Swaziland: The Beginning

Hello world. Or whoever is reading.

I think I might give this blogging thing another go, at least to cover my experience with this Swaziland trip. After that I make no guarentees.

So for those of you who don't know, I'm on my way to Swaziland for a 2-ish week misison project. I won't go into details of how it all came about and all of the wild, incredible stories that are involved in this project thus far. If you realllllyyy wanna know just ask me. I'm just gonna start with the actual trip itself.

Today is Sunday June 30th, and I'm in the lobby of the Marriot in the Houston International Airport. Side note - even if the nice friendly lady says it's ok if you sleep here, it's not a good idea because the mean man will come wake you up and tell you "don't sleep in my lobby." Dude, if you only knew, if you only knew.

Let's back up. *Disclaimer. This is a very long story. If you don't want to read all of it, at least skip down to Saturday June 29.

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This was "THE PLAN": 

Step 1-June 28: Fly from Dallas Lovefield with Brant (another teammate who lives in Dallas) to Houston.

Step 2-June 28: Meet up with the whole Swazi gang (5 student-ish people, and 1 professor = 6 total) during the 5 hour layover in Houston. 3 of us on one flight route, 3 of us on another. At this point Mark (another teammate), Brant, and myself fly to Dubai (HELLO LIFELONG DREAM).

Step 3-June 29/30: 9 hour layover in Dubai. Then head from Dubai to Johannesberg, South Africa.

Step 4-June 30: J-berg to Manzini, Swaziland.

Step 5-June 30: Drive to the African Christian College campus where we will be living and working for the next two weeks!!

Friday, June 28
This is the day!! The day we leave for Swaziland!! All of the hardwork and fundraising has finally come togetther and we are leaving today! Well...it was supposed to be "the day."

Everything was going great in the morning - and mostly on schedule (ok so maybe I was a few minutes behind, but it's me we're talking about). Anyways, my family arrived at my apartment to take me to the airport and off we went! (**There is an INCREDIBLE story that happened right about this time, but I will tell you about it later :)) So we get to the airport on time and meet up with another teammate and his family. We get checked in and get through security and everything is running smoothly. We have about an hour and a half til take off.

About the time we are supposed to be boarding, they make an announcement that there will be an hour and a half delay. Seriously? Oh by the way, did I mention we were in the worst airport in the world? It shouldn't even be considered and airport. We flew out of Lovefield Terminal 1 - aka a less classy Greyhound bus stop. The walls were bare and white. There was one place to get "food" - which was either a tuna sandwhich or a fruit cup. And then of course munchies. All overpriced. Although it's not ideal news, we have a five-hour layover in Houston so this delay won't affect us catching our next flight that was scheduled to leave Houston at 6:50. Well, it shouldn't have.

We wait awhile and notice other people are still in line at the gate talking to the ladies. I don't know what they are talking about because there is no flight they can check into. Then we hear that there will not be another update on our flight until 4:00. Not that it will leave at 4:00, but there won't even be an update. Then Brant and I put it together that those people in line are trying to re-route their flight plan, because the delay will cause them to miss their connecting flights. So we jump in a line.

This is the part where it starts to blur. Lines. Stand-by. No luck. Our original flight now won't even have an update til 5:00. Talking on the phone to Charles, the professor going with us who is in Oklahoma until his plane takes off. Trying to talk to the only three ladies who are there, and they are starting to get an attitude with us. At one point we stood at their desk, I was literally laying on it, and they would not even acknowledge us. THEY WOULDN'T EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE OUR EXISTANCE!! WHO DOES THAT?!?! At one point we left the United Airlines portion and walked to the Southwest terminal because we heard a rumor that they had a flight to Houston with open seats. But they told us there would be a huge money ordeal to switch airlines and also it was to the wrong airport in Houston so we wouldn't be able to make in time to the right one to catch our next flight. Talked on the phone with my dad. As the clock ticked closer to 5 we became more and more anxious and frustrated because after 5:00 we wouldn't make it in time to catch our international flight. We even tried to get on a 5:20 flight because Charles thought we could barely make it. But of course we didn't. So it's 5:30. There's no way we could have made it to catch our international flight.

Now let me add the most confusing element: there are 3 different airlines involved. United Airlines, Emirites, and South African. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have missed our flights, and this plan would have worked perfectly. It also was the cheapest way to go. But because we missed the first one with United, it screwed us up for the rest of the trip. And United was willing (sort of) to accomodate us domestically. But they weren't under any other contract to help us get out of the country. Emirites never did anything wrong in the first place, so they couldn't help us for free.

So now we are on the phone with Emirites the remainder of the day, trying to find someone who speaks English well enough to understand our situation and can help us. At this point we loose communication with the rest of our Swazi team because they got on all the planes they were supposed to get on. God bless them. Brant and I are still stuck in Dallas. Then we start talking to Ben, the guy in charge of the Center for Global Missions, who oversees the entire trip. Brant and I are on the phone constantly with either United Airlines, Emirites, Ben, or my father (who was graciously helping us). Through lots of 3 way calls, it seemed like the only options we were getting were - fly out the 16th of July because all of the other flights from now until then for two people flying economy were booked, or pay an extra $6000 EACH to bump up to business class. Or start over completely, forget about our entire flight plan and start over - loosing all that money and spending and entire new fee to try and get to Swaziland somehow, some other way.

