Journeys

I had the opportunity earlier this year to go to Rwanda in Africa.  It was an awesome trip and all went well on the way over and while I was there.  The folks I went with, the folks I stayed with, and I all got to do some amazing things and got to see some of the beauty and simplicity of a developing country in one of the most beautiful settings in the world.

The trip back home was, however, a little more challenging than I had hoped.  The trip started on February 13 and lasted until February 15.  As I look back on the trip home it reminds me of the journeys that we all take in life.  Our life journeys sometimes take us places we don’t expect to go; we are sometimes victims of circumstances that we truly can’t control, but our journeys can always lead us to a happy ending in the arms of our loved ones.

Our flight from Rwanda left on time at about 1:00 in the afternoon, Rwandan time, which is 6:00 am Eastern Time.  We had a short and successful flight to Nairobi, Kenya where we stayed onboard the plane while picking up some new passengers.  Shortly we were on our way to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  This, too, was a short and uneventful flight. 

We had a couple of hours to layover in Ethiopia, so we hung around the airport while waiting for our flight to the United States.  Our flight from Ethiopia was scheduled to be about 17 hours.  We would take off at 10:30 at night, which was 2:30 in the afternoon in the states, fly 8 hours to Rome, Italy where we would stay onboard the plane and refuel before taking off to Washington, DC.

Everything was great for the first 16 hours of the flight.  We had a few meals, slept a bit, as we wiled away the time.  About one hour before landing time, the pilot came over the loudspeaker telling us that Dulles airport was closed due to weather so we would have to fly around for an hour until something broke.  So, we did.  Let me tell you that when you’ve been flying for 16 hours and your one-hour from landing, hearing that you’ll be in the air for an extra hour is really deflating to your morale. 

We flew around in circles for an hour while I was wondering just how much fuel an airplane can hold.  After the hour was up, the pilot spoke over the loudspeaker again telling us that Dulles was still closed and we would be landing in Baltimore.  Baltimore is not too far from Dulles so I thought that sounded like a good deal.  We could land in Baltimore, disembark and go through customs and check out our options to make it back to the Northeast.  Not so fast.

We finally landed in Baltimore but we didn’t disembark.  We taxied to a remote area of the airport, the area where the FedEx planes hang out and we sat there.  We sat and we sat and we sat.  We were not allowed off the plane so we sat for three hours on the tarmac in Baltimore.  There was no more food on the plane.  I was getting hungry.

Finally, we got clearance to fly to Dulles.  It was a 44-mile flight but it took close to 45 minutes for us to get there, get lined up with the runway, and land.  (As I think back, I don’t remember seeing refueling trucks when we were sitting in Baltimore!)

We taxied to the gate and sat there, 30 feet from the gate and waited.  We waited.  And we waited.  And we waited.  After an hour we finally moved up to the gate.  We found out that the wait was because the ground crew was plowing the parking spot for the plane.  We were five hours late getting there and they hadn’t plowed our parking spot yet!

So, after 26 hours on one single plane we finally got to disembark.  We made it pretty quickly through customs and then were off to find a flight to New England.  Of course, by this time we had missed our original connector.  We went to the ticketing area and got in line.  There were several lines so we made our best guess about which was the right one.  After an hour and a half in line, we discovered we were in the wrong line and the airline wouldn’t help us until we went through the ‘right’ line. 

Frustration was mounting.  I decided to just call with my cell phone to rebook.  I was sure we wouldn’t be flying on this day so I got re-booked for the next morning at 8:30.  We would fly from Washington, DC to New York and then to Manchester.  We found a hotel and made it over for a good night’s rest.  The next morning, we were up and to the airport by 6:30 and in line again.  This time we were in the right line and we made it to our plane just minutes before our 8:30 departure. 

Just as we got onboard and got seated, the pilot came over the loudspeaker telling us there was a ground delay in New York so we couldn’t take off for another hour and forty minutes.  We sat.  Finally, we took off and flew to New York.  Of course, by this time, we had missed our connection to Manchester. 

So, I was back on the phone to re-book.  The only thing I could get to Manchester was at 8:30 pm that day.  We would have another eight hours in an airport waiting for a flight.  We talked to a really nice gate agent, though, who got us re-booked to Boston so that we finally made it into Logan airport at about 3:30 in the afternoon on February, 15; just 31 hours later than we expected.

Aren’t life’s journeys like that?  We take off on well-developed plan and things go smoothly for a while until something goes awry.  We end up hanging in limbo for a time, get re-routed to a different temporary destinations, and spend a lot of frustrating hours trying to get back to our original plan.  In part of the journey, we are not even in control of our circumstances. 

You can imagine how good the hugs and kisses felt as I greeted my family.  It was so good to be home.  There is a great reward when we stick to our journey, regardless of detours, and reach safety and loving arms at the end of the journey. 

I encourage you to be patient on your journeys, to remain calm when you are in limbo or when you get temporarily dumped where you don’t expect to be.  Stick to the vision of your journey and enjoy the rewards that come from our journey through life.