Travel day turned into travel days. We were sleep deprived because we hadn’t slept horizontally in three days. From Draganesti, Romania to Madisi, Malawi, we traveled by bus, three planes, and van. After spending countless hours sitting idle on airport floors, we were getting restless. We were itching to get to Malawi and start our ministry. Our squad had been praying that the Lord would do big things in Africa, and we were so excited to see them.
Well, sometimes God answers with a delay. Yeah, a flight delay.
While waiting for our plane in Stockholm, Sweden, four of us started talking to a Ugandan man. The conversation was so great that we didn’t even realize the flight was delayed 30 minutes. It all started when He asked us the usual questions: Where are you from? What are you guys doing? Why are you traveling around the world? After answering, we started a discussion about God and who Jesus is. He was willing to talk with us, but He was not convinced that Jesus was the Son of God. He wasn’t eager to accept that Jesus had come and died on the cross for His sins. We kept the conversation going by asking what His beliefs were, and he was thankful that we were willing to listen to what he said even if it went against our own beliefs. He said once or twice that he really enjoyed having this type of discussion with us. Eventually, we had to part ways as we were boarding the plane, so my friend Nettie walked a little bit longer with him. She challenged him to pray that God would reveal who He truly is. After he agreed, he told her that he could tell something was different about us as we were talking with him. There was some sort of light in us that He couldn’t describe, and it was really inviting to him.
So we prayed. The four of us prayed as we walked down the jetway. We prayed that the Lord would use the next 7 hour flight to change his heart. Guys, that man came to Christ on the flight. A few hours in, he asked Nettie to sit by him and walk him through the Gospel. So she did, she led that man to Christ.
God used a flight delay, something that we would have normally gotten annoyed at, to open up time to talk about Him. He knew that we needed 30 more minutes to talk with that man. It was no coincidence that he was on his way home to visit his family when we happened to be traveling through Stockholm to get to Malawi. It was God.
You know what he said after Nettie spent four hours talking with him on the flight? He said that he is so excited to go home to tell all the people in his village. What? Y’all, the Lord is so darn good.