It was a whole lot of akljg;aojef;aojirg;oaiejf;aijrgh;oaiejfjwbdgALWiojd:abgrilaufalkj.
I realize that's not actually a word, but that's pretty much exactly how I felt.

My dad came and picked Brant and I up from Lovefield and drove us to DFW so we could talk to someone who represented Emirites face to face. Which was a really good idea until we got there and no one from Emirites OR United was there. Brant's parents came and picked him up from DFW, and my dad took me home. At this point Brant and I decided we might try one or two more ditch efforts with Emirites that night, but mostly give up and sleep and try this whole thing again first thing tomorrow. I cried the entire way home.

I didn't back to my apartment until 11:00 pm. It was 13 hours after I left it in the first place. It felt like an eternity. My dad picked up the phone and tried Emirites one more time. We had to fix the Emirites part first because they were the people who were supposed to get us to the southern part of Africa. He explained the entire ordeal to this lady, Heba. She understood us but didn't give us very good news. Then she asked if we could arrive in Capetown instead of J-berg?

Why not? That's closer to Swaziland than Dallas is.

From 11:00-12:00, my father and I worked via the phone with Heba and Ben, but got flights booked that used our Emirites credits. It cost us extra money and extra days off the trip, but not $12,000, and we would get there before the trip ended!! Then my dad called United Airlines because he just wanted to get as much of it done as he could. It worked. We had the first half of our trip planned, and our new flight plan started on Sunday June 30th. My parents left. I finally got to sleep.

Saturday June 29
I won't go into as much detail about this day. But it involved being on the phone again all day, planning and negotiating the South African airlines part of the trip. By the end of the day, we finished our new route, which now looks like this:
Step 1-June 30: 6:30 am fly to Houston
Step 2-June 30/July 1: 11 hour layover, leave Houston to Dubai at 6:50 pm
Step 3-July 1/July 2: Dubai to Capetown
Step 4-July 2: Capetown to J-berg, overnight in J-berg
Step 5-July 3: J-berg to our beloved Swazi team in Swaziland

Sunday June 30
I got up at 3:30 am - got ready and headed out to DFW(Yea, I'm never going back to Lovefield ever again). Met Brant at the airport. Dealt with crazy. GOT ON THE PLANE. THE PLANE TOOK OFF. WE LANDED IN HOUSTON.

Which brings us to now, the middle of our 11 hour layover.


I didn't tell you all that just so you would want to pull out your hair. If you're wondering, I'm pretty much bald. Not really, but really. Now's the part where I go deeper. Can I be honest with you? I'm going through a really really low time in my faith with God. I won't go into the details about that. But I am. Yesterday, I kind of tied the events of the day to my faith. As the day went of, heartbreak after heartbreak, as the anger complied, my spirits were literally crushed. I was almost to the point of giving up on the trip to Swaziland, and I honestly speaking, I was close to a "giving-up" point in faith. That doesn't sound very good, especially coming from someone who is about to go on a mission trip to share Jesus. That's the biggest reason I was excited about this trip, because I knew it was going to do big things for my faith. Well, it is. Everyone all day Friday kept telling me everything happens for a reason, and God has a plan for all this. God's gonna work. It will happen. Everything will turn into good. I didn't really believe them.


My father's sacrificial love saved me. Hmm...I guess that sentence could be taken two ways. My dad gave up on work on Friday to make my world his. He fought with me and for me, when i could barely even stand and hold the phone to my ear. This wasn't his battle. When he took me home, he was the one that made the call again. When I heard there was a glimmer of hope, my spirits rose. I picked up my phone and started fighting too. He was Jesus to me.

One good thing about the new flight plan is that we had a day to rest. I was exhausted physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. A day of rest was a necessity, and God granted us that.

But mostly, it has been good for me. I spent a lot of Saturday in prayer. I have never been so humbled. Everyone wanted to help Brant and I. Ben gave up this weekend to help us, when God knows that man has enough on his plate right now(which by the way if you are still reading this say a prayer for Bella Langford). My grandfather wouldn't even sleep until something was solved. He offers his time and money over and over again. I can't even speak because I am filled to overflowing with gratitude and humility.

Maybe the reason all this happened was for me (if so, sorry Brant, but I know God is bigger and you're learning a lot too). I got to go to church Saturday night because I was home. And you know what? That sermon was for me. It was the story of the gosoel, which I so desprately needed to hear. God spoke to me in that service. I was stunned. And yet, at the same time, a part of me knew something crazy like that was going to happen. Because that's just the way God works.

This song is everything to me right now. I listened to it Saturday and bawled my eyes out before God. Give it a listen. It's true for me. And for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prCOifyARGs

I can't say I'm on the mountain top again. But I can say God is good, and faithful. And everything will work together for good and for His glory.

Taste and see that the Lord is good;
    blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
⁹ Fear the Lord, you his holy people,
    for those who fear him lack nothing.
Psalm 34:8-9