"If I could fly home tomorrow, I would." I said these words to my team after I was sharing how this final month 11 felt like December and Christmas was coming. And I was enjoying the ministry and South Africa, but for the first time that year I felt deeply excited about home which was only 3 weeks away.
That night I got a phone call. That's unusual since we only have an emergency phone. So in my mind getting a phone call is a bad thing. I was asked to go find WiFi and Facetime my sister. So I left my tent to go walk on over to the cafe where the rest of my team was. The walk over was unsettling wondering why would it be so important to go Facetime with my sister right now.
Once there she told me how grandpa was going to pass away within the next day. It wasn't a shock, but I had hoped to see him when I got back since he had been doing ok and he just had his 90th birthday. I tried to set up a skype call with my family who was with my grandpa at the moment, but while setting it up my sister called to say he had just passed. I was a bit late.
So if I could fly home tomorrow, I would and could then? I began to start thinking if I should. But then I saw the message scroll across my iPod: My mistake. He's just sleeping. I laughed out loud, threw my hands up and plopped my head on the table.
So I had one last chance to see grandpa. They woke him up from his labored sleep and he smiled at me as I sang him the songs I learned that week in South Africa at church.
If I could fly home tomorrow, I would. And I did.
