Picture this: You’re leaving India. Bus comes on time, you arrive to the airport on time, your first flight from Imphal to New Delhi departs and lands without a hitch. So far so good, now you have a 7 hour layover with plenty of time to chill, eat, and prepare for your next flight: a 16 hour trip from New Delhi to Chicago. Now, get ready, because here’s where it begins…
You arrive at check in with plenty of time, per usual. The only issue this time is it’s now 1am, and everyone’s India visas have already expired the day before. Which was 1 hour ago. So now because you are technically illegal, you aren’t allowed to check in and receive your boarding passes. Que hours of waiting in line as logistics tries to work out the issue. By the time you finally (and thankfully) receive said boarding pass, time is ticking for you and the 20 other people in your group flying to Chicago (our squad split up, half flew to Chicago and half flew to New York) to get through security and make it to the gate. Turns out, middle of the night at the New Delhi airport is the most popping of times to book a flight, because the security line is overflowing with over 100 travelers trying to get through. Now is the moment everyone begins to panic, juuusssttt ever so slightly. We greet a security guard and ask if we can jump the line because our flight is already boarding, and the gate is closing in 20 minutes. He says yes, and directs us to a line that appears to be closed, but would open for us all to make it through just in time. We quickly make our way to the guard standing in front of it, only to be told that no, we must go through the line that everyone else is going through, every other person filling up the security space. After trying to explain our situation and no additional help from the first security guard, we head in line because time is running out faster than we can convince them to let us through. As we shuffle closer and closer we make a game plan: you get through, grab your bag, and RUN. We don’t have time to wait for everyone, if you’re in the clear just get yourself on the plane.
After waiting and waiting and waiting, we’re finally down to the last 5 of us: Myself, 3 of my teammates, and one of our squad mates. Everyone’s through except Carrie Grace, who insists to the guards we HAVE to hurry, only to have them laugh at her and continue on. The 4 of us wait as they dump her bag and check absolutely every possible corner and crevasse of it. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. The gate closes in 2 minutes. Logistics made it to the gate and is trying to stall them in any way possible. The plane sends a man to security to wait for us, armed with a walkie talkie. Finally, CG is in the clear, and everyone grabs her things and runs – no time to repack her bag. We’re literally SPRINTING towards our gate (which, I might add, is a bit of a ways away), throwing things in CG’s bag as we run, me digging out my inhaler cause this is definitely gonna be a close one. As we run, people throughout the airport jump out of the way, laugh at us, or both. The gate is in sight, but my lungs are screaming at me that running with a 20 pound bookbag on my shoulders is just not going to work. Finally, we make it, seriously the very last 5 people to board just before they close. We make our way to our seats for the long haul ahead of us, only to shortly discover that our flight is going to be re-routed around the Pakistan airspace (due to conflict between India and Pakistan), then stopping in Dubai to refuel, THEN finally getting on the way to Chicago. You sit, buckle on, blanket ready, and cry with relief: it’s not the best, but at least you made it. After 4 hours of fly time, 2 hours of refueling, plus the already delayed take off time (due to…well, you), your 6:30am touch down time shifts to 11:45am, taking your supposed to be smooth travel day flight from 16 hours to a whooping 21 hours on the same plane, in the same seat (and slightly causing you to go crazy).
You land. You jump for joy because this is the first time on American soil in half a year. You finally breathe. You have your Target run. You’re reunited with Starbucks and Chipotle. You make your way back to the airport just 7 hours later, ready to do it all over again to make your last flight that’ll take you to your final country destination oft he World Race: Guatemala.
And that’s it! Our last travel day was most definitely NOTHING like anyone was expecting. But that’s the Race for you, expectations are almost always incorrect.
We’ve finally all made it to Guat and are preparing for PVT. Soon after, we’ll settle into the base for the next 3 months of ministry life! Super excited for what this place holds over the last piece of the Race, and I can’t wait to update with photos of this B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L country!
