Tom and Danielle Brendle Connecting YOU to Tribal Missions We cannot report that our trip was uneventful, but we can report that it was exciting to see God work out the bumps along the way. When we asked you to pray, we specifically mentioned to pray about our flight from the Sepik Region. We arrived at the local airport 2 ½ hours early for the flight (in fact we had to wait outside of the airport for them to unlock the doors.) After they unlocked the doors, everyone rushed to the security desk to get an orange sticker which said that we had been security checked though we did not see even one bag inspected. After this mad rush (I was so thankful that I didn’t lose Josiah), we stood in line at the check in counter. We were about third in line for our flight. When our turn came up, Tom handed the agent our tickets and then the agent proceeded to tell us that the plane, which only holds 36 passengers, was already full. Evidently the morning flight did not take off so the people on the morning flight had been bumped to the afternoon flight. Tom told her that we HAD to get on that flight in order to make our international connections out of the capital city the following morning. While Tom was telling our story the boys and I were praying. The agent went ahead and took our tickets, and checked in our bags that were packed at the international weight limit without charging us overweight on the domestic flight. She did not assign seat numbers so Tom waited at the counter while she checked in the other people in line. The boys and I sat down and continued to pray. Moments before the boarding time, the agent handed Tom our tickets and written on the tickets were six seat numbers. Praise God we had been assigned seats. But, we knew that having a seat number did not necessarily guarantee us a seat as there have been occasions where more than one person have been assigned the same seat. The next plan of action was to get our family positioned in front of the boarding gate in order to insure that we would have a seat. Thank God we have a big family with a few big boys who helped to block the door from those who were trying to maneuver their way to the front. We all breathed a sigh of relief when we sat down in our airplane seat and tightened our seat belt. Looking back at the terminal we noticed there were still many people who indeed held boarding passes and were not allowed to board the plane.
Our next bump happened in Australia. For some reason the airline agent who checked us in for our international flight from PNG was not able to check our bags all the way through to Los Angeles. This resulted in us needing to claim our baggage and then check the bags in again for our flight to Fiji. If you have traveled internationally you probably understand that rechecking baggage is not a simple procedure. In order to claim our bags we had to go through immigration and customs; waiting in very long lines. Praise God that we had a long layover. Going through customs in Australia can be a bit tricky as the customs officials are very particular about the items they will allow in country. We had packed a lot of snacks, including homemade muffins for Josiah since we couldn’t count on him being able to eat the airline food. Usually homemade or fresh items like the muffins would have to be disposed of. Praise God we had a very gracious customs agent. We explained to him that we were transit passengers and that our son has severe allergies. He allowed us to pass through customs with our muffins. God knew that we would need those muffins. Even though we had requested special food for Josiah on later flights he still ended up having cheese and yogurt on his meal trays complete with a label that said he was allergic to milk and eggs.
Bumps can be a little unnerving. On the flights over the Pacific Ocean we were in the very back of the plane. If you have sat in the back of a large plane, you can understand the unnerving bumps that we experienced. Honestly there were times when I felt that the back end of the plane was having trouble keeping up with the front end. I certainly did a lot of praying. Thankfully all was well and I am happy to report that the boys did great on the trip. Josiah even slept for most of the 10 hour flight from Fiji to L.A.
We hit another type of bump in L.A. After clearing immigration and customs, we claimed our bags and proceeded to the transfer desk in the domestic terminal at the L.A. airport. We were a bit discouraged to have to wait in another long line. By that point, Josiah was all done with long lines. We waited and waited and our line was not moving. We eventually realized that there weren’t any agents handling the transit line. After some more waiting and some assertiveness of the passengers in line, an agent was assigned to our line. Eight hours later when we boarded our plane for Orlando, we realized that we had been upgraded to the economy plus seats. Our inconvenience in line resulted in us having lots of leg room for our last flight (which took off at 10:30p.m. L.A. time and landed at 6:00a.m. Orlando time). We were very happy to have the extra space on that last flight.
We cannot tell you how happy we are to be in Florida with Tom’s family. We are living with Tom’s parents and his brother and family are just up the street a few houses. Keep praying for us as we are still recovering from jet lag. (I am writing this at 5:00a.m. because I just couldn’t sleep any longer.) Thankfully Tom and the boys are still asleep.
Thank you again for faithfully praying for us. We will keep in touch as we transition into a new life in the U.S.A.
