This story deserves several titles. It's 4:40am I'm a bit tired, so I can't decide. Should it be "Booking Emergency Travel in PNG" or should it be "When Credit Cards Fail You" or should it be "Why Even at 37, My Parents are Still my Heroes".
This story is somewhat typical of a couple living in Papua New Guinea, needing to book emergency travel, and what we need to go through to get it done, so I thought I might share it. And, our story has a little twist, but then, PNG is the 'land of the unexpected' so I suppose most stories from here do have a twist.
Friday evening I got an email from my parents stating that my wife should call her parents. It was bad news. It was one of those emails that we sometimes get living here that changes things, quickly. If you live here you come to call these emails the 3D emails. "Death, Divorce, Deadly disease" Kendal's grandmother who is very dear to her, was passing away.
The first hurdle was getting through to call. We don't do a lot of international calling, and it was a work day, so I had to reach my wife who was finishing up her last day of teaching pre-school…. ever, with the details of HOW to make the call. She'll be moving on to kindergarden next year. The end of the year is always emotional for her. On the same day I was finishing up a month long job, my kids were finishing school…. it was a day of finishes.
I got home to hear from my wife that her grandmother was not doing well, and the doctors said the outlook was not good. I came home to a wife who was emotionally a wreck. So we prayed, I held her, we talked.
We spent the remainder of the night looking at the possibility of her flying to the U.S. How much would it cost? What would the itinerary look like? Emails began flying around…. who would take up Kendal's other responsibilities…. is this even possible? I don't care how much of a planner you are, this is one thing you can only plan so far for. We had an emergency bag for such a thing which included different international cash, credit cards, travel docs, etc.
It was school break, so Kendal would only be dumping details like …. who finishes decorating cupcakes, what about our dinner guests coming, is there any food in the fridge, should Kendal go alone, should we all go?
The night was spent praying about it and talking about all the possibilities. If you've ever been in the throes of grief, trying to upheave your life you know what I'm talking about. It's hard to see all the loose ends, and focus on what you NEED to do. We knew she needed to be there by the way she reacted to the news.
So we deliberated, until too exhausted to think, and went to bed, vowing to decide before noon the next day.
We woke up rested, and checked in with family. Grandma had passed…. we made a decision. Kendal would go to the U.S. and Chad would stay behind with the kids.
This is culture note #1. This type of separation happens a lot, and it tears the heart right out of you, but practically, it's what needs to be done. I'll admit to being the one who wanted to scrap it all and all 4 of us go to the U.S. together, as a family to support Kendal and her family…. but reality sets in when you get to looking at the costs. I've seen families go through turmoil here. Having to decide all of these logistics really is torturous. I've seen people NOT go, couples split for weeks at a time, I've seen families leave kids behind and the parents go, I've seen every combination and there isn't any combination which doesn't cause pain and hardship. In the end you have to do what you feel led to do, and also be faithful to your financial supporters who put you here.
In this situation we were very thankful for the timing, school was out, the biggest obstacle was finances. We thought.
The decision made, Kendal was to go alone, tore at me inside, but it was made, and so it was time for me to begin handling as much as I could to offload my wife, so she could grieve, and handle that which I couldn't. Men, husbands, no matter how strong and intelligent your wife is (and mine is.. in spades) it's still hard to send them off in a situation like this alone. Men are designed to protect and support their wives. We are designed to stand in front of a bus for our family. I saw 2 busses coming and I wanted to stand in front of both. My wife gently guided me to standing in front of the 'stay home and care for the kids and worry about me leaving alone' bus instead of the 'come with me and comfort me' bus. Getting hit by 1 bus isn't nearly as painful to a husband as not being able to block ALL busses. Women may never fully understand that sentiment, but the men do. But.. I digress this isn't about me, it's about my wife and our family.
10am Saturday. I begin making calls.
Culture Note #2. Internationally calling is hard to do when the phones are not totally reliable. Praise God that Skype didn't fail us the entire day and I was able to patiently be on hold for most of 12 hours…. yes yes, I'm Praising GOD for being on hold. Because, it meant I didn't get disconnected… and it wasn't costing me any more than a fraction of a penny per minute.
After surfing the web for 2 hours we found an itinerary that required we leave at 3am. I booked it. As I pulled out our emergency credit card from inside our 'for emergencies' prepared bag from our lock box inside our locked cabinet, I realized 'this expired last month'.
Culture Note #3. Living in a place where you rarely use cash or credit cards, or look at your passport, often you need to check your expiration dates on things, because it takes weeks or months to renew them, if you even can from outside the U.S.
