Perfect

We were about to descend into Houston. The flight from Atlanta was going headlong into the western sky, and the view was spectacular. Wispy clouds in all sorts of formations. A bright orange sky with all sorts of shades - a sunset you can only see from 30.000 feet. Street lights beginning to glow in the darkness below.

And as I looked out at it, I was listening to Ellie Holcomb's song My Heart is Steadfast, based on Psalm 108:

For Thy lovingkindness is great above the heavens,
Thy truth, it reaches to the sky.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
And Thy glory over all the earth....

I got chills as I looked at the glory of God's creation while listening to Psalms set to music. This was a good a glimpse of God's glory as we humans can comprehend...if we'll just stop to notice.

So there was God's glory in nature. In music. And at the same time, in the enjoyment of the life he has blessed me with. For the purpose of this flight was to go to tomorrow's Bama game in College Station, Texas, and I am blessed once again to travel with two marvelous young ladies - my nieces Haley and Macy. They are no longer college students, and it's cool - after starting our road game traditions when they were 12 - to travel with them as young adults. We are not guaranteed tomorrow, so I want to soak in every moment of these trips.

God's glory in nature, music, his word, and relationships. What a perfect day.

Good night.

What's my mission?

Have you ever gotten confused about what you were really trying to accomplish? Gotten distracted from what you started out to do? I have. But maybe after today I'll remember something that will help keep me on task.

I had boarded a plane for Ohio, where tonight I was to see a friend perform in a summer production of Les Miserables. Just in case you're wondering, it was an awesome night and my friend did an amazing job portraying Marius. But...there, I'm doing it again. Back to the point.

After the door had closed we sat there without moving far too long. Finally, the flight attendant announced, "We were supposed to have already pushed back, but we realized that all our catering supplies had not been loaded. We're waiting for them now."

Excuse me?! It is about a 90 minute minute flight from Atlanta to Canton. Or less. Oh yeah...if we didn't get the catering on board, I'm sure we all would have starved.

Frankly, it was just funny to me. I wasn't in a hurry. But I did blurt out to my seat partner, "Is this an airlne or a restaurant?" Yep, I got my cheap laugh.

But seriously - in my opinion, this was a clear case of a company forgetting its mission. Getting passengers safely to their destination on time is the mission of an airline. Food should never get in the way of that; it's an extra.
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So what about my life? What is my mission? Like the airline and other companies, I claim to have one. It's right here on this page: love God and love people. Everything else is built around that. Sure, there's work, hobbies, and such. But every day I need to remember what my mission is and make sure that when there's a choice to make, I base the choice on my mission.

Otherwise, I'm holding up the flight for a few cans of Coke and peanuts. And that's never good.

Impossible? The trip to Addis

The word rang out, piercing my brain like a screeching whistle through a bad headache. “Impossible.”

Around two hours earlier, I had been approaching the Atlanta airport on I-85 when we got a message from Frank, our Visiting Orphans trip coordinator. The first leg of our flight to Ethiopia had been cancelled. Immediately, Frank began doing research and did an awesome job of sharing our options with us. But it didn’t look great – there was only one flight into Washington-Dulles that would get there in time, and there were only a few seats left on it.

The next few hours are a blur. When we arrived at the airport, I ran in to try and get changes made while Macy and Jenny circled the drop off area. Another team member, Grant, arrived. As it appeared we might get on that flight, his parents helped us get luggage out and take my car to a parking space. There was just all sorts of teamwork trying desperately to get to Washington on time, because there’s only one flight a day to Addis Ababa and we so wanted to get to the children of Korah.

It turned out that there the seats on the flight we wanted were gone by the time I got to the counter. The agent said our only option was to shift to a Delta flight that arrived at 9 am, about two hours before our departure to Addis on Ethiopian Airlines. Sounds great except the Delta flight was going to the wrong airport! We would have to land, get off the plane, collect our luggage, find transportation, ride across town, and check in all over again for an international flight. Huh?

And so there was that word. Impossible. When we got to the Delta counter, the agent said it couldn’t be done. She said we needed to look at other options to get us there by another airline and/or another city. Amsterdam. While I was on the phone with Frank (who continued to give us outstanding guidance), Dubai was suggested. (Macy and Jenny loved that idea!) But regardless, she thought we were crazy to try our plan. We. Would. Not. Make. It.

Maybe not. But we talked about it and there was one thing we were sure of. This mission was prayed up beyond our imagination. And so God was up to something. Whether we made the flight or not, something great was about to happen. What did he want to accomplish through this?

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Impossible is a theme that pops up throughout the Scriptures. It was impossible for the children of Israel to escape the clutches of slavery in Egypt. A virgin can’t possibly bear a child. How can a rich man enter the Kingdom of God? And each time the concept arises, it is answered with a variation of the same phrase: With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

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I write this blog post from seat 37D on flight ET501 to Addis Ababa. The scheduled flight. Because with God, all things are possible.

