Plane Ticket Saga

Things are becoming even more real to all of us. Yesterday was a good case in point. We received our Consulate appointment time yesterday morning and were told to keep our eyes open for the travel reservations that were being arrnaged for us. We received the travel reservations by e-mail yesterday around 1:20 PM (CDT) and were told in the message that we should review these arrangements and make a decision by 5 PM (EDT) which was 4 PM (CDT). Since Ruth and I were not together and I had no way of contacting her it made things a bit complicated. It became even more complicated when I looked at the cost of this trip. I knew that it was not going to be inexpensive, but I did not expect what I saw. I decided to go to a local travel agent to see what might be possible from them on various other airlines. There was some hope in this process. I then drove to where Ruth was, found her and told her we needed to make some decisions.

In order to use our Eternal Family fund which several family and friends had contributed to in 2006 we had to book our flights through AWAA (our adoption association). I decided to contact their travel individual and mention the other fares that I had discovered. The agent then explored on our behalf these other possibilities. We were told that we could finalize things today rather than at the originally stated deadline. We learned today that in order to get these much lower fares we would need to leave a day earlier than we had originally anticipated. Since the total savings to us was over $2600 we decided that this would be a good thing to do.

In talking about this process to a good friend she stated that she wondered if God didn't just allow us to go though this process so that we would know in a more real way how good He is. Certainly He could have caused us to have the lower price right away, but in that process we might not have seen His goodness like we did after experiencing the much higher price. In any case, I am thankful for those who prayed with us during this saga and for the greatness and goodness of God in showing Himself in the midst of it all.