Abraham Lincoln is attributed with the saying, “If I had 6 hours to cut down a tree, I would spend the first four in sharpening my axe.”
In preparing for any mission trip, the first step is to plan one’s travel. My flight to Nicaragua needed to be in two stages. The first stage would be to plan my flight to Miami. I had three possibilities to choose from. The latest arrival with the minimal time to connect with my second flight. The second option would be to take the earliest flight possible the same day, but that would mean leaving for the airport in the middle of the night. Or the third possibility was to leave the night before and rest at the layover airport.
The first trip I ever I went on, I chose to leave at 7AM to leave only 90 minutes to connect from Miami to Managua. However, I quickly found out that any flight delays and then I risk missing the connecting flight. Even though our winters where I live just south of Charlotte were mild, I had never considered that there might be winter delays from other cities experiencing winter storms or that some airports may be large enough to need time to transverse from one end to another. My flight was only briefly delayed, but then I had to walk to the other side of the airport. I made my connecting flight with only 15 minutes to spare the first time.
On my second trip, I took the last flight the night before and figured I could rest in the main departure gate area with my suitcase securely connected to my personage. However, with all the noise from cleaning crews in the airport. I only slept sporadically. Too much time in an airport can be just as bad as not enough time. So unless one budgets time and money to arrive a full day early but need to hire uber to leave the airport and pass through TSA twice, and the expense of a hotel and extra meals, that is usually not an option. I am the type of person that I would rather spend money on the ministry time in a foreign country than on my own personal travel expenses. While I am ok in roughing it in between flights, for many others who may have health related concerns, that is not an option to safely arrive at your destination.
So for this trip, I planned to take the earliest same day flight and leave from Charlotte at 5AM to leave some time margin upon reaching Miami. Not wanting to put my wife in a bind in the middle of the night to drop me off a the airport to catch a 5am flight, I asked to be dropped off at 11:30. But due to TSA contract disputes, I could not enter the departure area until 3:30 AM. And also at that time all luggage drop off kiosks were shut down as well. This was worse than waiting in the departure area in Miami at night. At least there, there were many seats available to try to get some rest. But to find comfortable seating in the main airport lobby was nearly impossible as it was designed for drop off or pick up only. So once again, I had very little rest as TSA would only open up 90 minutes before my flight departure.
My only other glitch was that when I went to print my two luggage tags, my first one printed blank. So trying to get an employee to assist me as they were busy handling the lines from the other passengers who had arrived early, only to find out they too were delayed from the partial shutdown. But, this time, I connected to my departing flight with 20 minutes to spare. On both legs of the journey, I slept through most of the flight.
To me, missing the connecting flight is not an option. I would rather rough the layover than rough the initial departure. Either way, the best way to handle the pre flight planning is to consider it as a great adventure and expect the unexpected as the norm. My norm is to leave a comfortable margin for error, with as little spent on extra travel expenses as possible. But no matter your style, it is essential to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.
All Things Kingdom Related 