Medical Travel

[Porter]

Welp, I'm heading way down south again for some appointments and would kindly like to ask the forums members for their prayers. Pray for whatever God puts on your heart. Thank you and God bless you all!

[Rene]

Keeping you in my prayers Porter and wishing you safe travels.

[Musterseed]

May God be with you on your travels Porter. I pray for you.

In Christ, Pamela

[Wendy]

Porter

I'll be praying for you and your family Have a safe trip .

God bless
Wendy

[Porter]

Thanks y'all, the appointments went great! The journey itself was fascinating as usual.

[Musterseed]

Happy it all went well Porter. So do you want to tell us about your journey?

😁

[Porter]

The journey wasn't anything out of the ordinary. The fascinating part was the interactions with the various people we met along with the various places we went to. I also got to know my son (who was my escort) a little better. I was actually blown away at how much spiritual knowledge God has given my son. My son knew things that never entered my mind, and those things explained some other things I had been thinking about.

The most incredible part was at the end of our journey, near the very last flight on our way home. It's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it was, in my mind, just awesome. The large airline had lost my luggage three days prior, and I was quite bummed about that. There wasn't even anything expensive in the luggage, but it was my luggage with my clothes, heh. Anyhow, we were at a smaller airline in another building waiting for our small plane that was being prepared for us to board, but there were some mechanical issues, so our flight got delayed by like 4 hours. At around the second or third hour, a worker at the small airport hauled in a bunch of luggage. I noticed a piece of luggage that looked exactly like the one I had lost, as it had the three pieces of pink yarn my wife attached to it to make it easy to recognize. I got up and had a closer look, and there was no doubt that it was mine. Furthermore, I asked the worker where he got that from, and he was confused by my question. I explained to him that was the piece of luggage I had lost that I had previously mentioned to him 2 or 3 hours earlier. So they opened it up and asked me to describe what was in it to prove that it was mine. I honestly couldn't remember anything in there besides clothes, but eventually, I was able to identify enough things to convince them.
Apparently, that piece of luggage had quite the journey of its own. It seems a woman at the larger airline mistakenly took my luggage thinking it was hers and brought it home with her to another town hundreds of miles past where we live. The woman sent it back to the smaller airline on the day we were heading back home, and it just happened to magically appear right where we were at the right time. Had our small plane not been delayed, who knows where my luggage would have ended up as there wasn't anything on it to tie it to myself, aside from the pink yarn.

So, I thanked God in my thoughts because even though it was a small gesture, I felt like God cared enough to bring my luggage and clothes back to me. The whole journey was very stressful at times. We were afraid we might get robbed or beaten up some times, as the city where my appointments were has one of the highest crime rates per person. I mean, we ran into and talked with some shady looking characters, obviously fishing for information so they could rob us.

There were a couple of times when we didn't know where we'd be spending the night, as we had no money at one point. Part of the problem of having no money stemmed from missing our flight due to some confusion of check in times, departing times and boarding the actual plane. Despite all this, it seemed that when we would lose all hope, God took care of us and kept us safe.

But yeah, I know it's not a very fun story, but that's what happened. There was more, and I still have a lot of reflecting to do. I know myself a little better as well. There is no doubt that I will stand or fall as God sees fit.

[Musterseed]

So happy for you and your son Porter. I pray it continues.
Do you go to Anchorage for Medical? Re. Your luggage,
Isn't our Lord wonderful, He works in our daily affairs,
and takes care of our needs , even the smallest things.
Our God is awesome and we are so blessed. As for your story
It brought me smiles the whole time I was reading it.
God Bless you and your family Porter.

[Porter]

Yep, Anchorage is where we had to go for my appointments. It's such a beautiful city too.

[Dave in Tenn]

That's a heck of an adventure.  I'm glad all went reasonably well and that the Lord showed His mercy in giving you GRACE when it did the most good.  I have to say, though--it's a rare individual who can think of Anchorage as "south".   

[Porter]

You ain't wrong Dave. The irony of Alaska being understood as a location in the cold north is not lost on me, either. It might make more sense to know that when I left home above the Arctic Circle, it was around 25F (-3.8C) which was chilly enough so I had to wear my parka. Anchorage is over 800 miles (1,287.48 km) to the south of me and the temperature there was a whopping 64F (17C), so all I had to wear to endure the "cold" was a light windbreaker most of the time when stationary. Otherwise, I'd take it off as walking in that kind of "heat" was a bit too much, lol.