After spending a week in Haiti, our team was headed back to Texas. This was my umpteenth time flying, and my fourth time coming back from Haiti specifically, so I felt quite confident that I was capable of leading a team of college students through an airport. A few members of our team thought they heard at the PAP airport or on an announcement on the flight that we would have to recheck our bag when we got to Miami and then go through customs and immigration and all that jazz. I’d long since ceased listening to either of these anymore because those are for inexperienced travelers (how I see myself àI AM TRAVELER. HEAR ME ROAR!). I was certain those college students had misheard or misunderstood or something. I’d be sure to clear things up when we arrived at MIA.
Once we got to Miami, I was surprised to find out that we were NOT the exception to the rule that many of the team members heard and we would, in fact, have to claim and recheck our baggage.
We had about a 2-2 ½ hour layover, so we’d plenty of time to grab our bags, recheck them and probably even eat at TGIFriday’s. When we got to the baggage claim area, I saw our flight number on the screen and familiar faces from the flight around the carousel, so I knew we were in the right place but bags from our flight weren’t coming out when we got there. But, because I am awesome at navigating airports and people, it was no surprise that we beaten our bags. Best leader ever – check.
30 minutes went by and bags still hadn’t started coming out. No biggie, there had been a hang up with the airline, they’d start coming out any minute.
An hour went by and no bags.
Finally after about an hour and a half, bags started coming out! Half of our team had their bags. Huzzah!
…and then the bags stopped coming out. At this point, our flight was going to start boarding in about 15 minutes and half our team still had no luggage. I was less than calm to say the least.
Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. What was I going to do if we didn’t make our flight?! Would the people with baggage get on the flight we’d originally booked or should we all stick together? I’d been crunching numbers all year so I knew we couldn’t afford to pay penalty fees, but if the people who had their bags went ahead, that would mean leaving college students who hadn’t travelled much stranded in an airport with no adult sponsor!! Ahhhh!!
I called my boss to let him know what was going on and to ask him what I should do. We decided that we should send those team members with their bags to go ahead and tell the gate agent they were traveling with a group and see if they could hold the plane for us until we got there. One of the team members would let me know what they said, so we would know if we needed to get new boarding passes when we rechecked our bags.
I told a reliable team member who had her luggage the plan and sent half the group on their way to the gate to try to stall for us. Shortly after they left, bags started coming out again! Thankfully, everybody’s luggage came out that round!! As soon as the last person grabbed their suitcase, we sped off to the ticketing counter. I got a text from the reliable team member. The airline was running a few minutes late!! We were going to make it!!
When we got to the ticketing counter, we told the lady our flight number and she typed it in. “Yeah, you’re not going to make it. It’s too late” she said. It couldn’t be! I said, “Are you sure? Some of our other team members are there and they said they’re running a few minutes late.” “No,” she said, “boarding is over.”
Then she said “Oh wait! It looks like there’s been a weather delay! Here is your boarding pass. Have a great flight!!” The rest of the team members got their boarding passes too, and we rushed to the customs counter and then to our gate and we all got on the same flight!
Later we found out there was a hurricane headed to the east coast that day and Miami was catching the outer edges!! The Lord provided time for us in a real way at the exact moment we needed it. When things are out of our control, the Lord is kind to remind us that He really does have the whole world in His hands.
The most amazing part is that from what I can gather, that particular hurricane either didn’t hit the coast or didn’t do any severe damage. Crazy, right?! Something that can be so destructive was how God provided for our team that day.
