Part three
Before committing to the race I had never been on a plane. My first flight was to Phoenix, Arizona over spring break 2019, and before that I had always just driven everywhere so while I was an absolute champ at road trips, I had never gotten the chance to know if I liked planes or not.
Thankfully I don’t mind flying at all, and I can still go on the race, score.
As a fairly new flyer, I am constantly on the lookout for advice on flying. Tricks of the trade kind of thing and I think the best advice I’ve received so far was actually from the storytelling workshop at training camp. We had an absolutely stellar guest speaker come in. Her name is Teresa McMillan and if you ever have the time to go watch her videos on Instagram do it because this woman speaks some seriously good truth. But back to the point, Teresa said that she loved plane rides because she loves talking to people, and on planes, people don’t have the option to walk away, they are forced to either engage in a conversation or spend the whole flight trying to figure out how to block out the maximum amount of sound possible.
I really took this concept to heart and on the way back to Oregon I exercised my extroverted tendencies, forced the people around me into conversation.
This started in the Atlanta Airport. Due to an absurd thunderstorm, flights were getting messed up left and right. Almost every flight was delayed and that meant the next flight after that was delayed and connecting flights were going to be missed and it was a disaster. Praises up to Jesus that my friend and I were able to get past security and hang out in the terminal with our other friends from training camp (and finally get some good airport food)
We chatted with airline workers all over the place trying to figure out how to get home, and what connecting flights we would be taking that kept us from sleeping in the airport. Eventually, we secured some spots on a flight to Houston and would take a second flight to PDX, arriving home around 1:30 in the morning was still much better than finding a nice corner in ATL.
It was while waiting for our first flight to Houston that we made our first friend of this story, Parker Consolo. First things first, think of a good old fashion handlebar mustache, throw some slightly ginger hair and tattoos on there and you got Parker.
P.C is a team leader for WR 19’ and was patiently waiting for this same flight back to Portland so he could eventually make it back to Tigard. We quickly befriended Parker through bonding over the mutual frustration of these flight delays. It felt like five minutes had gone by after finding a seat next to Parker that boarding groups were announced. Cass and I said our see ya laters and got on the plane, excited to finally be on figuratively on the road.
It was on this flight to Houston that we found three more friends.
Mike and Military men, if you are reading this, thanks for one heck of a trip.
It was about ten minutes into this flight when it was clear to see that Mike did not enjoy flying, He was sitting right across the aisle from me and behind him was two military officers, uniform and all. It took a little while of wrestling with The Holy Spirit before finally listening and striking up a conversation. What was supposed to be a quick little chat turned into a whole scene in the back of the plane. We got into talking about Mike’s past and how he actually ended up drifting away from the church after being a youth pastor. We chatted about how the military men had just gotten done with basic training and were on their way to Arizona for advanced individual training. They asked what two 18-year-old girls were doing traveling by themselves form Atlanta back to Oregon and what kind of training camp were we at.
Getting to share the gospel in weird ways is a funny thing. We explained to everyone what the world race was and why we were choosing to put our lives on hold and go on this crazy trip. Almost everyone you come across is really fascinated with the race and gives you mad props for not only doing something crazy but fundraising for it. Our new friends on the plane were especially impressed with what we were doing and they showed it in different ways. Mike pulled out his wallet and gave us some cash to put towards the trip, while the military men asked us for our blogs and told us they wanted to read more. How cool is that?
Random strangers on a plane giving money for a trip they know nothing about, and asking if they can support us through prayers.
Because of these men, the several hour-long flight felt like 20 minutes and before I even realized it we were getting ready for landing. We said our goodbyes, and the military men wrote in our journals some good luck notes before we all stood up and went our separate ways, almost.
Walking out of the plane Mike asked Cassi and I if we were hungry and wanted dinner, and as we were getting ready to respond, we saw our good friend Parker standing at the end of the hallway, dazed and confused. Mike said to bring him along and we followed him to go find some good eats in the airport. We inevitably ended up at Chick Fil A, and ordered a feast for kinds, thanks to Mike sizing up everything we ordered, he pulled out his wallet, covered our meals for us and then wished us the best of luck on our journey. We were expecting to eat with him and be able to sit down and talk more, but his wife was waiting to pick him up and I’m sure he was excited to go see his kiddos as well.
Then it was back to the three of us, sitting in the airport chick fil a, attempting to finish the insane amount of food in front of us. And after another couple of delays and a close call of a sleepover in the Houston airport, we were finally on our way home. Back and touching the beloved PDX carpet around 2:00 am. Moral of the story is;
Would I ever recommend going through 6 delays and 3 flight changes to get back home?
No ma’am, I would not.
But would I recommend listening to the Holy Spirit and finding the best in the situation and some new friends along the way?
Absolutely.
Thank you Mike, for the fun conversations and a delicious meal, thank you to our military men for the encouraging notes in our journals and thank you to P.C for tagging along through all the crazy with us.
With love
SJ
