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. 

Park-and-Ride

Last night, returning home from Chicago, I followed my usual routine. I always use the park-and-ride at the Atlanta airport (bus pictured at left). It's convenient, cheap, and I always know where to go for the bus that returns me to my car. (There was one time when my ticket was wrong and we spent over an hour looking for my car - but that's another story.)

As always, I got on the bus along with about eight others, and the bus headed to our lot to drop us off one at a time.

As it turns out, I was at the end of the parking lot where I was going to be the last one dropped off. One of the first guys to be dropped off was a young dude in a suit, and he got out and went straight to his Audi. This group of strangers were actually laughing together about the way we would find our cars - making the lights blink with the key fob.

Well, when the group was down to three, a young woman near the front of the bus noticed one of these on the seat beside her:

Yeah, that's right. Somebody had left their iPhone on the bus.

We quickly figured out who had been sitting there; it was the guy with the Audi. The driver asked the rest of us if we minded whether she tried to find him before dropping us off. Of course not! So she whipped that bus around and headed back toward the exit. We weren't exactly burning rubber, but we were moving pretty good for a shuttle bus.

Well, just when we thought we were too late, we saw an Audi moving toward the exit booth. Is it him? We all thought so. So the driver got us as close as she could quickly, and as she came to stop, the exit gate opened for the car. She began blowing the horn loudly and repeatedly.

A blur - She opened the bus door. I grabbed the phone and jumped out. I ran toward his car as fast as I could. And yes, I caught him and knocked on his window before he left. Needless to say, he had this look on his face like, "what the heck is wrong with you??"

It was funny. I handed him his phone and he just had this stunned look on his face. I was probably 10 feet away when I heard him call out "thank you" from a distance. I'm sure it took him that long to process what had just happened.

It was a very cool thing to be a part of. It made the night of everyone on that bus that we had helped the dude. For just a few minutes, the driver, the young woman, and one other man felt like friends instead of strangers.

And that was awesome.