Dear Friends,
Thanks so much for your prayers for me as I traveled the world this week. Right from the get-go, we could see the Lord at work, as a very helpful airline employee overlooked my overweight charges in Edmonton. He also went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure I had the window seat which I really needed for the long 15 hour leg of my journey, and he moved me to the front of the plane, so I could get off quicker etc. Amazing.
The rest of my trip went smoothly and I arrived at the capitol city of Port Moresby in good time. I figured I had about 3 hours before my 5pm flight, which was enough time for me to stretch my legs and get a bite to eat. As usual, I was met by our New Tribes representative there. As he was looking at my ticket, he noticed that I had accidentally purchased it for 5 AM that day, and not 5 PM like I was thinking! So….. what to do now?!
There was one very helpful lady at the Customer Service desk who tried to get me another ticket, but since all the flights were full, it wasn’t very straight forward. She eventually told us to come back the next day. Thankfully she was able to get me a ticket for the following morning, so I had another full day at our Mission Center there in Port Moresby. I guess the Lord knew that I needed the extra rest!! The first night I slept 10 hours straight through and probably the same for the second day!
The third morning, we rolled on over to the airport again, this time with a “confirmed” ticket in hand. Long story short, my ticket wasn’t actually confirmed, but was a standby only which I found out only after standing in line for 45 minutes!! Since the first flight of the day was full, I had to wait another 6 hours for the afternoon flight. Thankfully I had a bottle of water and some granola bars with me, so I was fine!! Pretty tired of sitting, but nevertheless, I was thankful to be on my way.
One major blessing was that the wonderful lady who organized my ticket, did so for free and I didn’t have to pay anything at all for my mistake!! Welcome back to PNG! I ended up having to pay some overweight charges, but far less than I was anticipating, so that was another blessing.
Finally Sunday evening about 5pm, I arrived safe and sound here in Hoskins. It’s beautiful and warm and green. I could feel my skin shout for joy to be out of the dry climate and into the humidity again!! Coming across the lawn last night, I was thrilled to see the “Hoskins sky”, with a million stars dropping down like diamonds and the green palm tree swaying in the breeze. There’s nothing like it!
Lord willing today, Keri and the rest of my team will be hiking out of our village and will join me here at Hoskins for 10 days. I’m sure it will be a long and difficult hike for them, over slippery trails and through a deep river. I know they would appreciate your prayers.
Thanks so much for your encouragement and support. I have greatly appreciated all your messages and emails, and your prayers.
With joy,
Becky