What a day Friday!
The goal: Get from the east coast of the US, passing through Australia, popping over to Port Moresby (the capital of PNG) on a PNG airline in time to catch one of three weekly SIL flights to Ukarumpa. Included was minimizing any overnight stays along the way because of flight connections.
Little did I know at the start how challenging this job was going to be, balancing seat availability, speed and cost. As a bonus, we were hoping to visit David (son), Dawn and Lorien (granddaughter, age 5) who live in Guam (thanks to the US Navy) along the way.
Suffice it to say that I re-discovered the blessings of technology as I began making a decision the old way because there is no one reservation system to cover the entire distance. I had to manually match up landing times of one airline in Cairns with take-off times of the next one as well as match up landing times of the PNG airline in Port Moresby with take-off times of the SIL airplane; I had to research which days of the PNG airline offered the best cost. I had to cope with a serious shortage of available seats on the long flight from the US to Asia.
I had come down with a cold the day before and started the day with a headache. The headache only got much worse.
Each time I hit a different roadblock, I called Julie to update her and get her input on which of the options was most acceptable. In reality, we didn’t like any of them. I was feeling worse and becoming more frustrated. Finally around mid-afternoon on a call with Julie, she asked God to help smooth the process and complete our reservations.
Should have done that much earlier.
I began poking more around Continental’s website (since they are about the only airline that flies through Guam) and found that they had available flights. I then added some information that a missionary travel agency had mentioned and uncovered an itinerary that got us out a day earlier, with a stop in Guam, connected smoothly with the PNG airline, got us into Port Moresby just in time to connect with the SIL flight, and at a cost LESS than the best either agency could find!
The stop in Guam will not only let us see our family but, because it’s in the same time zone as PNG, will give our bodies time to adjust before we arrive in PNG.
Only God’s plans are perfect. Our reservations include a long segment from Houston to Tokyo where we aren’t able get seats together but we hope to find gracious people to swap seats with. I also still need to finalize our flight from Australia to PNG and the connecting SIL flight to Ukarumpa but we’re on the downhill slope.
God is so good!
The goal: Get from the east coast of the US, passing through Australia, popping over to Port Moresby (the capital of PNG) on a PNG airline in time to catch one of three weekly SIL flights to Ukarumpa. Included was minimizing any overnight stays along the way because of flight connections.
Little did I know at the start how challenging this job was going to be, balancing seat availability, speed and cost. As a bonus, we were hoping to visit David (son), Dawn and Lorien (granddaughter, age 5) who live in Guam (thanks to the US Navy) along the way.
Suffice it to say that I re-discovered the blessings of technology as I began making a decision the old way because there is no one reservation system to cover the entire distance. I had to manually match up landing times of one airline in Cairns with take-off times of the next one as well as match up landing times of the PNG airline in Port Moresby with take-off times of the SIL airplane; I had to research which days of the PNG airline offered the best cost. I had to cope with a serious shortage of available seats on the long flight from the US to Asia.
I had come down with a cold the day before and started the day with a headache. The headache only got much worse.
Each time I hit a different roadblock, I called Julie to update her and get her input on which of the options was most acceptable. In reality, we didn’t like any of them. I was feeling worse and becoming more frustrated. Finally around mid-afternoon on a call with Julie, she asked God to help smooth the process and complete our reservations.
Should have done that much earlier.
I began poking more around Continental’s website (since they are about the only airline that flies through Guam) and found that they had available flights. I then added some information that a missionary travel agency had mentioned and uncovered an itinerary that got us out a day earlier, with a stop in Guam, connected smoothly with the PNG airline, got us into Port Moresby just in time to connect with the SIL flight, and at a cost LESS than the best either agency could find!
The stop in Guam will not only let us see our family but, because it’s in the same time zone as PNG, will give our bodies time to adjust before we arrive in PNG.
Only God’s plans are perfect. Our reservations include a long segment from Houston to Tokyo where we aren’t able get seats together but we hope to find gracious people to swap seats with. I also still need to finalize our flight from Australia to PNG and the connecting SIL flight to Ukarumpa but we’re on the downhill slope.
God is so good!
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