The Journey Begins with Excitement
By Belinda
The morning of our departure dawned Canadian winter crisp and bright; the sky rosy pink and cloudless.
Joyce arrived first, dropped off by Fernando, then Pastor Dave and Esther arrived. The men managed to wrestle 5 people's luggage into the trunk of our Honda CRV and we were just preparing to get in ourselves, when Dave began checking his pockets with a look of perplexed disbelief. No passport.
He retraced his steps mentally, and could only think it was in the hallway back at home in Tottenham, so we followed their vehicle back there, only to find that it was in a red bag, safely stowed with the mountain of cases in the back of the CRV all along. No worries, we were now on our way.
At Lester B. Pearson airport the rest of our group of 28 began to gather. I sat down by a window to wait.
A young woman next two me made a call on a pink cell phone.
"Hello," she says, "I'm with (she names a company) and I missed my flight, can you help me?"
She explains that she thought her flight was at 1.30 p.m., but when she arrived to catch it, found that it was at 1.30 a.m.! And she had a connecting flight from Hong Kong to Sidney, Australia. Oh, my!
We were just waiting for one last person in our group, so began to make our way to the security check in when someone said they tracked him down with their cell phone--he was in church--in Alliston--he thought the flight was the next day! He quickly left the building.
I thought about someone calling at 11.00 a.m. yesterday and telling me that we were supposed to be at the airport. I couldn't imagine the stress . We would not have been ready; there were so many last minute things that we did that day. It would have been absolute panic. But somehow our very committed church attender made it to check in--four minutes before it closed, looking surprisingly unruffled!
Tonight I sat beside him at dinner, a young 20 year old man with Aspergers syndrome, and I got to ask him the questions I had been dying to know the answers to. What was it like to be called out of church and told your vacation was starting a day earlier than you expected? Had he started packing already?
His answer--"Stressful!" No kidding. :) And no, he hadn't started packing!
But, he said with a smile, "I threw in the essentials, and it saved me bringing a lot of clutter."
Well, if that had been me I would have probably left behind every essential item on my list.
Our flight, once we were all on it, was smooth. We hit the ground running after 11 hours in the air and even though some of us had a decidedly glazed expression in our eyes by then, we had a full day of touring before booking into our hotel in Tiberius by the Sea of Galilee tonight. I hope to post more soon.
The morning of our departure dawned Canadian winter crisp and bright; the sky rosy pink and cloudless.
Joyce arrived first, dropped off by Fernando, then Pastor Dave and Esther arrived. The men managed to wrestle 5 people's luggage into the trunk of our Honda CRV and we were just preparing to get in ourselves, when Dave began checking his pockets with a look of perplexed disbelief. No passport.
He retraced his steps mentally, and could only think it was in the hallway back at home in Tottenham, so we followed their vehicle back there, only to find that it was in a red bag, safely stowed with the mountain of cases in the back of the CRV all along. No worries, we were now on our way.
At Lester B. Pearson airport the rest of our group of 28 began to gather. I sat down by a window to wait.
A young woman next two me made a call on a pink cell phone.
"Hello," she says, "I'm with (she names a company) and I missed my flight, can you help me?"
She explains that she thought her flight was at 1.30 p.m., but when she arrived to catch it, found that it was at 1.30 a.m.! And she had a connecting flight from Hong Kong to Sidney, Australia. Oh, my!
We were just waiting for one last person in our group, so began to make our way to the security check in when someone said they tracked him down with their cell phone--he was in church--in Alliston--he thought the flight was the next day! He quickly left the building.
I thought about someone calling at 11.00 a.m. yesterday and telling me that we were supposed to be at the airport. I couldn't imagine the stress . We would not have been ready; there were so many last minute things that we did that day. It would have been absolute panic. But somehow our very committed church attender made it to check in--four minutes before it closed, looking surprisingly unruffled!
Tonight I sat beside him at dinner, a young 20 year old man with Aspergers syndrome, and I got to ask him the questions I had been dying to know the answers to. What was it like to be called out of church and told your vacation was starting a day earlier than you expected? Had he started packing already?
His answer--"Stressful!" No kidding. :) And no, he hadn't started packing!
But, he said with a smile, "I threw in the essentials, and it saved me bringing a lot of clutter."
Well, if that had been me I would have probably left behind every essential item on my list.
Our flight, once we were all on it, was smooth. We hit the ground running after 11 hours in the air and even though some of us had a decidedly glazed expression in our eyes by then, we had a full day of touring before booking into our hotel in Tiberius by the Sea of Galilee tonight. I hope to post more soon.
Comments
I, like Lizzie, am incredible jealous. Stay safe.
Jane aka anonymous