Haiti 2011 Delayed!

No one likes delays and I'm no exception. Monday morning March 14th the whole team was looking with great anticipation of stepping foot on Haiti soil. The last thing we wanted to deal with was delay. I'm still not sure why but I do know there was a lesson to be learned for me and that was patience. Everyone arrived in a timely manner and we all got checked in and through security. The plane was ready and boarding went like clockwork. When the pilots arrived and were going through their checklist they discovered a warning system was not working correctly. No problem. After all Tulsa maintains the top knowledgeable people in aircraft maintenance. So a call was made and soon maintenance people arrived. Systematically electronics were checked and the culprit was found. Here is where it got interesting. Everyone had to de-board the planed while it as being worked on. I suppose I can see the need to maintain safety for everyone. From this point everything went downhill. Quickly a line formed to reroute. Unfortunately we certainly didn't think this would effect us. After all our next flight from Dallas to Ft. Lauderdale wasn't until 8:45 and the Tulsa flight was 6:10, I think. But minutes started to accumulate and accumulate fast. By the time we neared the counter to reroute the plane was fixed and in an effort by utilizing too many people to help us we canceled 8 team members. Now the plane had plenty of room and that was real frustrating for me because we haven't left and 8 of our team are not on the plane. So by now I'm a little over the edge and ready to well, not be so nice. But I kept my mouth shut and went with it. Here is where it got crazy. We had already missed our Ft. Lauderdale connection and we knew we would get stranded in Dallas. So why not the whole team. The other 8 had to rent a car and drive to Bentonville, Arkansas to catch a flight to New York LaGuardia to then transfer to JFK and find a hotel to sleep in so they could catch a flight the next day for Haiti. It looked like the Dallas team was going to get stranded until Wednesday. That is until I happened to wonder over to another counter in Dallas and met, unknown to me, the terminal area manager. This man was amazing. He held the key to opening 14 of 15 seats that were available to fly on Tuesday or we would have been stuck until Wednesday. ON top of that he set us up with a hotel and meal voucher's and a shuttle to take us to our overnight stay. PLUS, we received all boarding passes to get us through to Haiti. Wow!!! When we arrived in Haiti we discovered the other team had arrived and been taken to Mission of Hope earlier and all of our baggage was waiting in baggage claim.
But I've got to tell you if we would have all traveled to Dallas we all would not have made it to Haiti until Wednesday. So all in all the Lord knew what He was doing. In addition one of our team members Holly would not have had a real God moment. As we were boarding the plane in Ft. Lauderdale for Haiti a lady (obviously filled with a Spirit of Discernment) stopped Holly and asked her if this was her first time out of the country. Well Holly broke down because not only was she leaving the country but she was leaving her daughter for the first time. For a mom this was huge. So right there in the middle of boarding, a Christ follower reaches out and prays for another Christ follower. It was a real God moment and if for no other reason to being Delayed - it was worth it. God knows best and I learned a valuable lesson in patience and divine appointment.

mike