Departures and Arrivals

As I was packing for my flight to Dublin on the 8th of June, Crysta, my good friend and ride to the airport, asked me to check my ininery. I starred at the departure time: 3pm. I must be seeing things. I was certain my flight didn't leave until later that evening. It was 4:30pm. I re-read the ininery, but read the same departure time: 3pm. There must be some mistake. I gave my itinery to Crysta to read. She read 3pm, too. I wasn't seeing things. I had misread my itinery. My flight had already left.

I got on the phone with the airline, Aer Lingus, and listened to their hold music for 20 minutes. We gave up on the phone and Crysta drove me to SFO, an hour drive from where we were.

In vain we sought a human representative of the Irish airline through which I had purchased my ticket in the international terminal. The best efforts of numerous airport personal, other airlines, and calls to the airline could offer me nothing better than the oppurtunity to leave a voicemail with Aer Lingus.

Many tears and much embarassment later, I booked the next flight from SFO to Ireland. The two days I had planned to spend with dear friends in Northern Ireland were instead spent in Cupertino (which isn't such a bad place, afterall). I trust God can use this embarassing mistake for good as only he is skillful enough to do.

I did get to Dublin, and when I got there, I had six hours before my next flight left to Romania. I took a bus to the center of Dublin, walked around downtown, bought some food which I enjoyed on a beautiful park lawn filled with people on a sunny Irish afternoon, managed to send one postard to the U.S. and caught the next flight to Bucharest. Our plane was filled with Romanian people, but I managed to share a row with a skinny, older Irish man with a very chatty and friendly dispositon. We interacted with the three-year-old who hung over the seats infront of us and spoke an interesting English/Romanian, childish sort of babel.

Mr. Irishman insisted on paying for a tea for me and somehow chatted his way to his general view of mankind: good people with good intensions and good hearts. I tried to sympathize, but wondered if he had forotten about genecides, rape, murder and the obvious bloodstained history we shared. Surely he must be aware of these acts. I think what he was saying, that we all have basicly good inside us, would seem like a nice view on the outside (and I'm certain he believed his intentions were good), but to ignore the crimes humanity has commited against inself, seems to me like another great crime itself. I wasn't eager to add this to my list of wrong-doing. I looked at him, but he saw somehow that I wasn't in total agreement with what he was saying.

"You have a different view?" He asked.

"Humankind does do good," I conceeded, "but where does the good come from? It has to come from somewhere."

"Yes!" he joyfully agreed, "and it comes from inside of you!"

I frowned. "Surely," he continued, "you don't think these people are bad," he said, referencing the passengers in the other seats.

"I think they are bad," I answered honestly, "and you and I are in the same boat as them. All people are in need of salvation."

And when he heard me say this last sentence, he seemed to deflate. Of all the people he could have sat next to on the plane, his disappointed sigh seemed to say, he had to sit next to the evangelical Christian. I had seemed young and friendly, so this disappointment was even more unexpected. Honestly, I felt very comfortable and fascinated by the topic on hand and I said a few more things, trying to engage in dialogue, but the Irishman was done. He turned to his left to strike up a conversation with the older Romanian woman on the other side of him.

When I got to Bucharest, no one was waiting for me at the airport as I expected. I realized after about half an hour that Lili forgot to pick me up and then realized I'd never asked her for her phone number or address when we have conversed over the internet about her picking me up. I sat in the airport and waited. I realized that though I had several friends in Bucharest, I didn't have any of their phone numbers on hand. If I had been stuck at the airport during the day, I could have found my friends at work or likely found some American interns at the apartment owned by Children to Love International, but at this hour (10pm) no one was at work and I couldn't be sure someone would open the door for a stronger at the American apartment, even if I did speak English.

At about midnight I realized there was an "American-looking" girl beside me who hadn't left the airport. I had decided to spend the night at the airport by this time and go to the office where my friends would be in the morning by bus and metro. After much hesitation, I turned to the "American-looking" girl and asked if she spoke English. She answered me with an accent, "I do!" and she eagerly left her seat and began a converation with me that lasted all night. She wasn't American, she was from Turkey, living in Milan, a 36-year-old fashion design student who looked much younger. Her friend was getting married in Turkey and she wanted to go back for the wedding, but couldn't buy a ticket for Istanbol because her bank card wasn't working. Her parents had put money in her account in Turkey, but the bank wasn't giving it to her. She tried several machines, and wasn't sure what to do next.

"My situation is worse than yours," she said, refering to my being left at the airport. She was right. Her name was Belkeys and she was so easy to talk to.

We put my camera on Belkeys' baggage cart and set the timer to get some photos together. I showed her the National Geographic I read on the plane and the picture that I thought Jennifer Aniston was in in one of their articles(Mach 2009, Sinai article), and she showed me some of her fashion designs and a journal inwhich she recorded her dreams.

Belkeys planned to call her bank when it opened around 8:30 am, but that would be too late to catch the 8:35 flight to Istanbol. At 6am I encouraged her to go to the ticket counter, show them what little money she had and ask if she could fly standby. She looked doubtful.

I said, "Tell them 'I spent all night in the airport waiting for my card to work, but it hasn't and my friend is getting married in Istanbol. I really want to attend the ceremony."

"But it's not like me to try to get what I want with sympathy," Belkeys said. "I would feel uncomfortable saying that."

"You can tell them that, too," I said. "Say, I feel uncomfortable mentioning this, because it's not like me at all, but I've spent all night in the airport and my friend is getting married today in Turkey."

"Do you think it will work?" She asked.

"I think it probably won't," I said honestly, "but if it did, it'd be worth it to have tried."

I watched our baggage while she went to the ticket counter. "I'm going to pray you'll get the ticket, while you go," I told her. I bowed my head and prayed while she approached the counter. "God, please," I prayed, "do a miracle. Help her to get the ticket. Give the ticket woman compassion on Belkeys. Please. Please. Please." I begged because it seemed so impossible. I continued to pray as I waited.

And ... God opened the ticket woman's heart. She compassionatley listened to Belkeys. She looked at what money Belkeys had. It wasn't enough. "Let me try your ATM card," the woman said, "and see if we can get the remaining amount." Belkeys skeptically gave her the card that she had just tried to use twenty minutes earlier in the airport's ATM without success.

"The card is working," the woman told her. "You can make the flight."

My hands were folded in prayer as I watched Belkeys from a distance. I couldn't hear their words, but I saw Belkeys jump up and down and give a little excited scream. Tears came into my eyes. God had heard me. After Belkeys had her ticket, she walked back to me and we hugged. We were both in shock. I told her I would never forget how she had gotten the flight when it seemed so unlikely. "Maybe this is why my ride forgot me," I told told Belkeys, "So that we could spend the night in the airport together and meet each ohter and I could watch you get the flight and be encouraged that God hears my prayers." We kissed and parted at the same time, her to Istanbol and me to find my friends in Bucharest.

At this time I was very tired and carrying my 25 kilogram bag plus backpack and purse up and down the long metro steps and wheeling my cargo around the streets of Bucharest was no easy feat, but I made it to the office. I heard my friends before I saw them. I left my bags on the porch and ran inside the office.

They stopped their meeting and looked at me with surprise and delight and listened to me (mostly in Romanian) tell about how Lili forgot to pick me up and my night at the airport.

"But what did you eat?" Florina asked. "Didn't you get hungry?"

"I ate some of the presents I brought from America for you." We all laughed. I felt so at home after seeing them. I was loved and definitely cared for and having that makes one feel at home wherever they are.