Good: completely sufficient, perfect for its design or use.
If you have heard me present my testimony sometime within say the last year and a half, you have heard a lot about that word, and so far, this trip to Peru seem to embody that word. But, just like in life, you usually have to get towards the end of the story or at least out of the midst of the circumstances to really see how they can become good.
I am in Cieneguilla, Peru with a group of 12 other people from my church. We left on Friday, June 17th and found ourselves in the midst of an adventure right away. What was normally a 2 hour drive to the airport became almost 4 hours due to an accident several hours earlier that day shutting down a stretch of the freeway. Myself and one other traveler were on a 1:45 flight to Atlanta, while most of our group was on a 2:59 flight to Atlanta. Well, we arrived at the airport at 1:40. Needless to say we didn’t make our flight.
Amy, our youth pastor’s wife, had called the airport ahead when we realized we wouldn’t make it, and then somehow was able to find her way to the very front of a massively long check in line once we got to the airport. Because she’d called they were able to move us to the same flight as the rest of our crew, and had one agent dedicate her time to checking our whole group in so no one else had to wait in the line either. The last person made it to the gate in enough time for our group to be the very last in line to board. They closed the doors 5 minutes after we were all on – then we proceeded to sit on the tarmac delayed for another 40 minutes.
We got to the airport in Atlanta in time for our entire group to go as fast as possible straight to our next gate (across the other side of the airport) and again, get in line as the last ones before they shut the gate, and then sit on the tarmac for another hour in delay. It was a stressful day. From breakfast until 7pm dinner on the plane, the only food was airplane pretzels and any snacks we had brought with us. Brief periods of running to sitting and waiting, hoping the wait wouldn’t be too long. But finally we made it to Lima, through customs, onto the bus, stopped for water and snacks at a gas station and then to New Life Children’s Home. After unloading, we finally fell asleep in the dorms at 4am Lima time (5am EST).
Adventurous, crazy, stressful, exhausting, the trip was all of those, but it was also good. Maybe no one else in my group will think so, but me, I look for that good. I want to see how many different ways God can work in my life, and I love to search for them. I wouldn’t say it is a game of hide and seek, but maybe more like a treasure hunt.
Pretty soon I will be on my own. Yes, I’ll be working with others in Peru, but still, as a single woman on the mission field, much of my life will be on my own to accomplish things. Travelling and running into problems around every curve and being able to do it with friends and people a bit more experienced with international travel than I am allowed me to learn. I learned how to handle the prospect of missing a flight. Watching some others, I learned a few things NOT to do in security. Missing the first flight allowed me to be on a flight with the group. On my first flight I got to sit next to a Delta maintenance dude (like that job title?) and he taught me a lot about some of the ins and outs, perks, and how to get information that most people don’t know. I learned the fastest ways to make it from one end of an airport to another, and I began to learn how not to worry when it is a situation I cannot control. It was good in several other ways, but those take much more explanation.
Our trip to the airport alone was chaotic, but even in the midst of the chaos, and a seemingly insignificant part of a missions trip, God can work, preparing us for the future, for 2 years from now, but also for tomorrow.