Travel

Now, fast forward through several meetings and a few changes in the direction of the trip.

We met at the church on Monday, Jan. 30th at 4:30am in the morning to head out to Lexington for our first flight. It was so tough leaving home that morning. I knew we had what amounted to 6 different flights and 18,000 miles of traveling to do before I would get to see my wife and son again. Of course, thoughts ran through my head like "what if this is the last time I will ever see them?". I must've kissed Jacob a thousand times that morning....course he had no clue because he was sleeping like a log. It was just as tough leaving Amy. We've known each other for almost 14 years now and having been married for 7 years, she knows me better than anyone else. I really lucked out in the wife department because she really is my best friend and she's gorgeous to boot. :)

It was a long 4 mile drive to the church. I was excited for sure, but sad to leave my family. I had been battling doubts for the last couple of weeks. Should I even be on this trip? I usually have music blaring in my truck but I distinctly remember muting it that morning. There were thousands of thoughts running through my head, some serious, some funny and some downright stupid. I'm amazed at how my mind works so early (early for me anyways) in the morning.

I arrived at the church and Bro. Mike met me at my truck hoping I had a key to the Family Life Center. He didn't want to have to run home to get his key. Luckily, I had my key with me. We had packed our 40 passenger church bus on Saturday with our luggage, which took up nearly half the bus, and parked the bus in the FLC. In an earlier meeting, Bro. Mike told us to ask him on the morning we left if he had our plane tickets from Manila to Tacloban just to be certain they weren't left behind. They were actual paper tickets where as all our other tickets came from simply swiping our passports and getting printed boarding passes. I jokingly asked Bro. Mike if he had our tickets knowing he probably had them in his coat pocket. He looked in a couple of his bags....asked Mary, his wife, about the tickets.....looked again and then proceeded to run home to get the tickets. He made it home and back to church with tickets in hand before the 5am leave time which was good. Some of us began to joke that his grandaughter had hidden the tickets because she had cried so much not wanting him to go. It would've been terrible to get to Manila to find out we had no tickets to go on to Tacloban.

I said all of that to say this: I think God used those two simple little things that morning to let me know that I was indeed supposed to be on the trip and that everything would be fine. It may sound silly to some that God would use a key to the FLC and question about tickets as confirmation but I really believe He did. So, from that point on, I was ready for what was ahead of us. A handful of people came out to see us off from the church and we were led in prayer by a dear friend named Nick and with that we were off.