Day 1/2 : Getting There
Unfortunately, my updates from the trip did not get posted as I would have liked, so I will recap my trip over the next few days as I try to remember what went on.
The trip to the hotel which lasted from May 13, 12pm central time to May 14, 5:30pm CT, was for the most part uneventful/ There were no problems connecting from Birmingham to Atlanta to Dakar to Johannesburg. I don’t sleep much on the plane, as I try to stay awake as long as I can until my head hits the pillow in the hotel, (which was past midnight local time!).
I did overhear some interesting conversations from the 20 members in our group who was spread out around the plane. You would always hear the questions, “where are you going? why are you going there? what are you going to do there?” Followed by the statements, “that’s a great thing you are doing, I’m sure the people there will be appreciative.” That’s when the people of the group share the Gospel, we’re not going to do something nice, we’re doing it because God first loved us, and we need to show his love to them, (and also to you, fellow plane-rider!)
I realized on this trip how sheltered I am in the Christian culture of the south. I heard the word “karma” mentioned at least 20 times on the plane, where I probably haven’t heard it 5 times within the last couple of years. Even I flight attendant I spoke with mentioned karma to describe her beliefs which is a Roman Catholic background from New Orleans.
People want to acknowledge an overall scoreboard of rights and wrongs, and hope to be on the “right” side of that scoreboard. Our trip scores some heavy points for the right side, whereas being mean to the flight attendants will take some of those points away. Lost in this conversation of karma is Romans 3:23, all have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God. One sin, one wrong, one mistreatment of a flight attendant puts us in a wrong relationship with God, and no points on the right side of the scoreboard will fix it, only a relationship with Christ, that covers over those sins.
I pray that some were impacted by our testimony and love, and realize who Christ is, so we can truly be on the right side.
Attached below is a pic of our weary group after arriving in Joberg.