It was an amazing adventure that unfolded, and we marveled at God’s provision, literally laughing every time something happened that never happens:

•        We got boarding passes for row 10 (the very first coach row) allowing us to be the first off the plane.
•        The plane landed 20 minutes early.
•        When we landed, we found out that Grant’s cousin would be waiting to pick us up and rush us to Dulles.
•        Traffic was very sparse… in Washington, DC!

All in all, we got to our gate before boarding had even begun. And we laughed out loud, giddy with what we had just seen. The great thing that God had wanted to do was to teach us that impossible should not be in our vocabulary this week.

Some would say it’s impossible to make a difference on this type of short-term mission. Seven Americans flying to the other side of the world, simply to spend time with children and let them know they are loved – how could that possibly make a significant difference? How can a single week of semi-organized chaos change the lives of children living lives of extreme poverty? But now we know. With man, yeah, impossible. But not with God. And so we go. And be. And love. 

"Well, then I'm gonna say no"

First...yes, it's been a while since my last post. Almost a year ago I promised that I wouldn't blog just to be blogging; I would make sure I had something to share. Thus the drought. Anyway, now I have something to share that that was pretty funny. At least to me.

So earlier this week I had to fly to Richmond, VA for work. I flew from Atlanta to Richmond on the same flight with my friend and fellow actuary Lee - we were both headed there for the same meeting. I had checked luggage and Lee (who had not) went to get a rental car while I picked up my bag. When I got to the rental car counter, he had a big grin on his face. I had missed a really amusing conversation.

The car was with Advantage Rental Car, a fairly small and low-budget company without many vehicles there to choose from. So Lee and the rep at the counter had agreed on a particular car early in their conversation. After having all that set, the guy asked him, "Would you like to add satellite radio for $5?" At which point Lee asked if it was in the car they had already selected. "Yes."

Amused, Lee responded, "We've already picked a car. What if I say no?"

The answer? Well, the car would have the satellite radio anyway. At which point my friend said, and I still laugh thinking about this, "Well, then I'm gonna say no."

How funny! You ask if the customer wants to pay for something that he's going to have whether he pays for it or not! Yeah, I think no was the correct answer. But the funniest part, according to Lee, was the look on the guy's face. Apparently, nobody had ever said that before. He didn't know what to say, so he just stared with a confused look on his face.
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How often do you ask questions where the answer doesn't matter? I know I do it. A friend calls and tells me his car broke down and he's stranded. "Do you want me to come get you?" Well, duh! That's why he called me right? I'm sure you can think of your own examples. Maybe life would make a lot more sense if we would think a second or two longer before we spoke.

But maybe a little less funny.

Random thoughts from O'Hare

As I approach my 5th hour sitting in the Chicago airport, I can't help but think of the 2004 Tom Hanks movie. Of course, in The Terminal he was stuck in an airport for much longer than this...but it sure doesn't seem like it. Actually, that's not true. The time has passed quickly because I've found ways to pass the the time and avoid boredom. Like taking the picture on the left about 5 minutes ago.

I knew I would be here a long time because our meeting ended extremely early today leaving me with alot of time to kill. But then, due to weather problems, it got even longer. So here are some random thoughts and observations about my day at the airport, in no particular order. I have avoided boring myself all day - I hope I can avoid boring you. (Is it too late?)

• My plan to use the day to catch up on my reading is going beautifully. I am trying to read the Harry Potter books before the final movie comes out. (Thanks for loaning them to me, Macy.) I've got a long, long way to go (I'm about 100 pages into volume 4), but air travel is definitely the way to read large chunks at a time. But still, you can't just read for 8 hours solid, especially when you stayed up 'til 2:00 the night before. Heavy eyelids. So fortunately, I've been able to break it up...

• I got a little break when I got an email asking me to check some statistics homework. So, I pulled out my Macbook, opened the email and Word document, and started checking. That helped me kill about 45 minutes, and it was kinda fun doing a little math. (Yes, I am a geek.)

• I had hoped to catch an earlier flight, but with all the weather issues I've been listening to announcements about flight delays all afternoon. Heck, I think I'm lucky that I'm going to get out of here at all. (And I guess it still could go wrong.) Right now, we're supposed to leave a little over an hour from now. This will get home around midnight.

• I went to get a personal size Chicago pizza a little while ago. It was delicious. There is nothing like a deep dish Chicago pizza.

• I am so glad that I'm driving home from Atlanta instead of flying all the way to Montgomery. I would definitely have missed the connection and I would be stressing about how to get home after landing in Atlanta. I stopped flying out of the local airport years ago...and this is why!

• While I was eating it, some dude came up to me and asked me to move so he could plug in his iPhone to charge. Yeah, I was sitting in front of a plug. That was interesting.

So I've read a little, ate a little, people-watched a little, did a little math, and started over again. It's really not so bad. People are so interesting and I've had a chance to watch them all day. An airport full of people with their own joys, sorrows, families, and priorities. I can't help but think about how each one is unique but all of them crave meaning in their lives and are made to reflect the image of their Creator. It's so easy to think of them as just a crowd. but they're not.

Still...

I'm ready to get home.

Time to get back to the book. July 15 will be here before I know it.