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An Eventful Trip

Posted by Blake Wilkes on

Over Labor Day weekend, Lana and I had the chance to get away and go up to Alaska. It was a fantastic trip. We had a couple of days of just the two of us traveling from Anchorage, through the Keni Peninsula, and back to Anchorage. We saw and experienced so much. Hikes in the Alaskan woods using a hand pulled tram to get across a gorge. Walking around Anchorage and their farmers market where we saw some giant cabbages. Meeting a bear and some moose at the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center as well as a few other animals. Watching the otters play in Resurrection Bay in Seward and being introduced to a few Puffins at the Aquarium. Peering into the blue ice of Exit Glacier and even walking in the icy run off water. We watched as the day’s catch was unloaded at the docks of Whitter and even met some reindeer while we were in that odd little town. All in all, our trip up north was great - except for the transportation.

From the beginning to the end (middle of the trip was good) our transportation was troublesome, to say the least. The night we arrived in Anchorage we found that our rental car was given to someone else and that no other cars were available at any rental car company in the airport. This was most disheartening especially when they told us the next available car wouldn’t be ready until 11:25pm the next day. We needed to be in the town of Seward long before that! Our trip looked like it was in jeopardy from the beginning, but, we woke up the next morning to find a local rental company that had a car available for us right away. My wise wife said without doubt or worry, “Well, maybe God had a reason why he didn’t want us to drive last night or have that vehicle that we were originally supposed to have, He took care of us.” Our transportation went well until it was time to fly back home to Portland.

Our flight from Anchorage to PDX was only supposed to be a two and half hours, but it became a 24-hour ordeal. It began with a delay of an hour. Once in the air, a medical emergency occurred causing our plane to turn around and head back to Anchorage. As we were landing back in Anchorage, a man who had brought his cats on to the plane apparently couldn’t take their constant meowing anymore and let them out of their cage. Now we had cats loose on the plane. Once on the ground, it was discovered that the plane needed maintenance work that had originally been scheduled to occur in Portland.

By the time the plane maintenance was done we already had one person voluntarily get off the plane, leaving the rest of us to wonder if we would soon be following, as it was now 3am. We only had a nine minute window to take off before the flight crew would be over their hours and we would have to wait for a whole new crew. The captain decide to go for it. But, as we were taxing out onto the runway, the captain got the call that there was a mechanical issue with the plane and is was no longer safe to fly. We once again taxied back to our terminal and we could feel this wall of impatience and frustration coming from the passengers behind us as everyone grasped we weren’t leaving Anchorage that day. As soon as the doors were opened it was a mad rush to the ticket counter where we would stand for the next hour. It was 5am by then and Jet Blue finally said they would find hotels for everyone and reschedule the whole plane for 3:30pm that same day. After a morning of sleep in our hotel room and a blissfully uneventful flight to Portland, we finally arrived home at 9:30pm.

Before leaving Anchorage, we had the opportunity to meet the man whose medical emergency had caused us to turn back to Anchorage in the first place. We found out that the doctors had no explanation for him passing out and we came to realize that maybe God didn’t want us to get back to Portland that night. Maybe the mechanical issue would never have been found if the plane hadn’t turned around. God worked in an uncomfortable situation to protect us and all 107 people on that plane from a potentially more lethal situation.

Our Alaskan trip was a time of rest and enjoyment (besides the transportation issues) but it was also another lesson about our loving God. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” God works in all things, not just the good or comfortable or enjoyable, but in all things for our good. I don’t know about you, but this is something that I need to be reminded of a lot -- that even in the midst of the annoying, irritating, sad, uncomfortable, impossible, anger-causing situations, God is there with us and is working in those situations for our good. It may be be something we can’t see right away, but there will be a day when we can look back and say, “Wow, look at what God has done for me.”

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