My Next Adventure

Well, it's been about 3 weeks since I've been back from Spain and I'm about 1 week away from starting my next adventure in a foreign country.  Starting August 31 I will be spending a semester in the Dominican Republic taking classes, sight-seeing, and serving at a ministry site.  I will be there until December 16.  It's hard to believe that in 8 days I will be in a completely new environment with new challenges and new joys.  This semester is definitely going to be tough:  I'm taking 18 credit hours of classes (including a 150-hour internship and an online class); I won't have a roommate since I am the only male going on the trip; my Spanish isn't great but I can still get around.  Despite these fears, I know that this will be a growing and stretching experience.  I will learn a lot from my classes; I will get real-world experience at my internship; my Spanish will greatly improve since I won't have a roommate to talk to in English; I will experience God in ways I never have before.  I am very excited for this trip, but would appreciate prayers to calm my nerves and subside my fears.  God is in control.

Home

Sorry I've been slacking on the posts lately.  I've been home for a little over a week now and have been busy with work and getting things ready for school.  Our flight home from Spain was never-ending adventure consisting of several more delays and missed connecting flights.  After missing our connection from New York to Cincinnati, we rebooked a straight flight from New York to Chicago.  We were supposed to leave at 6:40pm but didn't start taxiing until 7:15pm.  When we finally got to the runway and were about to take off, the pilot came over the intercom and said that everyone would have to get off the plane and go back inside the airport because O'Hare was shut down due to a bad storm.  If we had taken off 2 minutes earlier, we would have been able to avoid the storm and land in Chicago with no problem.  But such was our luck on this trip.  We ended up getting off the plane and waiting in the airport for another hour.  We met an interesting couple on their way back home from their honeymoon in Paris who shared in our frustration.  Finally, we got the all-clear to board again and were on our way to Chicago.  What was supposed to be a simple 2 hour flight turned out to be a lot longer than we expected.  Because of the storm that was still over Chicago, our small plane had to fly further north to avoid it.  As we started descending into what we thought was Chicago, the pilot informed us that we were actually landing in Milwaukee.  Because our plane was so small and we had fly north to avoid the storm, we were almost out of fuel.  This meant a "quick" stop (about 45 minutes) in Milwaukee to refuel.  By this time, the other student flying with me and I were pretty angry.  We just wanted to go home because all of our experiences at the airports were terrible.  We finally landed in Chicago a little after 1am.  I was blessed to be the only person from our group who received their luggage (just another frustration -- makes me wonder if "someone" was trying to prevent us from going home because of the seeds that were planted in Alcoy).  Everyone else had theirs delivered to their homes the next day.  I finally got home at about 6am and slept for a good 8 hours.

It was difficult, but I managed to stay at peace during the trip home and not let the circumstances bug me too much.  I actually enjoyed flying over both New York and Chicago at night and seeing the city lights from the air.  Flying over the storm was an amazing experience too because the flashes of lighting looked like lightning bugs from my tiny airplane window.  The stars didn't seem as far away and felt as if you could pluck them from the velvet backdrop of the night sky.  These simple, yet beautiful, sights allowed me to look at the big picture and not let small inconveniences upset me.  The city lights, the flashes of lightning, and the stars were worth all the trouble, and if we had not missed our connection then I never would have been able to experience them.  I am thankful that God can use the simplest things to show us His majesty and bring us peace.  Don't sweat the big stuff so much that you miss the small stuff.