then Monday the kids came. That is always a fun but stressful day. Three hundred kids fly in, some our really excited, some our scared, and some are really home sick. Monday night we see the drama on film and then the kids try out for the drama. They don't try out for a certain part, they all
are given direction to show emotions, do cartwheels, and to do dance moves. After several hours the leaders of each team select the parts for each child. The next day starts the tedious drama rehearsals. It is amazing how fast the kids can learn the moves. We still didn't have tickets, but Rich was calling the airport several times a day. It would vary several hundred dollars each time he called. Finally he reserved my ticker for $302 by the time he got back in to reserve his it was $50 more but he reserved them anyway because we were to leave the next day. God was so good to us the tickets were almost free. Praise God!! God is in the miracle working business. They still happen every day.
No comments:
Post a Comment