“I think we’ll be fine.”
With the sand art (read: “It’s ok if you have to pour it out”) and myriad laptops packed back up, we departed the TSA line and made our way toward what would become one of the more bizarre travel experiences we had ever had.
It was evening time. The itinerary for the next 24 hours was for us to fly from Charlotte to New York (JFK) where we would then board on an overnight flight to São Paulo, Brazil. After a few hour layover in São Paulo, we would fly to Manaus. That was the plan.
After a quick bite to eat at an overpriced Charlotte Airport restaurant, we made for the gate. In a rather timely fashion, we were loaded up onto flight 790, bound for JFK. We took our seats, began the fun game of “keep the 2 year old from melting down before we take off”, and settled in. The minutes dragged on, everyone boarded, the boarding door closed, we waited, Izzy fussed a little, we waited some more, Selah nearly finished a movie on the ipad, and still we were just sitting there. I began to worry a little bit about the connection in New York.
Finally, the pilot gave an announcement. “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, from the flight deck, this is your captain speaking. Sorry about the delay. We are a very full flight tonight with a lot of weight and balance considerations. Our baggage loaders put too much baggage in one compartment, and we had to ask them to move it to a different compartment. Shouldn’t take too long. We’ll let you know when they’re done, and we will get you all on your way to New York. Good evening.”
A slight groan rumbled through the cabin. I looked to our good friend Ethan who was making this journey with us. “I think we’ll be fine,” I said.
A little bit later, the loud speaker came on again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, from the flight deck again. It has been a long day. We’ve been on the clock since early this morning and unfortunately, at this point, there is no way for us to complete this flight within our duty day. The team here is looking for another crew to get you on your way to New York. We are quite confident we will find a new crew soon, so we will not be deplaning. Please remain in your seats and we will keep you posted with updates as they become available. Thank you, and good night.”
A few minutes later the cockpit door opened and our two tired pilots left the scene. About thirty minutes later, they still had not found a new set of pilots for us, and the rest of us were asked to leave the airplane. As we deplaned, everyone was asked to head to the gate’s check-in desk in order to receive a new boarding pass for a different flight that was also going to New York.
As we re-entered the terminal, there was a huge line at the gate’s check-in desk and we were told to abandon the plan that was announced inside the airplane and to just head to the nearest customer service desk that we could find.
We eventually found a crowded customer service desk and fell in line. I could not help but muse that here we were on the cusp of such a big move, and we could not even get out of the first airport. This big night of travel that we had spent months preparing to execute was not going according to plan. Despite the fact that things were unraveling a bit, everyone maintained a very positive spirit. We had a sense that God was in control of everyone’s travel plans that night, and that even though things were not going the way we had planned, they were most definitely going the way HE had planned.
Our one concern, however, was how we would manage those 18 bags if we had to spend the night at a hotel…
After about an hour of standing in line at the customer service desk, it was finally our turn to trouble the staff with our travel woes. We were told that we could stay in Charlotte and try the same itinerary the next day, or head for Miami tonight, sleep in a hotel and be on our way to Brazil the following night.
We really did not want to call our JAARS friends with the truck all the way back to the airport (almost a 2 hour round trip drive) just so that we could move back into our JAARS house for one night, only to clean it again the next day and start all over. We went with the Miami option, hoping to at least make it about 1/5th of the way to Manaus that night. We were booked onto a flight that would leave in about 2 hours and get us into Miami somewhere around 1AM. Bleh.
Here are a few takeaways from this stage of the evening:
Show up on time for Plan A, and don’t be surprised when you find yourself headed to customer service to learn about Plan B. The unraveling of our plan, and what transpired afterwards, became, in my mind, a simple real-life parable of God’s faithfulness in despite failed plans. I saw many people in that customer service line lose their minds over little changes and minor inconveniences, and unfortunately, they appear to have caused the suffering of others in the process. When in a season of transition, be ready to hold your plans with an open hand. Come with a plan, but be ready, if not expectant, of it changing. You will be in a much better state of mind to help others, and to, at a minimum, not disparage your fellow image bearers of Christ in the process.
In times of big transitions, surround yourself with good friends. The challenges we faced on our move to Brazil felt a lot easier as we could share some of those burdens (including some literal burdens) with our friend Ethan who came along with us. If you are looking for a fun and very hands-on way to support a missionary family, consider offering to travel with them on their longest trips (bonus points if they’re also doing a move). We really appreciated this! (PS: If you would like to help out with the costs of this trip that Ethan paid out of pocket, you can do so on Venmo @Ethan-Starcher-1 or on CashApp $tarcherEthan)
This last tip is a practical one, but I’ve found it useful many times. Before your travel day, look up all the other various ways your airline can get you to where you want to go. Many times they will be happy to rebook you on whatever flights you request. If you leave it up to the airline, they don’t always rebook you in the most convenient way. This trick does not always work, but when it does, it can be helpful.
Miami boarding passes in hand, I ran back to the gate our New York flight was supposed to depart from to inquire about our gate checked stroller. When we deplaned, they never gave us back our stroller that we had checked at the gate.
If you’ve never travelled with a toddler or a baby, you may not know about this whole process where you can use your stroller all the way up to the door of the airplane. Once at the door to the aircraft, you promptly grab your child with one hand, while then trying to collapse your stroller with a foot and your free hand, and then kick it out of the way of the crowd behind you, all while desperately trying to not cause a major scene. About half the time it works. When you land at your destination, the idea is that a ramp worker quickly runs the strollers up to the door of the airplane, and you can repeat the process in reverse.
Anyway, we had all been in a hurry to get re-booked onto that other New York flight, so they rushed us out of that area when we deplaned, and we were not able to wait for the stroller. So there I was, back at the gate, about an hour later, inquiring about the stroller. What followed was such an insightful and humorous conversation with the gate agent, some flight attendants, and a confused pair of replacement pilots. That conversation will be in the next post!
This was not the stroller we started our trip with, but it is the one we ended up with. Read the next post to find our why!