Runway time

Kay and I sat on the runway in Orlando for an hour then entered a holding pattern near Atlanta. We missed our Seoul flight. We tried standby on a later flight but failed to get on. We are trying to get to Thailand.

Kay and I sat next to P_____. God gave us extra runway time today so we could have a good conversation with him. I gave him a Four Spiritual Laws booklet (a version appropriate for young professionals). I gave him a business card. Perhaps he’ll contact me to talk further. I’ve always appreciated the description of an effective witness: “Success in witnessing is taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results with God.”

God had a plan for us to be a blessing to two hard-working Delta ticket agents in Atlanta who together spent about 3 hours re-ticketing us and trying to find our bags. B____ and K____ commented on how relaxed Kay and I seemed even though we’d missed our flight. I was reminded of a Henry Brandt story and said, “Well, we’re going to be standing here at this ticket counter while you re-ticket us. We have no choice about that. The only choice we have is whether we stand here mad and fuming or calm and peaceful. We think calm is better.”

So we are over-nighting in Atlanta and flying tomorrow. We pray that our bags get found wherever they are in the Atlanta airport and re-tagged Atlanta-Tokyo-Bangkok tomorrow rather than Atlanta-Inchon-Bangkok today!

I had asked friends to pray these things for us. I thought it was a prayer request focused on Thailand and India. But God is giving us a chance to reap the benefit of prayers here in Atlanta.

• Pray that our hearts will be spiritual hearts.
• Please pray for all of us to lift our eyes to see things from God’s perspective, in the light of eternity.
• Pray that we will be adventurous believers, stepping out if faith to trust God to do far beyond what we think we are able to do.

I’ve added two more prayer requests:

• Oumar from Mali wrote today that he has a visa, but he does not have a seat on the plane to Thailand until after the conference begins. He will try again tomorrow to get a seat to arrive in time for the start of the conference. Please pray for Oumar’s plane seat.
• Kay and I have a plane seat but no confirmation that they have located our luggage. Pray that overnight the luggage will be found and re-tagged. It contains conference materials as well as clothes (and deodorant!).

And Atlanta is having tornados tonight! Ahh, the joys of travel. The privileges of trusting God.