Thanks for your prayers

I got home Tuesday afternoon. Thanks for your prayers.
As the plane was taking off from the Costa Rica airport on Monday to head for Atlanta, one of the engines went out and the plane swerved. They immediately killed the other engine and after sitting on the plane for over two hours they decided to put us up in a hotel for the night. I had been getting a runny nose and cough during the conference, so after I got settled into my room I walked to a pharmacy to get some cough medicine. On the way back to the hotel a bird dropped a bomb on me. Later I went to the hotel’s restaurant for supper. I got food poisoning from the food I ate there. I found out about it when I woke up in the middle of the night. I made it to the bathroom, but as I was going back to bed I felt faint and sure enough I found myself on the floor–not sure how long I was out. I fainted twice. I have some bruises and cuts as a result. I also had to clean up some blood on the floor. I got up at 3:15 AM to get to the airport. I was one of the first ones in line and they told me an airplane part was being ordered from Atlanta and the flight would leave at 2 PM. Why did they get us up so early if they weren’t going to send us until 2? Since I didn’t have any confidence the part would arrive, I asked if they could send me through another carrier. So I got a flight with American leaving at 10:30 AM and I would arrive in Chattanooga around 11 PM. The person just ahead of me in line also got put on American. So while we were in line at the American counter she asked me if they had given me the wrong ticket. Her ticket had the wrong name– a man’s name– on it. No, my ticket had my name on it. So when she got to the front of the America line, she asked if she could go to the Delta line to get the right ticket and would they keep her place in line. They said yes. So when she came back, she said they had put her on a 7:30 AM Delta flight. So I immediately got out of the American line and went to the Delta counter. They weren’t sure if I could get on or not. Told me to wait for a while. But eventually I got on.

The conference was an amazing experience. The Lord was clearly touching a lot of people. One of the pastors said, “This is exactly what we needed.” I could go on and on about all the good things the Lord was doing in people’s hearts during those days. I’m sure the evil one wasn’t happy about it. So thanks for your prayers. I’m feeling pretty much back to normal today. Tomorrow and Friday I have to help a colleague give a workshop on cross-cultural ministry for a church in South Carolina.