Planes, Trains and Automobiles Part 2

Hello Blogees!! How are you?!!! Us?!?! After the travel dayS that we just had I would normally say exhausted but I just can't  because...well let me tell you!!!

Ok, so we made it into our flight from Newark to Toronto. No problems everything was as l they would say in Belize Kriol "smooth smooth".  We reached Toronto... Even before we left for Toronto our flight was delayed an hour and 25 minutes. Ok no prob.... For maintenance. O....k... I'd rather they fix the plane now instead of later. 😆

We arrive in Toronto, make it thru immigration and customs blah blah blah and when we reach the gate we find out that the flight was even more delayed and we were basically gateless!! Yes I said gateless!! Every 5 minutes (ok I'm exaggerating 😆 those of you who know me well know that I usually do 😆 but it's for dramatic effect😉) they were texting us a new gate number. Then they finally said.... Listen here! Y'all just ain't got no gate! Not in those exact words but you are picking up what I'm putting down right? 😆 

The airport is beyond packed!! Packed I tell you! But it was so cool hearing flights announced going to Delhi and Istanbul. It was really cool. Anywho... Precious and Austin who took such great care of us reached our "gate" first and made sure they secured seats for us as we were pulling up the rear. So at this table there was a young man sitting there and a young lady. Austin had a great conversation with the young man explaining to him why we were heading to Sweden and shared the website with him. It was cool. Ok... That young man left and we were still sitting there with the young woman and she said that she heard that we were going to Sweden and that she was too because her father is Swedish and she going to visit him. We explained to her that we were going for a convention in Stockholm. Cool, right?

Well... We look up and we see this group and they see our badges and we of course jump up and ran to meet and hug them!!!

This is Lily... I'll come back to her in a moment (she stole my ❤️)

But back to the young lady sitting with us at the table. She's taking all of this in. These brothers and sisters were from Charleston SC and they even knew Brother and Sister Savoi from back home (small world in Jehovah's organization 🥰). 

So I sit back down next to the young woman, her name is Annie and she said.... "So what kind of convention are you guys going to??!"  It was so cute the way she asked. So Precious and I had the chance to explain to her that we were Jehovah's Witnesses and we were having an International Convention in Stockholm with Witnesses from over 17 different countries. 

By this time we're all passing out gifts and business cards to one another and Annie was getting them too!!! 🥰 She had so much stuff that she took a picture to show her dad and husband. So I laid out so if the tracts that I brought with me and asked her which topic interested her the most. So she grabbed the one about does God listen to prayers. I'll get back to that conversation in a bit....

This is a Annie❤️

Meanwhile, let me change the channel back to Lily. She was 13 and a ball of fire!! She was such a sweetheart. We were talking and she was telling me about her mom and his she had cancer and get hair grew back in after chemo that it came in curly. I asked her if mom was doing better. And she struggled for a few minutes not knowing what to say, so I asked if she survived and she said, "no she passed away". I asked her how long ago and she said "about 3 years". Might heart sank. I told her that I had lost my dad three years ago as well. 🥺 We just hugged and hugged and hugged. 

I asked her how she was coping because some days I get so sad because I really really miss my dad. She told me that she has days like that too but (then she looked up at me and said) but I'm really looking forward to seeing her again when she wakes up. Y'all!!!!! She was just so sure of that hope it was so beautiful!! She stole my heart like I said!! 

Like I mentioned we were still gateless kind of like Tom Hanks in the movie The Terminal, so we had many many hours to spend with Annie. She was answering a lot of questions for us about Sweden. The food, the culture...  Gordon asked her if there was a "hood" in Stockholm!!! 😆🤦🏾.  But we did ask if there were people who looked like us there. She laughed, she said yes because Stockholm is a melting pot.

I then asked her why she selected the tract about prayer and she said something that really struck me. It was profound. She said that she wanted to know if someone was actually listening to her prayers or was it something that she did because that's what she was brought up to do. I thought that was so deep. I showed her Jehovah's name in the Bible and explained the importance of actually using his name when we prayed because there are so many other gods out there that it's important to identify who we are talking to. And also how you can't have a close personal relationship with someone who's name you didn't know. It was such a treat to meet Annie.

Well... They FINALLY assign us a gate and start to scan some boarding passes when once again they delay our flight!!  

By this time it's almost 11:00 pm EST!! 🤷🏾 What the world!! I said a prayer asking for him to give the mechanics the wisdom the fix the plane properly or the wisdom to cancel the flight if they can't. 😊 But they did get it fixed and we all board, arriving safely in Stockholm, Sweden. 

Oh! And they served us dinner on the plane at 1am by the way!! 🤦🏾 (I know Mom... I'm keeping an eye on my blood sugar 👍🏾) But we made it on the plane. 

We've just landed in Stockholm!! I was so excited so I decided to take a pic with me and by Boo. I thought his smile looked a little weird... You guys decide....

I asked him.... Why are you smiling so weird!! By the way I was watching a movie so I had my earphones in. He said "you don't hear that?" I said, "no." There was a poor sister two seats down getting sick. I felt so bad for her. I pray that she has recovered. 

We tried the picture again, but Gordon is so tired (it was hard to get comfortable on the plane to sleep really well) it didn't turn out much better. 😆

We deplaned and it took FOREVER to go thru immigration!!! FOREVER!!!  Gordon and I were with our wheelchair pusher (yes I had a wheelchair because I needed to save my knees for the convention week and not waste them in the airports 😊). His name was Rogers and he was from Kenya. He was so cool we really enjoyed talking with him. Gordon was able to show him his mother tongue of Swahili on the website and told him about the convention and invited him to come if was able to. 

We enjoyed him so much that I wanted to take a picture with him. At first, as you can see Rogers posed very dignified but then Gordon influenced him!! 😆

We make it to baggage claim but the rest of our group is about 60 minutes behind us and the cab driver has been waiting hours for us. 🤦🏾

We collected everyone's bags in our group for them and then waited and just enjoyed talking and meeting other different brothers and sisters from all over the world. 

My poor guy is so tired!!! 🫩

Friends from DC and Virgina 

I kept running into these sisters in the bathroom at the airports and FINALLY was able to get a pic with them. They were from Naples, Florida.

There were just so many friends...

These sisters and brother were from South Africa. So sad your can see we had a great time waiting for the group. 

The group finally arrives and it's time to depart the airport. 

The next thing that is about to happen is like.... The only way I can think to describe it is.... Is.... You know what!?!? There is no way to describe it. But I'll get to that next time...

Thanks for reading and proofreading!!! ❤️