Sometimes I like to think that we make plans so that God can stretch us and teach us when things don’t go as we want them to. I was reminded of that again on my way to Haiti…
I flew out of Denver at 830 in the morning and had layovers scheduled in Dallas, TX and San Juan, Puerto Rico before I was supposed to arrive in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) at 1030 at night. The first slight change of the day was that I arrived at the airport very early…and had to sit at my gate for about 2.5 hours before getting to fly out. No big deal, right? Just got a little bored sitting there for a while. Then, in Dallas, my flight was not showing up on the monitors and I wasn’t actually issued a boarding pass in Denver so I really had no clue where to go. When I finally figured things out, my gate was changed three times and I was sent on a wild-goose-chase around the airport before boarding my flight to Puerto Rico.
Fast-forward a few hours to just after I landed in Puerto Rico: I looked at the monitor to double-check which gate my flight would be departing from, and instead I saw the dreaded word: cancelled. What in the world was I supposed to do? I had no internet access and no phone numbers for anyone at AIM, and, at the beginning, had absolutely no details about trying to get to the DR the next day. Thankfully, my mom was very understanding and helpful – I was able to call her on my cell phone and she contacted AIM and kept them up-to-date on where I was with getting to the DR. I was put up in a hotel and given food vouchers and taxi vouchers and booked on a flight the next afternoon, but told to be at the airport at about 700 in the morning because there was a flight at 830 that I was on the standby list for (and according to the ticket agent, would not be full and I would have no problem getting to the DR in the morning). Well, I got to the airport at about 630, went through security, and began a long day of getting my hopes up and then crushed as flight after flight were full…so the ticket for the 2pm flight ended up coming in handy after all. I finally made it to the DR at about 330 pm local time – about 17 hours after I was originally supposed to get there. I was finally able to meet my team, get a little food, and get some good rest before leaving for Haiti at 6 the next morning.
Getting to Haiti from Santo Domingo proved to be another adventure in itself that started with mass confusion about vehicles and packing, and ended by taking about 3 more hours than I thought it would (although we did have major favor at the border and were waved right through). I could write a whole story about the trip from Santo Domingo to Haiti, but our trip back to the DR is a better story so we’ll save that one for later.
