I now have a seat and a boarding pass to fly to Venice late tonight.  This will give me tomorrow (Friday the 4th) to get over jet lag.  Saturday morning the 5th I catch the shuttle bus at the Venice airport to the GEM conference in Slovenia.

I’m at London Heathrow about to eat a “Full English Breakfast” at the suggestion of a very helpful lady at the British Airways counter. She looked at my boarding pass and asked, “Did American Airlines give you any vouchers, love?”. When I said no she told me to wait and she stormed off to the AA representative and returned quickly with several vouchers for meals inside the terminal. Wonderful customer service!

I now get to hang out at RDU a few more hours.  Why?  Bad weather caused American Airlines to cancel my flight.  A nice lady used her terminal to get me on American Airlines flight 174 leaving at 6:05 PM for not Philly, but London.  She said the system would not let me get the boarding pass yet to get to Venice.  This is all an opportunity to trust God more than weather, the airlines, or humans.

Please pray!
Bad weather in Philly – flight from RDU cancelled!

I made it through security. My laptop bag with all kinds of cables, adapters, and flash drives earned me a closer look by a friendly man.
I’m waiting for my 3:50 flight from RDU to Philadelphia.
Since the NC State men’s basketball team is flying to Italy today I thought I would let them know I’m a fan (like I needed an excuse).

Today I am packing for my mission trip to Slovenia.  I will be on a team from Mark 5 Ministries and we will be serving the missionaries of GEM at the Annual Conference from August 5th through 10th.

Please pray for me as I pack that I would know what to take with me and what to leave behind.  If you think about that I mean much more than deciding if I should bring that ugly Hawaiian shirt.  I mean beliefs, attitudes, habits, assumptions, goals, etc.  I want to offer them all up to God and ask him to help me prepare to serve.  I even want to get ready to be helped and served as even volunteers need encouragement from other believers, right?