February 20-21, 2016

Go time!! In a few hours we’ll head for the airport for our first flight! I’m excited and nervous, I’ve also been fighting a cold so I feel subdued, but ready or not, it’s time! Although I’m sad to leave this community again, one that has been home-base for us for almost 25 years, even when we worked in Evergreen for another ministry in the early 1990’s, we had a special connection to ywam Denver. But it’s time to take another adventure and do what our hearts long to do.

I’m so glad we set up our first flight for late afternoon, there was so much to do to finish packing and cleaning the house and picking up a few more things, we just got out at our 1:30 leaving time! We are allowed 50lbs in a bag for domestic flights and 70lbs for international travel! When we checked in our bags were 48 and 49lbs!! So, now it’s the travel game for a while! We forgot to check in for our Southwest flight, and because on this airline seat selection is based on when you check in, we are virtually the last people on the plane!! This means we’ll both have middle seats and passengers will be praying we don’t sit with them!! It’s the only thing I don’t like about flying on SW!! I once went to sit in a middle seat and a lady, sitting on the aisle told me I couldn’t sit there!! I was so taken back, I kept moving, but I won’t let that happen again!

When we got to the airport, I was able to upgrade us for a reasonable price, so we got to sit together with a little more legroom. We got to LAX in good time and checked in for our flight. If you know me, I am someone who has a hard time concentrating when I am a standby for a flight, so since we had about 5 hours to wait before our flight I used 2 of our passes to United’s lounge, the Red Carpet Club. That got us into a nice place with free food, drink, comfortable chairs and free wifi. I settled in while Donna went out to meet a friend for a little while. The friend, Christy, had been in our youth group in the 1980’s, and is now in her 40’s and married!! Donna said she looked exactly the same as she did when she was teenager!

We went to our flight about an hour before it was to take off. These passes allow us to have a seat on a flight, if there are any left after all the paying customers have been seated. We were number 7 and 8 on a list of 15 and there were 12 seats left, so we were pretty sure we’d get on, but in a strange twist of fate, we were bumped (as was everyone else on the list) because apparently the plane had reached a weight limit!! So, we were stranded in LA for 24 hours.

It wasn’t all bad, because I’m still battling a cold, and another night’s rest in a bed was good for me! We found a hotel with a shuttle that ran at midnight and got a good night’s sleep and had a restful day. We thought about running around LA for the day, but decided against it. On tonight’s flight, there are 72 seats right now and 26 standbys, we are number 13 and 14, so I think we'll make it, there are even whole rows open in Economy Plus. The only sadness for us is that we had hoped to spend some time with Ken and Robyn Mulligan, the leaders of ywam in Townsville, before they left on another trip and now that might not be possible. But the adventure still waits and we have time to adjust to the time change for a few days before we start.

Ywam in Townsville has been very kind and accommodating in their communications with us and we are very excited to see what’s coming. We should be in Townsville for about 9 days before we fly to Port Moresby to join the ship (the PNG). Thank you to each one who has prayed for my health (I can feel it) and for our journey, we have been very blessed and relaxed as we patiently wait!! Next stop, Sydney!!