A Discouraging Start

DAY 1 / LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - The first day of our team’s mission to Thailand has gotten off to a discouraging start. By midnight, we had expected to be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, on the final leg of our journey from Midland to Bangkok ….. instead, we found ourselves at Los Angeles International Airport (or LAX), with the realization that the final leg would be delayed 24 hours.

It began with a cancelled flight, and a two-hour delay in our departure from Midland International ….. and one could almost see the ripple-effect extending outward from there. Once in Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), we had to find space on another flight to LAX, one that departed four hours after the one we had missed. We arrived in Los Angeles more than an hour after our connecting flight had departed for Bangkok.

So, what do we do? Remain flexible ….. and keep an upbeat attitude. We will get where we’re going, and there will be plenty for us to do once we’re there. As for now? “No matter where you’re going,” the song reminds us, “there you are!” Among other things, the delays have allowed time to test procedures for preparing and sending e-mail updates from our Thai Mission Team to our family and friends back-home, and for updating our West Texas Missioner weblog ….. procedures we were pretty sure would work ….. but, now we know. We have put the extra hours to use in another, more significant way.

We have spent a chunk of that time - in airport waiting lounges and across the table of a shared meal – in getting to know one another ….. who we are, where we are from, why we are here. It is a silver lining to a cloud of misfortune – great or small – that brings us closer together on so many levels, and will help us accomplish more in the days ahead. We would also like to express our appreciation for Cynthia Howard, the team member responsible for travel arrangements. She has spent much of the last 24 hours with her phone permanently fixed in her ear, while at the same time talking to airline agents across the counter, making new arrangements and keeping us moving – slowly, but surely – forward. She has also worked to keep us informed, and reassure team members anxious over the past day’s developments. Some of us say, they hate to think how much worse the day might have turned out if it hadn’t been for Cynthia’s expertise, and her tenacity in overcoming the obstacles thrown in our way by the airline.

By the way, some of our team members should already be in Thailand. Pastor Jerry Hilton, and Katie and Franklin Williamson, were following their own itineraries, from their own communities – and we had hoped to link-up with them at LAX for the final leg of our outward journey. We have heard that they DID make the connection with that flight, and they will be our representatives in Bangkok for the first day’s schedule of activities. Please keep our team members – on both sides of the Pacific Ocean! – in your prayers. Keep us mindful that there is work to be done ….. and while we may be uncertain exactly when and where that work will be done, HE is not, and with His help we will come together and fulfill our mission.

Is there something you'd like to ask the members of our Thai Mission Team? CLICK HERE to send us your question, which we will answer by return e-mail, and here in the pages of West Texas Missioner.