Crazy Answered Prayers & Blessings: Story #4
Story #4: God Cancels Our Flight Home
Last year for Poland my church teamed up with a few churches from Kentucky and Indiana to help put on a 1-week basketball camp. This year Proem ministries decided to do 2 one-week camps: we (Rolling Hills) would do the first one and the other churches would do the second.
My brother’s original plan for this year was to go to Poland for both of them (a total of 2 1/2 weeks). However, this didn’t work out because of flight issues — we basically signed up way too late for the trip and he couldn’t find a flight that would work out, so he was stuck with only going for the first week of basketball.
Flash forward to the end of our trip:
We’re at the airport in Poland, ready to board our flight. We already went through all the check-in stuff and security checkpoints and waiting at the terminal, and we’re now sitting on a bus outside of the terminal that’s going to take us directly to the plane.
A voice comes over the intercom, “Thanks for waiting…we’ll be going to the plane in just a few minutes.”
A few minutes go by and the bus still hasn’t moved yet.
More minutes go by, and then more.
“Thanks for waiting patiently. We’re having a few issues that we’re working out on the plane, but for now we’re going to take you back to the terminal to wait until we’re ready.”
The bus takes us back to the terminal and I throw down my bags, lay down over a few of the seats, and pass out.
I wake up an hour later to my brother standing over me.
“Hey dude…hey, hey…”
I look up at.
“Hey bro, the flight’s cancelled and I think I’m gonna stay another week.”
What happened?
During my nap time, apparently my bro went up to the “front” desk (whatever it’s called) and talked to them about the flight. The policy for the airline is this: if your flight gets cancelled, you can move take another flight up to one week later…for free.
My brother found this out, walked away, sat for a minute, and started praying. ‘God, if you want me to stay in Poland you need to make this really clear for me. If our flight gets cancelled and there’s another flight going back to the U.S. later today, then I’ll go back to the U.S. But if our flight gets cancelled and there’s not another flight today, then I’ll stay.’
Low and behold, the flight got cancelled and there were no other flights going out that day to the U.S.!
Soooooo……
My brother got to stay in Poland an extra week and the rest of us got complimentary room/food at a local hotel by the airport (which was freakin sweet by the way). Right before I went to sleep that night I skyped my parents and told them what happened (my brother hadn’t told them yet)! That was a fun conversation to say the least :)
Then I went on Facebook and starting chatting with one of the ladies from the Indiana church that had just arrived to the camp at Poland!
We got to talking and this is where the story gets crazier:
Apparently the night before (our last night at camp), my brother and Malita (the lady from Indiana) were chatting on Facebook. They were trying to figure out every and any way that he’d be able to stay for the next week, but they couldn’t. Malita told me that they “were praying SOOOOO hard” that he’d be able to stay somehow.
Low and behold, our flight gets cancelled.
Not only that, but get this:
The airport was a four-hour drive away from the Proem camp. Daniel, the director of the basketball camp, had given us a ride on a mini bus and had stayed the night with over at a hotel in the city. Our flight was in the early afternoon, and Daniel was going to take off to go back to camp way before that.
So apparently when we stayed at the hotel overnight, Daniel forgot to turn off his lights to the bus. After we headed to the airport, Daniel woke up to find the battery of his car completely dead. This left him stuck in the city!
It just-so-happened that he was stuck in the city long enough to be around when our flight got cancelled. He ended up coming back to the airport to not only help us with fixing our flights, but also to give my brother a ride back to camp.
If this didn’t happen, my brother would have been stuck 4 hours outside of camp and he would have had to figure out transportation back to camp.
Explanation:
“Coincidence” or God?
I’m banking on the latter ;)
