His plans are not always our plans

As we were traveling to the airport in Charlotte, my mom called me and reminded us of an expression that we used growing up in West Africa.  WAWA.  The expressional simply means West Africa Wins Again.  WAWA is not the least bit an expression of frustration.  It is an expression of a surrendered acceptance.  It is an acceptance that reminds us that no matter how much we as individuals or as a modern society believe that we are in control, we simply our not. 

Why the philosophical rant?  Because we got to experience WAWA in its fullest upon our arrival in New York.

The short version of the story is that air traffic control delayed our plane getting to the gate in New York and Orbitz had only given us a 30 minute buffer to make our flight and Royal Air Maroc has the world's strictest policy about being on the plane 1 hour before departure.

Hours - literally - of conversation with agents at the airport and on the phone allowed us to transition from anger to acceptance and we came to the realization that God had not planned for us to make the flight on July 4th.

What was amazing is how quickly He began to show Himself to us through the actions of the people around us.  Rosario, the Delta Agent, who fought with Air Maroc to get them to let us on and, when we collectively failed, he argued with his bosses to get us hotel rooms for the night.  Barbara, the kind waitress at our hotel restaurant, who discounted our meal and shared with us about her life.  CVS, the pharmacy, that accepted a critical prescription for Sue that had been left behind.  In every instance, God provided.

We are now in NY waiting to return to the airport and continue our itinerary exactly 24 hours delayed.  We are able to laugh about it now and we know with all conviction that His plan may not be our plan, but it should be!

On a comical note, the ladies adjusted the words to the Wiki song from VBS to be A-a-WAWA, B-a-WAWA, C-a-WAWA and sang it quite robustly at the airport last night.  I don't know if it ministered to any of the strangers around us, but the it certainly was a ministry to the spirit of our team.

We are looking forward to making the next update FROM Africa.

Philip (from the Starbucks by the World Trade Center site)