The kids and I spent two long weeks missing Tony while he was on the other side of the world in Indonesia showing the love of Christ to a part of the world that is dirty, and hot and lost. A Muslim country, you can't stand on street corners and proclaim God's love, but you can show them. Tony and the team he was with spent their time cleaning, reconstructing, renewing a dilapidated old school that has become a seminary. Even in a very closed and dark country, you can find bright lights. This school is one of them.
In order to keep their travel expenses low so that they would have more to give and use in Indonesia, the team traveled on a long, and rigorous path to Indonesia and followed the same route home again. It was a small flight on a rickety plane from the city they were in to Jakarta, the capital city. From Jarkata they flew to Singapore, from Singapore to Moscow, Moscow to Houston and at long last, Houston to Atlanta. Three days of traveling, thousands of miles covered, a globe nearly circled. When the team arrived in Houston, they went through customs and had to recheck their bags for their flight to Atlanta. Mass chaos ensued. Well, mass chaos for Tony. The team's bags were checked and loaded and all taken care of in a jiffy. But Tony was told to go to a different gate to check his bag. He tried to tell them that everyone else put their bags in a different place, but the man was insistent that Tony take his bag to Gate D to check it. Tony had to run a long way to get his bag there and back in time. It just seemed like something was wrong about the whole situation.
We had lots of time once we got there to sit and watch people and Jacob and Kaylen had plenty of time to run in front of people, visit the bathroom, jump up and down on the bench, talk to all the strangers, eat the snacks I brought, fight over who was going to hold my phone while they looked at pictures, stare at returning soldiers and generally act as small, bored children will when there is nothing else to do. I actually had to confiscate their signs when they became weapons.
We waited and waited and finally it was time to line up and start watching for him to come. We watched and watched. Jacob held his sign up as high as he could and when his arm got tired, I helped him keep his sign high. He wanted to be sure that Dad would find us right away.
It was a special moment when Tony spotted us. My kids charged him, and I stood back and wiped away happy tears. As proud as I was of him going and serving, I sure was happy to have him back. We all were.
Hugs and kisses and people talking at once. It was wonderful!
Tired and ready to go home to a hot shower- it had been three days since his last- Tony carried Jacob and Kaylen and we headed to baggage claim.
And then we realized that all that chaos Tony had endured in Houston, the sprint through the terminal, the confusion and certainty that something was wrong became so beautifully right. Out of the whole team - some twenty people- only one person's bags were already there waiting on us. Tony's bags. While everyone else waited and waited for their bags, we got to go straight to the car and take our tired wold traveler home.
It isn't much, and if it hadn't happened, our life wouldn't have been much different today. But my heart was so touched to know that God was thinking about me when He caused the confusion in Houston that resulted in a blessing at home.
With all the hunger, disease, fighting, pain, and stuggle that happens daily around the world, you would think God would have His hands too full to think about a little family in a typical small town, in a typical small house, living and working and playing in a most typical way to stop and make special arrangements just to bless them. But those beautiful scarred hands are never too full, His burdens never too heavy, His love never too small for even the least of us. Ever. Oh, how He loves us.
A milestone occured while we were at the airport...Marlee found her ear!
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