You know that feeling of, “wow, how could I have been so stupid to let this happen?” It’s a feeling of shame, embarrassment, and self-resentment. It’s a feeling that I’m pretty sure 32 of my friends and I all felt this past weekend. Let me explain.
World race travel “days” are long, they’re exhausting, and they’re usually very well executed. We usually take 2-3 days to get from country to country and we arrive everywhere we need to be at least 3 hours early, but usually more like 5-6 hours early. This past travel day my team said a very hard goodbye to our new friends in Pacasmayo, Peru and headed to our first stop: Trujillo. We then headed to Lima, where we would fly out of. In Lima, we said goodbye to our alumni team leaders, cried a lot, and then prepared to head to Bogota, Colombia for a layover. We were split into two groups; mine was the majority group of 33 people. We were supposed to board our plane at about 12:30am but didn’t end up boarding until around 2:00 am, but they never announced a delay. We successfully landed in Bogota around 5:00 am and had what we thought would be a seven hour layover.
We were sitting at Gate 37, just waiting to board the plane. It was past boarding time, but given the previous night’s unannounced delay, we figured it was just running late and we would board soon. Being in a Spanish-speaking country, all announcements were in Spanish, so we missed the very critical announcement that there was a gate change. All of a sudden, our squad leader is saying, “Everyone RUN to gate 46. RUN and tell them to hold the plane.” OH SNAP! OKAY!
So 33 gringos come running down to the ever-so-crowded gate and we find out we missed our flight. The first fifteen minutes were filled with awkward silence, poorly-covered anxiety, and a lot of uncertainty about what would happen. Thankfully, our squad leader Aly and our logistics leader, Kori handled it like champs. Seriously, they brought the most calmness and assurance toward the whole group, and everyone was able to relax. We hauled ourselves upstairs and sat near the airport entrance for hours on end, and were told that to get new plane tickets it would be over $16,000, and we’d have to stay in hostels that cost way too much for world race budget. $16,000 is a loooot of money, so everyone’s pretty discouraged at this point.
Here’s where the Lord starts to say “Hey guys, remember… You’re doing life with me! You’re blessed and highly favored. Watch me work!”
We find our every single one of our bags somehow didn’t make it onto the flight, so they’re still in Colombia! What the heck… unheard of for 33 bags to get left behind. Wow, thanks God!
We spent about 8 hours at the entrance of an airport, where we should’ve definitely have been kicked out, but we weren’t. Wow, thanks God!
A squadmate, Melissa, remembers she has family she’s never met in Bogota. We could ask them if we could stay until tickets get cheaper! Wow, thanks God!
Attitudes are lifting as we realize it’s going to be okay. We have a place to stay, and we know that God works all things together for good.
We’re talking about how we can make the best of it and spend a few days in Colombia doing ATL (ATL is short for Ask The Lord, what we do when we have no assigned ministry but still want to minister. We ask the Lord what He wants us to do, and follow His guidance), and it’ll be fine. But just then, Kori (remember, our logistics leader) runs up to us, tears in her eyes for the first time all day, and exclaims, “You guys! Pray right now! They’re considering giving us new tickets for free! Please pray and ask for a miracle!”
Wow, okay. That’s too good to be true but our God is a God of miracles.
So we split into groups and we’re all praying for a miracle with tears in our eyes, begging the Lord to bless us in this way.
No more than ten minutes later, Kori tells us that we are getting FREE plane tickets. $16,000 worth of flights for absolutely no cost.
WOW, THANKS GOD!
It doesn’t end there. Because the flights were free, we had to take what they’d give. 13 of us had flights the next morning, 20 had flights two mornings later, so we still ended up staying at Melissa’s family’s house. We arrived to more snacks than you could dream of, beds, hot showers (a world race luxury), coffee, and literally anything else you could imagine. We were so taken care of! God had control over every minute of our travel day, and He showed us so much grace and favor.
Thinking about how I would’ve handled this day a few years ago compared to now reminds me of all the Lord has done and how good He is to me. Years ago I would’ve cried, felt like a failure, and had anxiety through the roof. But because I’m doing life with Him, I knew He already had it taken care of. He knew this was going to happen before I even existed. And He already had a plan to redeem it and get us where we need to be safely. Doing life with Him means I’m blessed and highly favored. I have a whole lot to thank Him for.
