On the Way to Africa...God's Way!!!

Well, we arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa yesterday after over 24 hours in flight and in airports. God has truly been showing His grace and favor from the moment we overslept Tuesday morning and rushed out of our apartment a lot later than we had planned to when we got kind of lost on the way to the airport arriving about 30 minutes before our plane was scheduled to depart! (Technically, we should have been already checked in about an hour before our plane was scheduled to depart!) We ran into the airport to catch our 9 am plane right around 8:30 am. God sent a couple of airport baggage clerks to help rush our 7 large suitcases and 3 carry-ons upstairs (we had ended up in the baggage claim area downstairs instead of the check-in area upstairs) to get checked in and to get our boarding passes. It took 2 ladies at the check-in counter, along with one of the the baggage clerks who stayed with us, about 10 minutes to check us in and get all of our luggage tagged correctly. Something had gone wrong during the check-in process and they were not able to get a baggage ticket for one of our checked suitcases. It looked as if we might either miss our plane or have to leave one suitcase behind. We just waited patiently and eventually one of the ladies at the counter went to another computer and was able to print out the last luggage tag. When we were finally checked in and all of our luggage tagged correctly, the baggage clerk went to the security area where we had to put all of our checked luggage and told us he'd take care of it for us so that we could run through the other security area with our carry- ons. We ran over there and went through the process, getting held up again because we didn't realize we should have taken one of the electronic items out of our carry on before running it through the security scanners. We had to wait while they slowly opened up Tyren's backpack, put on gloves, inspected the item very carefully and slowly then slowly put it back in his backpack. By the time we were finished with all of that, it was almost 9:00! We gave Amerel one carry-on with wheels and Tyren (who was carrying Isaiah) and I took the other two and we bolted to find our gate. It was just around the corner! We rushed to the gate and hurriedly told the guy there that we needed to get on the 9:00 flight to Atlanta (we had to catch a connecting flight from Atlanta to continue our journey). He calmly replied that the crew was late for that flight and they were not boarding anyone yet! The first words out of my mouth were, 'Praise God!' God knew all along that we had plenty of time, but everything that happened was just to reveal His glory and His sovereignty in every situation. We ended up boarding the plane around 9:40 am--about 40 minutes of free time to relax in the airport waiting for our plane.

Monday night before we left, I had spent quite some time unloading things that I felt we couldn't take because our luggage ended up being way overweight. It had gotten to the point that I just gave in and said, 'Well, God will have to work something out in our favor because there's nothing else I can take out!' (I must admit that Tyren had told me a few times while I kept trying to empty things out of our luggage not to worry about it.) In our rush to get checked in etc., no one had paid any attention to the weight of any of our luggage-they were all just trying to keep us from missing our flight! God worked it all out for His glory! That was just the beginning of the hand of God working in our favor to get us here without hassle and bypassing normal procedures, i.e. customs in Johannesburg, so that we could see that this is all about Him and not at all about us. Without Him, even boarding a plane is impossible. I don't have time to write about everything else God orchestrated on our behalf just to get us here! To God alone be all the glory! Amen!!