We have arrived!

I was commissioned to meet up with one of the students traveling to PNG in Tampa. Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to this detour because it would add a couple of extra hours of travel, but since I’ll be traveling for 2 days anyway, what’s 2 more hours? Well, it’s a very good thing I was there because we ended up having a very difficult time checking in. The lady behind the counter openly admitted she had no idea what she was doing, and after nearly an hour of phone calls & supervisors over a misunderstanding regarding our visas, she finally came to the conclusion that we indeed had all of our paperwork in order & the correct weight in baggage. BAH! My travel companion’s parents were still there, waiting patiently, and were SO GLAD that I was there to straighten everything out because they would not have known what to do. I guess God had me in Tampa for a reason! On the flight to Atlanta we had a large group of men in the armed forces, on their way overseas. I was getting really emotional watching them say goodbye to their families. Shortly before landing there was announcement – “on behalf of Delta, and I think I speak for everyone on this plane, we want to thank the brave men on this flight who are on their way to serve their country in the middle east…” The plane erupted in applause. Awesome. I may have had a tear or two. In the Atlanta airport I found 6 more of the students, so we met up for some lunch and to fly together to LAX. In LA we were greeted at our gate by 3 other students awaiting our arrival. Most of the team assembled there and we finally left the states at about 11:30pm (2:30am FL time). I managed to get a few hours of sleep on the plane, watched a movie, slept a little bit again, watched another movie… and arrived in Sydney 14 hours later. We met up with the remaining 3 members of our team in Australia and made it to Port Moresby a few hours later. I had a little trouble getting us all checked in – the immigration desk claimed we didn’t have visas at first and wanted me to leave all of our passports at a desk for them to process later. Um, no. Thankfully I had the gumption for once in my life to insist that they take care of it immediately, and they did! Sure enough, they had all of the paperwork they needed right in front of them. After getting us all through, we found out that 2 of the students were missing their luggage, so we’re still waiting to get that from Sydney. Bummer! The road to ITF is exactly as I remember it – horrendous! It might actually be worse than when I left in August. However, the scenery along the way is still absolutely breathtaking and I had a hard time grasping the fact that I was actually HERE! Finally, after a total of nearly 43 hours of traveling, we arrived at the Interface campus. I pretty much BURST out of the truck and ran to give hugs to all of my friends here. It feels SO GOOD to be back here, to be home. It feels like I never left. I can’t remember ever being this tired, but I feel that I’m exactly where I ought to be, and where I love to be.