I had known it was coming, and I had a note on my desk 'renew credit card' which I had begun months ago, but life got a way from me the last 2 months and it was something I left undone because of the difficulty in renewing from outside the U.S. The Credit Card company was not approving the transaction.
Okay time to go to the backup plan. Use the Debit card. It means we won't get any Credit card miles, but it's an emergency. Only thing is, the debit card has been re-issued and is sitting in a safe at my sister's house, with a new number. My credit union was confused, and I was stuck there too. DENIED. Someone please let me pay CASH!!!! I have enough cash in the bank to cover this expense, but I can't move the money!
Okay plan 3. PAYPAL. I was able to book the return flights with Paypal, but the departure I couldn't book because by policy they won't book flights that are sooner than 3 days away.
Each booking and failure is costing me hours because I'm dealing in email and Skype. I've been on the phone for hours, and I still haven't gotten the booking for my wife to leave the country. But I have the booking for her to get back handled… barring some manipulation of the space time continuum I still need to GET here there in order to get her back.
BUT!!!!… all plans involve her leaving from LAE which is 3 hours away from here. And our car has not been running for months due to missing a part that has been taking forever to get here. And it's the weekend so the Auto Shop is closed and I can't rent a vehicle.
Culture Note #4. It takes months to get car parts. Plus living here is not a 24x7 thing. Places close at 5pm and when a place is closed, it's closed. I have enough friends that I could begin sounding the gong and adding stress to people's lives, pull them out of bed and ask for them to drop everything and help me. And they WOULD because the people here, are amazing people. But I didn't want to have to do that to them. Because it would involve disrupting more than a dozen people's holiday weekend plans. I'd have to get finance to open up, the Auto Shop to open up, a team of people in the capital city to wake up, plan rides, etc. I was hoping it wouldn't come to that. But if it did, I know they would help. I knew, that if I had to, there were swarms of people waiting to bend over backwards to help my wife. That's the kind of reputation she has, and the kind of people we live with. It's a benefit of being part of a missions organization versus going it alone, and it's a benefit of living with a tight community of believers.
So… before pulling that particular trigger I decided to call a good friend of mine. I met him over at the auto-shop, he pulled some strings, and within minutes we had rented a Ford Ranger, fueled it, and he agreed to travel with me at 3am to take my wife to the airport. He's my go to guy… I went to him, he came through.
But, we had an idea, what if someone else was already going?
Tech note #1. A Community Bulletin board is an awesome thing. (Maybe this should be tech note #2, because Skype is also awesome).
I posted on there 'is anyone leaving for LAE on Sunday morning?'. In the off chance they were. I got a call. Someone was. Only they weren't going at 3am, they were going at 8am, meaning my wife wouldn't make flight #1 on her itinerary.
Blast!
So.. waiting in the wings I have a co-driver. Which is much needed because the roads right now are awful and we'd be traveling them at the most unsafe time of day. Which means going slow… which is less secure.
Culture Note # 5: You're not supposed to drive at night in third world countries, but if you have to, go fast. Don't travel on roads that make you go really really slow in spots!
I also called a friend to see if I could access the community safe we keep our passports in. She not only said yes, she said 'I'll deliver it to you home!' Man, God puts incredible people in our lives!
When I got back home after making all these plans, I found that Kendal had also put out a request to our 'Kitchen Angel's' a team of people who gear up specifically for times when mom leaves, and can't be home to make bread and meals. I already had people signing up to bring me and the kids dinners! BONUS!
I checked email, the itinerary was cancelled, due to credit card problems. It's 4pm now. We have dinner guests arriving in 2 hours. The kind you can't cancel on because they arrived on a plane from the U.S. only a few hours ago. In 1 hour my daughter needs me to put on a tie and escort her to a Bible Study function she's been excited about for weeks. She made me a home made boutineer. I didn't want to break her heart…. so I had 1 hour to make this work.
It seemed like life was squeezing us into a few hours of total pressure. But the blessing was, Kendal was so busy she didn't have time to stop which I think… kept her going.
So I'm still on the phone at this time working out the new itinerary which can let Kendal go on the SAFER road trip, but I have no ideas left… none of our credit cards will work, I can't pay cash, I can't paypal. I pause. I try to cell call Kendal's dad, no answer. He's probably finally sleeping after driving straight through from Portland to LA when they got the news. In a clutch, I thought, I know!…I Skype call my parents. It's late in the U.S. but they claim they weren't sleeping. I chose to believe them. They give me THEIR credit card info, although I was absent minded enough NOT to get their billing address and info. This is important later.
