Unexpected Adventures

Right now we are sitting in Portland enjoying the amazing surroundings. The scene is lush green foliage filled with splashes of color at every turn set to a back drop of blue skies and sunshine. We are loving today! However, yesterday was a different story. Let's just say getting up a 4 AM should be a warning sign that the day may not go as planned no matter how excited you are. I have flown hundreds of times to places all over the world in planes of every size. The two exceptions involve a case of food poisoning in Miami and losing my luggage coming home from Vegas. Apparently, that was just preparing me for what was to come later down the road. There we were eagerly boarding our plane in Denver for the last leg of the trip thinking about all the fun that was about to be had. We had a beautiful take off followed by a few minutes of turbulence as we passed through the clouds. No biggie, neither of us get motion sickness. However, about 15 minutes into the flight I started feeling nauseous. Thinking I'm about to be totally sick, I excused myself to the lavatory. Seemingly all I needed was to move about the cabin because by the time I got to the back of the plane the nauseous had subsided a bit. As I headed back to my seat, I began feeling slightly tingly and a bit light headed. By the time I sat down, apparently I was mumbling something about this is not good I need to lay down in the floor. Then according to Ted, I keep putting my fingers in front of my face to see if they were still moving in between trying not to pass out on top of the lady sitting next to us. My wonderful husband got the flight attendant to assist us. They ended up moving us to the front of the plane to "keep an eye on me." She also informed me that if I completely passed out in the floor that they would have to call for emergency personal to meet us at arrival. Well luckily the more roomie front row gave me a chance to put my head between my legs and regain a semi normal state of consciousness. Oh but the fun was not over, when we exited the plane an airline attendant was waiting with a wheel chair to cart me to baggage claim. Now if I was eighty with a cane or even had a bum leg this might have been fun. Don't get me wrong as grateful as I was that I did not have to some how manage to walk all the way to baggage claim in my some what paralytic sate I was also equally embarrassed by the fact that I am young and healthy but for some reason can't seem to handle the flight form Denver to Portland. As all of this was shock to me it must have been equally shocking to Josh who was waiting in baggage claim fully prepared to run up and attack us with love. Instead we found him standing quite stupefied and confused as to why I was slumped down in a wheel chair with a man name Hosa who spoke very little English. So here we were filling Josh in waiting on our luggage, waiting on our luggage, waiting on our luggage...oh wait that's right my luggage didn't make it! Talk about kicking a horse while it's down! The really ironic part is that in my twenty-five years of flying the only two times that my luggage has been lost has been in the last six months. At this point I am bewildered as to how you can go from being so totally excited for weeks about an event only to be so royally disappoint at the start. It goes to show how Satan can try to take a trip meant to celebrate a friend's ministry and turn it into less. But our God is greater than that. Despite our rough journey here our time has been spent enjoying the glory of God's good work here. We are loving the wonderful beauty of Oregon. There is amazing food on every corner. Most importantly we are blown away by the way that God is working in Josh's life and using him to make a difference in people's lives.