Hello everyone,
Where did we stop? Yes right, I was on my way from Munich to Atlanta when the captain told through the loudspeakers, that because of the hurricane we cant land in Atlanta. The captain decided that instead we would land in Baltimore. If you don’t know where this is, don’t worry, its not that important and I didn’t know myself either.
After we landed in Baltimore the flight crew didn’t know if we could continue flying to Atlanta or if we were aloud to go through the customs in Baltimore. After waiting one hour in the airplane, they finally told us, that we could go through the customs in Baltimore. They told we should get our luggage and then go through the customer service of Delta Airlines, with which we were flying. After everybody received their luggage a long line started to build up at the customers service. There we were waiting for 2 hours and nothing, like really nothing was moving. They didn’t talk to even one person, and so we were just waiting and waiting. Finally they started talking to the first person in the row. Every person took between 20 and 30 minutes, because they had to call around for every single person, so we had to wait for very long.
Because everyone took so long also the people from the check-in started to talk to one after another of us. And so when it was my turn, another guy from this check-in took me along to his desk to figure out how I would get to Tegucigalpa. He was very quick an
d told me that my flight to Atlanta would go the next more 7 o’clock, so I needed to be there 5 o’clock and then I could straight away take my flight to Tegucigalpa. Because it was evening I asked him: “So where am I going to sleep this night?” and he answered: “In a hotel.” I said: “And who is gonna pay for that?” And he was like: “You!!! This happened because of weather, we cannot influence the weather. This is not our fault.”
There I was, all by myself and very tired, in Baltimore, with no idea where to get a hotel, with an early flight in the morning and with knowing that I even have to pay it myself. I was very close to tears and I was like: “God, why does this have to happen to me?”
So I went downstairs where you can call hotels and so I called one of them, booked a room and went upstairs again to be picked up by a shuttle! While walking upstairs I met a group of people which before were behind me in the line and they asked me: So what are you going to do now? And so I told them! Shocked they answered: “We got our hotel paid by them, you should go and talk to them again.”
Being still very emotional about the situation I decided to talk to them again. So I went to the counter, where the other people went and I started talking to her. She looked at my ticked, typed everything in the computer and printed for me a voucher for a hotel. I went quickly to cancel the other hotel room and drove with a shuttle to Houston Hotel, close to the airport. After being at the airport for 6 hours I finally arrived in my hotel room, where I was praising God so much, that everything worked out and that I actually received a hotel room for no cost. I learned from this situation that I should still trust in God, even though things might be discouraging and not be going the way they are planned. This was a big test for me in trusting in God, because everything looked very bad, and I felt really helpless so alone at Baltimore airport.
The next morning I drove again early to Baltimore airport where we had again the same problems as the day before. All the passengers that were supposed to take that flight to Atlanta stood in a queue and they had to call around again for every single person. Since everyone just had two hours to the flight, the time went pretty fast. But thanks to everyone’s prayers, I managed to get to my flight. On my way there, at the security check, they wanted to check my backpack. One of the ladies opened it and started looking on the books I brought. She took one of them and asked, while looking at it, “What book is that?” and in the next moment she said: “Ellen White; Ohhhhh are you a Seventh Day Adventist?”. After I answered yes, she said: “So cool, me too.” Both of us were really excited to meet another STA at the airport. So we introduce ourselves to each other, I told her about my traveling and we wished each other blessings.
For me it was very encouraging to meet somebody from my own faith and to exchange some thoughts. And who knows, maybe I will see her someday again.
As I said before I was able to reach my flight to Atlanta. While still being in the flight to Atlanta, already the boarding for my next flight started. So when I finally came out of my airplane I was running to catch my next flight. I had to take the AirplaneTrain from Terminal A to Terminal E – so basically from the one end to the other. And praise God I also managed to take my next airplane.
After arriving in Honduras I went to get my suitcases and got picked up by the principal of the school and her husband. We could go and buy everything I still needed and finally late in the night we arrived at VIDA Internacional. My friend Bonny welcomed me very warmly and had already prepared everything in the room nicely for me. I was very happy to be back and to see everyone again.
Basically everything turned out in such a wonderful way and I am so thankful to God. Isn’t He amazing? He has a solution for everything, and even a better one than I could have expected. I actually would have had to take a hotel in Atlanta, which I would have needed to pay myself, so they basically took this cost and I even received a flight voucher from the air company, because of the inconveniencies.
Even though I couldn’t see it in the moment, God turned everything to be even better than before.
Thank you everyone who was and is still praying for me! God has heard your and my prayers.
I am so amazed how great God is and how he leads everything! Thank you everyone for your support.
Yours Hanna!