Although our plane trip to the US was blissfully uneventful, the return trip illustrates some things that can go wrong when you travel. Many of you have learned to pray for a good journey for your missionaries. Here is how God answered your prayers.
Let’s start with packing. When you return to the field from the States, you always want to bring with you things that are expensive or unavailable on the field. Each of us may take two suitcases at up to 50 pounds each plus carry-ons. Even so, we had to leave some items behild because we just did not have enough room. We carefully weighed each suitcase using bathroom scales to be sure we were not over the limit.
At the airport we found that the bathroom scales we had used were consistent. Each suitcase was between 3 and 5 pounds overweight. The charge for overweight suitcases is $50 per suitcase. Now what to do? The kindly airlines desk person let us use a set of scales that they did not need at the time. I also discovered that “50 pounds” is really 23 kilos, which is closer to 50.5 pounds. We shifted items so that each suitcase weighed exactly 50.5 pounds and put the heavier items we removed into our carry-on back packs, Ami’s purse and my laptop carrier case. This meant that our two backpacks weighed 25 pounds each, but that did not matter so much since they have wheels.
Nothing remarkable happened on the flight from Detroit to Chicago O’Hare, but I was a bit apprehensive about making the connecting flight in Brussels, since we only had 65 minutes on the ground there. Lots of stuff can happen in O’Hare airport, one of the two busiest commercial airports in the world. Flight delays are not uncommon, especially at the busy time of day our flight left. We were right on time for our departure and our arrival in Brussels. That is when things started going south.
First we had to clear passport check. Citizens of European Union countries get first priority, with their own separate lines. Those lines were short while all other lines were very long. I was beginning to think how I would contact the folks waiting for us in Budapest to let them know when we would arrive. Then something unusual happened. One of the passport checkers on the EU side had no one in his line to check, so he came out from behind his desk to ask if any EU citizens were in the other lines. I asked him if he would accept people with residence permits in an EU country and he invited us to go to the head of his line.
Our departure gate was a long way from our arrival point, so we walked and walked only to find even longer and slower moving lines at the security check point. Jean and Ami cleared security with no problem. I wore my watch and my shoes through the metal detector. Big mistake. Now I am being pat-searched and every carry-on item that I had was being searched one item at a time. I wanted to yell that I had a plane to catch, but am smart enough not to make that mistake.
With security finally at our backs, we hiked up a flight of stairs and walked toward our departure gate. This, too, would be a challenge. Normally you receive boarding passes for all your flights at the first airport. For some reason, that did not happen this time. By the time we arrived, the last of the passengers were filing onto the plane. The machine that prints the boarding passes was not working, so the nice lady at the desk had to write them out by hand, but that did not matter, as we knew we had made it.
The story does not end there. As I write this, our luggage has not yet arrived at our home. Although our flight to Brussels arrived in plenty of time to transfer the suitcases, by the time they arrived, the cargo hold of our plane was already full, so the suitcases had to wait for the next flight out. If all goes well, we should receive them by motor courier sometime this afternoon. And no, I am not upset that someone else must manhandle 303 pounds of suitcases until they arrive at our home.
