Planes, Trains, Automobiles, & God

So to start off I just I have to give Him some glory. Jesus is the reason I am here in Dulles Airport. I had made a decision to spend my birthday with my very lovely lady who is happy to become my wife. So I had booked my tickets then got some buddy passes from Nashville to Dulles through Chicago. Well...Chicago was the problem. The day before I was to leave I was listing to the radio and heard the weather cast that Chicago was going to get twenty inches of snow.

So I called Southwest Airlines to ask about the flights going through there. The lady had informed me that the airport would be closed from 12 noon on Tuesday to 12 noon on Wednesday. My heart sank as my emotions went into a whirl wind cause my flight going to Ethiopia was to leave for Ethiopia at 11 on Wednesday. What was I going to do?

Well the lady who was so nice told me about a flight going into Baltimore leaving Nashville at 4:55 pm arriving at Baltimore by 7:45 pm. So I took it. I just had to figure out how I was going to get to Dulles from there. So I started looking around and found some options ranging from $200.00 to $15.00. Of course the more expensive one was just 45 minutes while the $15.00 one was about 2 hours. I prayed and asked God to please help me figure it all out.

So I packed until 4:00 that morning, went to bed around 4:30 that morning. I got up at 7:30 and packed everything in my car then off to work. I worked until 2:30 went to the bank came back to work and caught the airport shuttle at 3:45. Got the airport and the flight was delayed. No problem! As long as I was going to get there I didn't care.

We had left the airport and got to Baltimore by 8:30. I tried to find a way to Dulles and I had met a family who had adopted a child from China and they told me how to get there. So i caught a bus to the train station. I bought a ticket for an Amtrak train and was told to take that to Washington Central. Well with four bags that weighed over 100 lbs made it very difficult to get around, but that was alright. I had never been on the Amtrak before.

I boarded the train with my big over sized bag and my three heavy bags and this one guy helped me out. Praise God. I was nervous about this whole train thing, but I had to trust God. I was getting frustrated to with all of this shuffling around. So out of my confusion of talking with the family at the airport and the ticket booth lady I got off at the wrong stop, but God had a plan that I did not know about. I went to the ticket booth there and told them that I had never been there before, was lost and needed to get to Dulles Airport. He told me to buy and $3.00 ticket and take the orange line to West Church something or another. I just remember west church.

I boarded the subway and off I went. I started to wonder, Did God really have a plan? So I sat there wondering would there be anyone at that stop to help direct me to the right place? Well we went to stop at this one stop and we had to wait, because the subway train before us had broken down and all of those people had to get on the subway train I was on. I sat there while they all got on and these two guys stood right in front of where I was sitting. They talked about the game and about other things. Then they seen I was getting ready to get up and they made room for me. We started to make some conversation about how big my bags were. I told them what I was doing and what had happened to me. When I started to get off of the subway they asked me if I had any plans on getting to the airport and I told them that I did not.

One of the guys told me that he lives right by there and he would drop me off. Wow! What a God thing. It was all God. When we had gotten out to the parking lot there were no other transportation after that and they had told me that a taxi would have cost me $50.00 or more. Can you believe that? The driver kept telling me your a good guy so its a karma thing. I just to him that I like to think of it as the Grace of God. When he had dropped me off I just wanted to break down and cry. I was in awe of what God had done. He never ceases to amaze me. I just have to praise Him for His loving kindness and mercy. He had a plan all along and even though at times I started to second guess Him, get nervous wondering if I had made the wrong decision by taking the train, He still came through on His plan.

What a journey this has become as this winter storm has just missed D.C. I feel like it is as God was standing at the south side of D.C. blowing the storm and cold temperatures away from here so that our plane could left off on time. What a mighty God we serve.

This has truly been a story of Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and God. Can't wait to see what God does in Ethiopia. I hope it has something with a me staying doing ministry and being with the woman I love dearly. Would I do it again? You bet ya!