Today marks the third day of re-acclamation back to reality after what I would call one of the most eye-opening weeks of my life.
Last Sunday, March 2, A group of 21 people from all walks of life came together to make the trip down to the Dominican Republic for a week of Kingdom work. We sent 14 out of Grand Rapids and the remaining 6 out of Detroit to meet up with the rest of the team in Atlanta for our layover before flying to Santo Domingo. I was a part of the group of 6 flying out of Detroit alongside my new fiancée of a whopping 20 whole hours, my best friend, his high school sweetheart, our courageous pastor (he actually chose to travel with the group of us... I find that pretty brave), and our new found friend, Evan. And oh what a trip we had!
The group of us made our way out to Ann Arbor Saturday night to cut our drive time to the airport Sunday morning. We left just in time to drive all the way through Michigan's most recent snow storm. Though, what actually is a drive across Michigan without a snow storm this winter? Once we were all safe in Ann Arbor, it was time for an early lights out for our 4:45am wake up call. We did manage one random laughing attack before bed.
Sunday morning started off just the same as Saturday night ended... with the leftovers of the snow storm. The drive to the airport was certainly no better than the drive to Ann Arbor. But as Kurt put it, he just followed my tail lights, and if I was going in the ditch, "we were going in together". All was well.
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| Goodbye snow! |
Even with the roads, we arrived to the airport with plenty of time to spare to get all of our bags checked, through security, and to our gate before boarding. But that's just when the fun started. After filing onto the plane and into our seats, we taxi out onto the tarmac. Only to sit for at least an hour waiting for the plane to be de-iced. After we eventually make it into the air and reach altitude for Wi-Fi capabilities, our fancy Delta travel apps tell us that the delay "has affected our trip" and begins listing alternate flights to Santo Domingo, as it suspected we were going to miss our connection in Atlanta with the rest of the team. At this point, I began wishing I never told the group I've always wanted to run through the airport... But our determination began. We were making this flight. We landed with 20 minutes to make it from our domestic terminal to the international. Unfortunately, my bucket list got one more check mark. We were most definitely running. Only to make it to our gate at 10:41am for our 10:36am departure, with not a single person in sight at the gate. The gate staff must have had something very important to get to.
At this point, Delta had already automatically re-booked us for a flight out of Atlanta at 1:20pm for New York (LaGuardia), and then from New York (JFK) to Santo Domingo. Yes, arriving in one New York airport and departing from another just a few hours later, with our luggage to come with. Thank goodness for that fancy Delta travel app because not all of our bags followed us to LaGuardia as expected... But it listed our missing bags as going straight from Atlanta to JFK on a different flight. So we jumped on a shuttle and made our way to JFK. After re-checking the bags we had and going back through security, it was again time to hustle. That 3 hour layover was eaten up quickly. Just as we made it to the gate in the nick of time, the flight was delayed by 30 minutes because our plane was late arriving and needed a quick cleaning and resetting for our flight. A chance to catch our breaths. Had the flight been on time, we just might have missed that one too.
But finally... we were on our plane set for Santo Domingo. It was a good feeling to know that regardless of this final flight time, we were going to be in the Dominican Republic when we landed. Only 9 hours after we had originally expected. Now it was just time to get to the hotel and catch some shut eye before waking for our first day of work. And work it was. Hard work.
Up next: serving in the DR
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