Plane Conversations and My Beer-Drinking Angel

Here are things that happened on the trip...

God answered my prayer for conversations! I talked with an Indian lady doctor who plopped down beside me while I was waiting in the Shreveport airport. She gave me her whole philosophy (she’s a Hindu scientist, I think) and really challenged me. The conversation was really intense. We talked about God a lot, but I didn’t say a lot because I didn’t want to argue, and I wasn’t sure what God would have me say. She was much older than me and very sure of herself and extremely good at intellectual argument…not my strong point. But it was exciting to be able to talk about the Lord with a stranger, just like I had prayed. She saw me as weak and naïve, but I know God’s power was still at work in the things I said. Unlike past conversations like that, I didn’t feel pressured to prove anything!

I guess God knew that that conversation had mentally exhausted me, so the next one He gave me was actually really refreshing. And it happened because I did another sort of dumb thing. I journaled on the plane while squeezed between two strangers. It was personal stuff, but I decided it didn’t matter much if they tried to read it since I’d never see either of them again. And what was I going to do, not journal? No way.

So I scribbled and scribbled away, and suddenly, when I turned a page to scribble further, the guy on my right (I think in his 30’s), said, “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help seeing what you’re writing there…are you writing a book or something?” I laughed outright, and felt slightly sheepish. But I had been writing really openly about my thoughts on the book I was reading and about the life I just left behind, heavily mixed with my prayers to God.

So he started talking about the Lord, and because of the things he had read in my journal, we plunged into a very comfortable, enjoyable conversation about life and world history and God and the book of Revelations and all sorts of things. It went on for 4 1/2hours! He would ask me about things I had written, because obviously, not knowing me, he was wondering about some of my ideas. He seemed to be a pretty solid believer, and I had that weird feeling of meeting someone familiar in a strange land. I guess that’s what the body of Christ is like. It was really uplifting, and it made my longest flight pass quickly, so I really took it as a gift.

On the plane from Amsterdam, stuck between a nice Ukrainian girl and a rather garrulous Ukrainian sailor, I got my first clue that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, Toto…I had made several friends on other flights and met people who really helped me out, whether it was hoisting my luggage into the overhead compartment, finding a terminal map, giving directions, or repeating to me what the garbled instruction over intercom were. So by this time I just thought the world must be full of nice, helpful people :)

I talked with Yulia, the girl, for a while, and then she and the sort of scruffy sailor leaned across me and my seat and rattled on in Russian for a long time while I dozed off and on. The guy kept drinking beer, and the smell was making me a bit ill. Then Yulia reported that had he said I would be a lot more attractive if I had longer hair. I just kind of laughed…I sort of counted being unattractive to him a plus. I could’ve told him he would be more attractive if his breath didn’t reek of beer…but, being me, I didn’t say that.

So the ride ended, and the guzzling sailor got my luggage down for me, which redeemed him a little. So I went through the airport, which was small and full of Ukrainian people with much less luggage than I had. I felt like I had a big red sign on my forehead that said the Ukrainian equivalent of “Gringo.”

I struggled and fumbled around with the luggage, just going one step at a time with the paperwork and luggage and not really feeling fearful. But the luggage was hard to deal with, and it was a while before I could get a cart. There was no way I could move it myself! I was heaving it one piece at a time and dragging it to my pile. As I stooped to grab the last piece, I caught a whiff of something familiar...the sickening beer smell…and I looked up to see my, um, “friend.”

I said hi and then walked away, but a few minutes later he came over to where I was standing at a kiosk staring at a declaration form with a really confused look on my face. He said “Here, here, let me help.” And he tried to help, but that was confusing too. I asked him which way the customs desk was, and suddenly he just handed me a declaration form, pushed his luggage into a corner, and said, “Come with me. I’ll talk and you just show them your passport.”

During this interchange I was thinking “Is it safe to even be talking with this guy? And now I’m going to follow him?” I felt like having a Red Riding Hood moment like the one in Hoodwinked where she looks up at the wolf and says “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.” But I didn’t. He wasn't drunk, at least, for all that beer, and he was pushing my cart toward customs, where I needed to go anyway, so I went, just praying…

We didn’t even take my luggage to the desk. He went over to the lady and talked to her sort of confidentially and then came back to me, and said “Let’s go, let’s go.” I had determined I was NOT going anywhere besides where I already needed to go, and there were lots of people around. It happened so fast. Within three minutes of getting to customs he had pushed my cart through the double doors into the crowd and, catching the closing doors with his foot, said “I have to go back; my luggage is in there.” And then he was gone, and I was standing there holding my stamped passport, stunned, like I had just been guided through by an angel. A boozing angel, at that!

After waiting a while at the windows, Bruce and Bron came and took me home, and that was that...

P.S. I just ate some raisin yogurt! It was very weird but very yum! The yogurt and cheese have a similar strong flavor that is really good.