Pastor Mark Hopper

By Pastor Mark Hopper

Recently, my wife and I were looking forward to spending a week in Hawaii, but it was a lot more difficult than we expected.

Our travels started easy enough.  We got up early at 4 a.m. and left our house before 5 a.m. to catch our flight to Hawaii.  Freeway traffic was better than we expected and we got to the airport in plenty of time for our 8 o’clock flight.

We had made our reservations using airline miles almost a year ago.  We were scheduled to go from LA to San Francisco and connect with a Hawaiian Airlines flight to Maui.  Unfortunately, our flight out of LAX was delayed and we began to wonder if we would make our connection in San Francisco.  But, our airline was reassuring.  We had time to catch the Hawaiian flight.

When we finally got to the San Francisco airport we discovered that we had to go outside security, go to another terminal and go through security again.  There were about 10 people like us who were scheduled to connect with the Hawaiian flight.

As we ran to our departure gate we could see the big, beautiful Hawaiian plane pulling away from the gate.  It did not wait for us and it did not come back for us.  We missed it.

All of us were told to go back to our original airline’s ticket counter to get booked on another flight since they had caused us to miss our connection.  We were told there were no other flights available to Hawaii from San Francisco on that day.

We could stay at a hotel near the airport (at our own expense) and try again the next day.  Or, they offered to fly us back to LA and see if there were any empty seats on planes going to Hawaii that evening.  All 10 of us decided to take our chances in LA.  So we flew back to where we started from!

Two couples got rebooked on a Hawaiian Airline flight from LAX to Honolulu and then on to Maui.  Two other couples got on a flight from LAX direct to Maui on our original carrier.  We did too.  We got the last two seats on the last flight of the day!

Hurray, we were finally going to Hawaii!  Our flight was packed but we were just glad to be going to Maui and not going back to Diamond Bar.  We arrived at about 10 p.m. Hawaiian time which is about 1 a.m. our time.  We had been waiting and flying and waiting and flying for almost 24 hours!

Just when we thought we had successfully completed our travel adventure, we discovered that our bags did not make it.  Thankfully, we had our clothes in our carry-on bags but the most important one, my golf club bag, did not make it.  How can you enjoy Hawaii without your golf clubs?

The airline assured us that my golf clubs would be on the next flight and would be delivered to our hotel the next day.  What they didn’t tell us was that my golf bag was actually still in San Francisco. I finally found it in a locked office at the Maui airport two days later.  I’m not sure what happened to the overnight delivery.

I know that there are many things much worse that can happen in life.  Our little Hawaiian adventure was more of an inconvenience, not a national disaster.  You probably have a similar story of missed flights and lost bags.  I suppose we should expect things to not always go as planned.

There is a verse in the book of Proverbs that says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

In all of life there will be unexpected bends in the road and delays at the airport.  We need to learn to trust God to direct our paths and not become impatient or frustrated with the missed connections of modern travel.  Who knows, you may find yourself right back where you started from, too!

Pastor Mark Hopper is from the Evangelical Free Church of Diamond Bar, 3255 South Diamond Bar Ave. Sunday services are 9 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. For more information, call (909) 594-7604 or visit http://www.efreedb.org.