The Faithfulness of God in the Journey

I have been unable to update my blog because of "lack of internet difficulty." Since there are a few updates I want to share I will begin with the testimony of our journey to Venezuela. I apologize for the length, but to shorten it would be a disservice to the miracles that happened. I hope it encourages your faith & is a blessing to you in times of fear or worry.

What a roller coaster we have been on for the past 2 months! We arrived in Venezuela after a whirlwind trip that lasted for 2 days. After much prayer & feeling that God wanted us to return by the 26th of June, we were packed & ready to leave. We received our final clearance to leave from our missions office at 6:30 the night before we left! (I don't recommend that anyone try that!) 

My husband had this brilliant idea to have more stops in our flight to save money. This began the story of an amazing testimony. Don't you just love how "amazing testimony" stories are often so much better in hindsight, but when you are dealing with them in the moment you feel like you are going to lose your mind?! No? Maybe it's just me! (ha ha) 

We arrived at the airport with my brother Phillip, our fellow missionary & friend, Ashley Penley, & Pastor Billy & Wendy Myers... our amazing encouragers & prayer warriors through out our ministry. Chris dealt with the ticket counter as he always does while I kept my eyes on extra luggage & the boys. After much craziness because we were switching airlines, the man in charge said that he would wave ALL baggage fees because he wasn't sure what to charge! Telling a missionary with 13 black boxes, 5 rolling bags, & 5 backpacks that you are waving luggage fees is better than a shopping spree! (Ok, let's not kid ourselves... what could be better than a shopping spree? But you get the idea of how amazing it was!) This moment in our journey saved us $800.00!

After lots of hugs & prayers from our dear friends, we were off. The trip from Greensboro, NC to Miami, FL was quite easy. Once in Miami we quickly boarded a plane to Jamaica. This part made my stomach quite nervous. I had heard horror stories about what happens to luggage & possessions when people had visited Jamaica. I knew that God could protect us AND our stuff but the anxiety was still very real! Once we arrived in Jamaica we were told we had to be stamped into the country, reclaim all of our luggage, & re-check in at the front of the building. WHAT???? That is insanity? Did they not know how many bags & children I had? And I was just passing though! Apparently this is the part that confused our ticket man in Greensboro... we had switched airlines in the middle of our trip! 

So, we did what we were told... went through immigration, got stamped into Jamaica (new stamp in the passport now) and reclaimed ALL of our luggage. At this point I was almost in tears because I knew what was next... CUSTOMS! I stood & watched lines of people as they opened every piece of their luggage while airport staff members removed it all in a very unkind manner making a mess of it all! Of course they didn't put it back like they found it. And the people were trying to explain it was indeed theirs so as not to pay taxes to keep their stuff! I will admit that I had a moment of weakness! I looked at Chris & told him we should just offer them some money to NOT open our boxes. (So human of me!) But Chris had a moment too... He stopped & prayed & asked God which line we were to get in. He then walked toward the line of one particular young woman. When we walked up with 5 carts full of luggage & 3 small children she smiled with a strange look on her face & asked what we were doing there? Chris explained that we were missionaries just passing through on our way to Venezuela. She asked if the stuff in the boxes was personal & we replied with a big "YES." She smiled again, wished us well, stamped our paper, & said have a nice day. Not one piece of our luggage was opened! 

We then proceeded to the front counter with 2 men that were pushing huge carts full of our bags. Because we changed airlines, new baggage restrictions applied. (We weren't planning on this!) They wanted to charge us $2,100 to get our bags to our destination. WHAT? We didn't have that kind of money! But then once again, the supernatural happened. A lady at the counter said that charging that much was unfair. For the next 3 hours she & 5 other people discussed, argued, & came to an agreement to "re-pack" some of our luggage so that some was heavier than others. I still cringe thinking about the process! 3 hours we sweated, stressed, prayed, & slept... our boys fell asleep on the boxes! Finally they decided we would pay $525... a much better rate than the amount previously mentioned! Normally, according to them, we would have been required to do the same thing at our next stop in Panama (yes, my husband booked tickets with 4 stops!)... but because we had been through such a long wait at the counter they tagged all of our bags as PRIORITY meaning that we didn't have to touch them again & that they received special treatment for the remainder of the trip! So, what was supposed to be a 5 hour layover turned into us barely making our flight! The hidden part of this story was that because our luggage was held up with us for all of that time, there was no time for theft to occur behind closed doors in Jamaica! God knows every detail :)

My guys showing off their matching souvenir watches in Panama! Mine is pink... of course!

We then arrived in Panama. Here, we had an overnight layover. Nothing says travel like sleeping all night on airport chairs with your whole family & lots of luggage! The next day we loaded the plain & FINALLY headed to Venezuela. Once we arrived at the airport, we waited in line to be stamped in. The lady was very kind (not normal for an airport). A policeman starred at us strangely until Chris said that we left last year because of a terrible car accident. Because of the severity & location of his accident, the policeman knew of the story! They passed us through & said, "Welcome back to Venezuela!" (a first for us in an airport!) 

Next was the task of collecting ALL of our luggage! Of course, we were last in line. The lady came to match our luggage to our luggage tickets & when we saw her she recognized us from a previous trip. Not too many Americans travel in or out of Venezuela with a mountain of black boxes & small children. She greeted us, checked our tags, & passed us through. Finally, the next lady asked what we had inside. We explained that it was all personal. She smiled & said, "Have a nice Day!" Our bags rolled through the scanner & we were on our way! How awesome indeed is our God!

Our final part of the trip was to travel 4 hours from Valencia to Cabudare where our temporary apartment was. Darkness filled the sky as soon as we got in the van with all of our luggage. Rain came in large quantities. The blessing in the rain was that there were NO military check points the entire way home! When we were first praying with Pastor Billy before we left, Imanuel asked him to pray for no rain while we were flying because he was afraid. How incredible that our flight from NC to FL was directly through a tropical storm & we never saw one drop of rain! The stewards on the plane even noted that they were shocked that we flew through such a large storm & they saw no rain anywhere! God heard the prayers of Imanuel too. And then once we landed He sent the rains to protect us! Once we arrived at our apartment, the rains stopped! It was just like something out of the Bible! 

It always amazes me at just how faithful God is! From the anxiety of a mom over her luggage to the prayers of a 7 year old... He has it all under control!