Trials Begin in Miami

After lunch I went to find my terminal for my flight from Miami to New York Laguardy airport. I found my gate and made a few phone calls while I waited out the last hour. My flight ended up getting delayed an hour and not boarding till close to 5. When we got on the plane we departed our gate but soon we stopped and the pilot came on to tell us all flights in and out of the NY airport we on hold. He said we would wait an hour for an update. So I turned on my worship music and tried to sleep a little. At the 6 we got told we would know something at 7 and then at 7 they said 8. Finally after 3 hours of waiting on the plane they took us back to the gate and let us off . They said in 2 hours we would be able to reboard and fly to NY. While in the airport waiting I called mom and dad crying because I was exhausted and just wanted to go home. At this rate I missed my connector to clevland (well, it was delayed till 8:30AM the next morning) and I knew I was going to be spending the night in an airport. Pastor Doug and Dad were on the internet trying to find the best flights for me to be on and they decided staying on my original schedule would get me home the quickest. So I went and got a ticket for my new flight from NY to Clevland.
Just as I sat down they announced our flight to NY was cancelled all together. I began to cry and went and found a place to plug in my phone and tell mom and dad. Poor mom and dad had to deal with my emotional phone calls that whole night. They are such troopers. Doug and Dad had a back up plan already together and gave me flight numbers and what route I wanted to take home. My plan was to catch a flight in the morning from Miami to Chicage and then to fly Chicago to Clevland.
I proceeded to pull myself together and go wait in line at the customer service desk to try and get new tickets. While I was waiting in line I decided to look at the paper I wrote the flight information on. I opened it up to find a Bible Study I did 2 years ago with my small group at school on Satan’s attacks. How appropriate in a time when I was so underattack by Satan. Satan was trying everything possible to get me while I was down. It was such a blessing to open that paper and read verses to help me in that time. One verse to popped off the page was the verse that came to me the night before on the bus “God’s strength is made perfect in our weaknesses”
When I finally got up to the desk. The women asked how old I was, I told her and she said I looked really young and she wanted to make sure I was old enough to go to a hotel. She asked where I was coming from and I told her Haiti. I then learned she was from Haiti. I told her about my extremely long day and my crazy bus ride. She was funny. She looked at me and told me I was crazy for riding a bus in Haiti she lives there and has never done that and that I was even more crazy to ride one at night. She told me I was lucky to be alive. J I smiled and thanked God for his provision and safety he provided. It was nice to talk to someone who understood what a busride in Haiti is like. I told her how rumor has it that we hit a donkey last night but I did not even know I just thought it was a bump in the road. She laughed and said she could not wait to tell her mom and sister that story. I told her I would never want her job, there were so many angry and mean people that night and I am sure many nights. She said yeah you would not believe how rude some people are. I felt really blessed to have met her and I know it was a God thing that she was my customer service person. She hooked me up with a hotel for the night and gave me 2 food vouchers for Saturday.
I went to the curb to wait for my shuttle to my hotel. I waited a about 15 minutes and saw about 15 different shuttles but none were for my hotel. So I called the hotel and they said they had a shuttle on the way but it was only for American Airline passengers who’s flight was cancelled (that was me). So about 15 minutes later the shuttle arrived and I got on with 7 other people. 4 of them were from Brazil and 3 were from Portagual. When we arrived at the hotel around midnight we were checking in and acquiring about when the shuttle would take us back to the airport. They informed us the shuttle did not start running till 7 in the morning. The problem was our flight left at 7AM. We asked what we were suppose to do since our hotel was 20-30 minutes from the airport. They told us we would have to get a taxi. My heart dropped I only had 14 dollars and when I asked how much a taxi was they said $35 dollars a person. I began to panick I was like God what do I do I don’t have a credit card or my debit card. I looked at the 2 people behind me and said I only have 14 dollars. They calmly said don’t worry about it we will cover the rest. So we all decided we would leave the hotel at 5AM and all ride together because they would give us a discount that way.
I went up to my room and set 2 alarms for 4:45AM and got some well needed sleep. It was the best 4 hours of sleep ever. So in the morning we all piled into a van to head back to the airport. The driver said it would be $50 total. So that was $10 a person. NOT BAD…I can handle that. We arrived at the airport and the couple that said they would help me pay ran inside to get money out. They could not find a debit machine and came back out panicked. I pulled out my $14 and another couple with us threw in 16 dollars to cover the other 2 people. We were told don’t worry the airlines will reimburse you inside.
So we got inside and went through security to try to find the customer service desk to get reimbursed. They told us it did not open till 11 and we would have to go back out of security to the front desk. We went to the front desk and got sent to a side area that opened at 6AM (we had a 10 minute wait). So me and this other women waited and talked a little bit. When the desk opened he sent us back to the ticket counter who tried to send us back to him. After a while of waiting while the staff discusses our situation they informed us they did not get petty cash till 9AM and so if we wanted to reimbursed we would have to mail in our receipt. The problem is we only have one receipt and 3 people who needed reimbursed. So I said the couple that paid the most should get reimbursed. I was not in the mood to fight over 14 dollars.