It is now 12:30am in Flagstaff, Arizona. Yes, I have arrived safely home after about 36 hours of travel. It’s rather chilly and I can’t sleep. What better to do in the midst of jetlag than snuggle up with a nice cup of tea and some of my mom’s amazing English toffee and update the blog?
Today, the last 36 hours, has been full of God’s provision. Now, when it comes to travel, especially travel abroad, I have the tendency to panic with worry about something…or everything going wrong. The night before departure, I sat at the kitchen table going over every “worst-case-scenario” that could possibly happen. Appropriately enough, my dad had sent me an email that morning by Max Lucado about worrying only about the problems that today holds because the strength for tomorrow’s issues will come tomorrow. How appropriate. All that worrying did nothing but increase my stress level and made it easier to forget how he has provided in the past. Emily and I left Bandung at 4:00am on Friday for Jakarta. My flight was to leave at 9:15am and hers around 11. We arrived at the airport at about 6:30am. There was no line at the ticket counter and no problem with my reservation. I made my way to the immigration counter where there was a man whose sole purpose in life is to make worry-wart bules nervous by taking two extra minutes to check her passport and visa. He let me by, and I spent about fort five minutes chillin’ in a rather empty airport until my flight for Hong Kong was to leave. The flight to Hong Kong went very smoothly. Got to spend some time reflecting on the past semester and dreaming about what God has planned for next semester. I arrived in Hong Kong, went straight to Starbucks, got a little lost, but eventually found my way to an excellent people watching spot near my gate. The stretch from Hong Kong to L.A. is the longest of my journey- 12 hours. Those 12 hours are rather torturous when the in-flight entertainment system is down. Without any movies or television to pass the time, I spent the majority of the 12 hours sleeping and reading. It was pretty rough, but praise God that I had a little more leg room because of an empty seat next to me. I made it through the long flight and in the end the crew felt so badly about the technical difficulties that we got about $50 worth of vouchers out of it. We landed in L.A. at about 1:30pm, and my flight to Phoenix, leaving from Terminal 1 on the other side of the airport, was to leave at 4:00pm. While I stood in the customs line watching the one attendant work slowly through the 30 people in front of me, I figured it was about time to tap into that strength for the issues of the day. From what I could see it was going to be a miracle if I made my flight to Phoenix. About 2:30, I had made my way through customs, had successfully collected my luggage and was on my way to the final leg of the journey. It was a rather perilous trek through parking garages and dodging some scary L.A. drivers, but I made it to the ticket counter for Southwest. Because I had a luggage cart I was able to get into a shorter line and avoid a little bit of Christmas travel craziness. God was so good, he provided the strength I needed exactly at the moment I needed it. The remainder of the trip went well until I arrived in Phoenix and couldn’t find my family. Without a cell phone or way to contact them I wandered through the arrival gate looking for them. They had gone to the wrong arrival gate and ended up running into me on their way to the pager thing. Not exactly that Hollywood arrival with hugs and tears, but that’s the Evans Family for ya.
I am so happy to be home…or at least I will be when the jetlag/unconsciousness wears off:) Tomorrow is already a full day: I have to get my visa stuff sent off asap (be praying for that when you get a chance), I am getting my hair cut, and meeting up with my roommates.
I am sure more updates are to come from the Evans Family Christmas 2007:)
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