I’m in Romania! I was supposed to go to South Africa, but God had other plans. South Africa started to put restrictions on large groups coming into the country and because South Africa had a lot of covid cases, a lot of other countries wouldn’t allow us in their countries when they notice that we would be coming from South Africa.
I want to share about our travel days to Romania because it was insane and I don’t even know how we made it. Travel itinerary was to leave Hondorus, to Los Angeles, to Houston, then to Germany and finally to Romania where we will then take a 3 hour drive to our ministry host house.
We wake up at 2am on Wednesday, July 7th to head to the airport in Hondorus for our 6:15am flight. We go to check our bags in and as we check our bags in, we were told by the workers at the airline that our covid tests will expire before we get to Germany. (Our covid tests can’t go over 72 hours from when we were tested.) So the airline workers almost didnt let us get on the plane, but we pleaded and said we would get tested in the states on our layover and the airline workers let us go forward with our flight. We go to customs and because we overstayed our visas in Hondorus, they directed us to another place to pay for our visa extension fee. But they only wanted cash, so it was a process to use a couple World Race debit cards to pull out money at an atm in the airport. Once we got that done we were really limited on time. We go to customs which has a line at this point and they are asking to see specific paperwork. Some people didn’t have the specific papers/passport stamps which would be another hurtle to go through. But as they were checking these papers in the midst of the chaos, the people who didn’t have them were miraculously skipped over. Like what on earth….God was totally watching over us! We get through customs and we are praying that when we get to security that the line would go quick. A few others and myself go up the stairs and turn corner to find that their is no one else going through security besides us. Praise the Lord! We walk to the gate and I sit on the plane at 6:07. Guys, the plane was supposed to close the gates and leave at 6:15. Miraculously the plane didn’t take off on time for whatever reason, but we all made it on the plane. What a crazy time, but we made it. Now it was time for sleep on our 5 hour flight.
We land in L.A. and the pilot says we have to wait on the plane until customs opens. Our layover was only an hour and a half and now it’s getting cut even shorter. It has been 6 months since I have been in the US and so I went to bathroom and was able to flush toilet paper unlike in Central America where I couldn’t flush toilet paper. It was clarified that we don’t have to get another covid test done, that we will make it to Germany within 72 hours of our covid test, thank goodness. We get our bags and we were able to quickly check them in so they could go straight to Germany by putting them on a conveyer belt and away they went. We quickly went to security which was packed. A lot of us didn’t think we were going to make this flight, but somehow God made a way. We go through security and again miraculously the gate didn’t close when it was supposed to. So we made the flight on our way to Houston. I ate the snacks I had, watched tv and slept till we landed in Houston.
Houston! We have a little longer layover to eat and walk around. So you bet I’m going to eat Chickfila and it is just as I remember it…amazing. Thank you Lord for the small things like flying into an airport that has Chickfila and having time to actually sit and eat. After, we went back to our gate, boarded the plane and we got situated in our seats, and we are told that the pilot needs to leave for personal reasons. So we are out of a pilot. We wait 30 minutes and are told that their is a pilot on the way, but it will be 2 hours before we can take off. We then deplane and most places in the airport are closed at this time, so we just walked around. Time goes by and we are called to board the plane heading to Germany. When we get on the plane we notice that one of our squad mates chooses to not get on the plane. He told leadership his reasoning, but in the moment I didn’t know why he decided to not further his time on the race. It made me sad to see him not continue. It was a 9 hour flight to Germany and I mostly slept, but occasionally watched tv and ate.
When we land in Germany and we have to go through customs, collect our bags, recheck our bags so they can go to Romania, go through security and head to our gate. We found our way through the airport carrying our bags, switching terminals and thankfully we had a little more time till we get on our last flight to Romania. I was hungry, but not enough time to get food, so I ate some of my snacks I had. At this point, I’m ready to be in Romania and ready to get a full nights rest. We get on this flight and I fall asleep so fast. The flight is only a couple hours, so sleeping made the flight go by fast. We landed in Romania and got our passport stamps, grabbed our bags and waited for our ministry host to pick us up. When they got to the airport, we loaded up in vans and drove a few hours to a city called Crovia and we arrived at 3:45am on Friday, July 9th. After that I slept in my bunk bed (thankful we are not camping) till 11:30am where we had to get up to meet with our ministry host.
And this is where jet lag started.
God’s plan and God’s timing is above my plan. He is in control and is not phased by chaos of Covid, flights and where we were supposed to go instead where we actually are. People all over the world need to hear about Gods goodness and I’m thrilled to share God’s love here in Romania.