Culture Note #5b One of the wonderfully hard parts about living here is that you need to rely on people. You rely on people for their support, their prayer, their encouragement. If you're new to relying on people, then the first time you have to do it, your pride will take a hit. But once you get through that individualism, you learn that God blesses you through people. You learn who those people are that you can turn to and rely on when the chips are down. And you learn as we have, that a whole heck of a lot of people love you. God blesses you through these relationships in a way so deep and meaningful because your livelihood is in their hands…. it's a blessing few others get to experience, and ironically it is one of the hardest things about becoming a missionary. It is also one of the best things about becoming a missionary, because it brings you closer and makes you more aware of God's working in your life… through people.
I book the flight with their credit info… the booking company asks me the billing address, I thankfully know my parent's mailing address and assume it was the same. The flight is booked. I jump into the shower, throw on a shirt and tie, escort my daughter to her thing, jet back home.
30 minutes until company arrives, and I have to do the grilling. Thankfully my son is well trained with a spatula and I put him in charge.
I find out during those 30 minutes the flight booking was rejected. NOT because of Credit card information, but because this company doesn't have a booking deal with Airlines PNG, our friendly 3rd World Country airline.
WHAT!?!?!?!?!
Okay Chad think.. think… I decide we can scrounge enough KINA cash to pay for this 1 leg of the flight. (We were asked the night before if we could lend a PNG friend our cash, and I had this odd instinct that I should say 'no'. Which is unlike me, but it was an intuition 10 hours before receiving the bad news.. Thanks God for that!) I redo the booking, I'm on hold for 57 minutes (PRAISE GOD AGAIN for HOLD!…am I crazy?). Our guests arrive, and understand COMPLETELY what we're going through. They do not feel slighted that I spend most of their visit with us, on hold.
Total failure, the booking isn't working, I take a break to eat a rushed dinner, and say hello to friends I've not seen for a year or more.
They leave, I jump back on the phone. I explain "I have to put my wife on a plane in 9 hours!'.
I rebook it all, sit on the phone, my final attempt, I'm exhausted, my wife is exhausted, we fall into bed around 12:30 midnight, praying to God, that this booking goes through.
I put a little prayer up to God 'God, I know you have it handled, I'm at my wit's end. I've been on the phone and computer for 13 hours. I'm not sure that my wife isn't going to wind up stranded… I need some details to go right today, I'm worried I'm sad, help me know what to do. I trust you… please help us." In the back of my head, I'm thinking if I wake up and it's all fallen apart, maybe we decide not to send Kendal at all. I think Kendal was worried about that eventuality too.
4:44am, I bolt awake, for no reason. I check my email.
DECLINED.
but then there's another email from my dad
"Got a call from our credit card company… the charge was blocked because you're in PNG"
Culture Note #6 Everyone who lives here knows what it means to have a credit card company think you are charging fraudulently because of where you live.
But then….
another email from my dad "It's okay, it went through! It's 8am here, we just got off the phone."
and then another email
BOOKING CONFIRMATION AND RECEIPT
Because I had to book with my parent's credit card, I had to give their number,… which the booking company could reach… during their timezone, which was daylight hours. The booking company couldn't reach me, they have no idea how to call PNG, during sleeping hours. It hits me… by being forced to book with my parent's info.. they were able to get a hold of a live person and work it out… clutch save dad!
!!!!!!
YES!
My wife was booked and paid for! Which means she shouldn't have to show an expired credit card that she doesn't really have to get to the U.S. !!!
It means I can cancel the car and co-driver I had scheduled, she can go with the friends already going, during daylight, be much more safe! It means that the trip is smoothed out before her as much as I possibly can do.
IT means God answered my prayer of worry for my wife. It means maybe she'll be okay without me, and God has her in His hands.
It means I can calm down. Only I'm not calm. I'm up at 4:44am writing this story, because I'm excited about what God did.
It took 14 hours of calling and booking. 4 different credit cards, Skype, digital, and several friends and family to pull off getting my wife in a car for 3 hours across dangerous highway, to a 3 legged flight of over 24 hours travel time.
She leaves in 2 hours.
PLEASE pray for her safety and that she gets through.
I know that if she can get to L.A. that her family will take care of the rest of the details. We don't know where she'll be staying or any of that, but she'll be with family and she'll be okay.
PLEASE pray for the kids here. They're very sad Grandma Shirley has left us, their sad mom is leaving for 2 weeks.
PLEASE pray that God will fill back in the money we had to spend.
and thank you… for your involvement in this story. I would tell this story to the friends we live with here, but it's nothing new. We all have lived through it. The only twist is that I let my credit card expire. Which in itself is a humbling thing because we're supposed to be the 'organized couple'. It goes to show you… not everyone has all their ducks in a row all the time. But it's okay, we serve a God who can realign any duck.
(-;
