Coming back to Vanuatu has been a great joy. God continues to lead and guide and it is incredible to be tossed about in His perfect timing.
While in the Melbourne airport we had the great pleasure of waiting for repairs to be done on our plane. Who doesn't LOVE that, right? We then got to hear that our flight had to be canceld for the night and would take off the next morning. More fun news.... but as always, God has His plan and we have ours right...so along with His plan...
After the commotion of going down to baggage claim and getting all of our 11 bags back onto trollies, I notice that a Ni-Van couple was having trouble locating some of their luggage. Because I am nosey (yep, just tellin it how it is people) I had noticed that they were looking for a couple items that I knew were in "oversized baggage" claims and so I went over and in Bislama (which TOTALLY threw her for a loop...this random white chick coming up and speaking her language, with a lot of flaws mind you...it has been a whole year for me lol) explained to her where she could find her other luggage.
So we pull and push our luggage trollies through the airport and customs and then through to our hotel on the other side of the street from the airport. All the while I had the strong feeling that I really should have just invited this other family to tag along with us as then we could all figure out what we were supposed to do and where to be together. But I didn't force it as I didn't want them to feel like they needed to be with us.
So and hourish later we find ourselves (us and Laura) sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for room assignments. I finally cannot numb the feeling that I should make sure this family got to where they needed to be....so I suggested to Hought (yep, so kind of me right?) that he should go down to the airport and make sure they found their hotel etc.
Hought heads that way and long story shortish, he finds that they havn't been able to find their hotel for TOTALLY good reasons because it was on the other side of the parking garage for the airport! So he is able to point them in the right direction. Just a fun little way of meeting people ya know?
The second part, which shows how God uses this event, is found in the blog, Psalm96three.
Our container came the 26th of March and floated in the bay for a day waiting for an opening at the wharf. Vila Bay's pretty, hey? From here it landed as scheduled the 27th of March at the wharf and was offloaded the next day. In the meantime we'd run around town getting duty and customs exemptions and finding an agent to clear customs, paid our fees to our clearance agent, the ship agent, the wharf, quarantine, and to customs and brought our paperwork around to each place.
Where things started getting fun though was at the wharf. When I went inside, I was originally going to one teller but she directed me to go to the other, who took my paperwork, but then recognized me as we were chatting. I hadn't recognized her, but she remembered me as being with Houghton, who Gretchen had sent off to help this woman and her husband and their small boy in the confusion at the airport in Melbourne, Australia, when our flight to Vanuatu March 8 was canceled for repairs. (previous blog story)
We carried on not thinking again about the situation until Roselyn (the teller) recognized me at the wharf in Vanuatu! In this case it was me out of my league, not really knowing the process and her who was helpful in guiding the way. Interestingly, the form our clearance agent had printed out for us listed a wharf price of nearly $400 more than what Roselyn charged us. Not only that, but because of the relationship, it meant that rather than Houghton and I driving across town multiple times a day (which we'd been doing for all the other agencies we'd already visited), I could call and organize things over the phone with her. She arranged for our container to be moved to a clear place for inspection and took pains to insure it didn't have another on top of it or beside it. She also later arranged for us to borrow a forklift and operator, which we hadn't figured we'd have access to in Vanuatu.
God provides some pretty interesting connections, doesn't He? Praise Him for the cancellation of the flight and the chance to build a relationship with Roselyn prior to our shipment! She'd like to get together to hang out so please pray for further opportunities to get to know her and her family better.
When we follow Christ, His miraculous ways appear.
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