“Man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps,” Proverbs 16:9

    This scripture could not ringing any truer during my trip out to visit the teams. Ten days before I was supposed to travel to Asia, I had to go to Honolulu for an appointment regarding my UK visa application and then send my passport away to get processed in Los Angeles. It normally takes about 5 days to process the application and on the fifth day I received a call from one of the ladies at the British Consulate telling me that I still needed a few more documents for her to approve my visa. She told me that she would get back to me to let me know what I still needed to send her. The following day, having not heard from her yet, I called back, got a list of documents that I still needed, phoned up Scotland at 10pm their time and had Ruth and her mom try and track down some of what I still needed to get them to fax over a copy of those forms. This was a Wednesday and I was supposed to leave on  Friday, two days later.

    At this point I had to phone up our travel agent and ask him to reschedule my flights for the following Tuesday, hoping that my passport would be back in time. I was scheduled to teach in a DTS in a “restricted-access” country on the following monday, so I also had to get in touch with them to see if they could reschedule my week or let me speak just a half week. Thankfully, they were able to switch the following week and my week, so I would still have a full week of teaching with the school.

    Friday morning I received a call from the British Embassy telling me that my visa had been approved and was being shipped back to me. I spent much time praying that it would return by monday so I could leave on Tuesday. At this point I had a choice: I could either be upset and wish I was in Asia all weekend like I originally thought I would be and not enjoy the weekend, or I could choose to ask the Lord what He was up to and to trust that He knew what was best for me. I thought what was best for me was to be in Asia that weekend and beginning to teach, the Lord knew what was best was for me to hang back in Maui a few extra days.

    That night a few of us on base bought some Ahi steaks and had quite a good meal together, I got to talk to Ruth on the phone one more time than expected, I got to see my friend Will who was my outreach leader in DTS since he was speaking the following week in SBFM and I got to go to church one more time, play drums, and enjoy fellowship with everyone there. All those events were unexpected blessings that the Lord knew was better for me to enjoy than being on a plane at that time.

   

    Monday morning came around and then the afternoon came around... no passport. I was just on my way into the office to phone up our travel agent before he left his office to ask him to reschedule my flights, again. On my way there, the UPS truck pulled up and with it, my passport! Praise the Lord for that! So I finished packing, knowing now that I would indeed be traveling out on Tuesday morning. I said goodbye to people after dinner and went to bed in preparation for the next day of traveling.

    Tuesday morning found me at the Maui airport waiting for my flight to arrive so I could fly to Honolulu. The plane coming from Honolulu had a tire problem and so we were delayed an hour. Because of this, I missed my flight from Honolulu to Tokyo, Japan. I had to pay an extra $100 to fly out the next day since China Airlines only flies out once a day from Honolulu. Now I was faced with another choice: I could get upset because I now had to wait longer to get out to Asia and had to pay more money and miss out on what God would have for me that day, or I could ask the Lord, “Okay, I thought I was supposed to be on the plane today, but apparently You have different plans. What do You have for me today, Lord?”

    I called up some people at the YWAM base in Honolulu and wound up staying over there for the day and night. The DTS director over there had just returned from visiting their teams in India and Thailand about an hour before I called, but when I arrived at the base I got to go out to lunch with him and my other friend Dan who was speaking over there for a couple days. I didn’t know when the next time I would see Dan would be, since I am moving to Scotland, but the Lord knew what was best for me. The three of us went out to lunch and then took Dan back to the airport since he was leaving. I had about a 45 minute window to see him, and the Lord worked it out and delayed a plane in Honolulu so I could have lunch with Dan, and then spend more time getting to know some of the other people in Honolulu and have an extra night in a bed by myself! It was quite a blessing.

    The next morning I returned to the Honolulu airport, this time determined that I would indeed get on a plane and make it out to Ch!na. I got to see the nice ladies at the China Airlines counter again, check in and go to the gate. I was even more expectant of what the Lord had for me on this plane ride, since it was apparent that I was supposed to be on this plane and not the one the previous friday or even the day before. I don’t normally get into great conversations on the plane, but this time I was eager to find out who I was sitting next to since obviously I was supposed to be on this plane and no others. When I got on the plane I found myself in an aisle seat in row 16, with no one next to me. I figured that this was just an added blessing to enjoy some extra leg space for once! Thank you Jesus for that. The plane had a personal TV, so I got to catch up on some movies and after about 8 hrs of watching movies, we started our descent into Japan. About this time, some people started to stand up and put a few things away into the overhead compartment. I looked up and about 8 rows ahead of me, on the other side of the plane, was our old DTS Director in Maui, Andy Byrd!

    I called out his name, got his attention and we were both shocked to not only see each other on the same plane, but also the fact that we had been about 20 feet away from one another for the past 8 hrs and hadn’t noticed one another! So we got to catch up a bit, which was a huge blessing and then pray together once we got in the Tokyo Airport. I also didn’t know when the next time I would see Andy again since I am moving to Scotland, but the Lord also worked it out for me to connect with him and for us to be encouraged and pray together as well, and on a plane to Japan of all places!

    Since all of my plane tickets said May 9 or 10 on them, and it was now May 13 and 14, every time I stopped I had to go to the airline counters and see if I could get on the next flights. I managed to get on my next flight to Beij!ng but I didn’t know if I would make the next flight to D-lian. Once I got to the next airport, I had to find my way around and try to get on the flight I was supposed to, since I had friends picking me up at the airport in the next city.The flight I was supposed to be on was full, but they managed to get me on another flight about an hour and a half later, which I was grateful for, even if it did prolong my trip again. So they hand wrote the change on my ticket and told me the time of my next flight. I had to get on a free shuttle and drive to the older terminal at the airport and then walk 10 mins with my bags to the terminal area to check in. The people behind the previous counter managed to tell me the right time of my next flight, but wrote in the wrong flight information, so when I went to check in the person behind the counter told me my ticket was for a different airline. I couldn’t believe it, I knew I was supposed to be on that specific flight, so the agent behind the counter asked his manager and he said it was okay for me to travel on the flight I needed to be on. After that I tried to get through security and since my boarding pass didn’t match the info on my ticket, it took another bit of explaining in broken english to get me through security and into the gate I needed to be at. At this point I realized that I hadn’t exchanged any money and had no way of getting in touch with the people who were supposed to pick me up and let them know I was on a later flight. So I just prayed that they would still be there when I arrived.

    I arrived in D-lian at about 1130pm. There was no one there to pick me up. Most of the sstores were closed and I could exchange any more money. I had the name of the hotel I was supposed to stay at written down on a piece of scrap paper, took out money at an ATM (I had no idea what the exchange rate was, so I thought 500 in multiples of 100 sounded good...) and tried to get a ride to this hotel. The mini-bus driver looked like he had no idea where he was going, so I thought,  “Great, I make it all the way out here and now its nearly midnight in a country I’ve never been to before, where I can’t speak the language, and my one hope of finding someone I know is to make it to this hotel and this guy is lost...” Thankfully, he wasn’t completely lost and I managed to find the hotel and get in touch with my friend who I was staying with, who was quite surprised to hear my voice on the phone at the hotel lobby. I was quite grateful for him to come down and bring me up to the room.

    So despite all the plans I made in my mind and heart, the Lord knew what was best for me and not only allowed me to connect with good friends that I wasn’t expecting to, but also sent me on a bit of adventure through it all and reminded me of how much He is in control and not me. Once I arrived at the hotel everything worked out fine for the week and you can read about my time there in another blog.