Turning Lemons into Lemonade

I think most of humanity knew of my travel schedule in July - packed with two separate African trips in six weeks. I had put off meetings, turned over responsibilities, prepared my family, and made arrangements. So imagine my utter shock as I step up to the South African airways ticket counter and find they won't let me on the plane. "What?" I say. "You don't have enough blank pages in your passport, you cannot board the plane," they said again, repeating as if it shouldn't have been a shock to me. "Please step aside to be reticketed back home, next!" And with efficiency, I stepped aside.

So, life had handed me some lemons - or what I thought were lemons. What was I going to do now? I am stuck in Atlanta, my family is all in Gatlinburg, and I had things to do in Cape Town. A well-placed call to the US State Department soon found my options dwindling. No appointments at ANY regional facility until July 6 in New Orleans- too late to get it all done in Cape Town and what would I do until then? I had no choice - stay in the US, get extra pages by mail and pray for wisdom on how to get our work done anyway.

So, thus began my full-day quest for ways to make lemonade out of the lemons I was holding. Here is what I learned:
1. Sugar.
You need to add sugar to make lemonade. I decided that the sugar in this situation would be my attitude. Humbly accept that I was the one in the wrong (I should've listened to Steve last year as he sent HIS passport in for more pages). Get over yourself and treat everyone else you see like this is exactly what you wanted to be doing. That was a real tester as it took the Atlanta Hartsfield airport 16 hours to return my bags to me - even though they were probably right under my feet. Maintaining a good attitude simply made the whole experience a little less painful, maybe even enjoyable?
2. Think outside the box.
How could we get the same thing accomplished in a different manner? First off, the plane time would have been used to read a book about Participatory Learning. So, find a corner of floor and start reading (I finished it before my bags came). Second, Selena and I were going to reformat the CDLS curriculum to a more participatory format. Could we do this via online meeting services? I think we can. We'll give a report after this week about how that went. Now, I am starting to think maybe I didn't really NEED to go to Cape Town to get this done in the first place.
3. Look for opportunities to be an unexpected blessing.
Having no other better options (or car for that matter), I rented a car and went to Gatlinburg. The kids were there with their cousins, grandparents and Steve. But they are a handful, believe me. One day after being with them all, I realized that God had not only helped me to turn lemons into lemonade but had given me a free gift along the way: unexpected time with my kids.

I know this is not the easiest road to walk. Without the grace of God, I think I would have just been a normal irate traveler whose plans had gotten upset. I saw plenty of them in Atlanta and the baggage personnel certainly didn't expect any different from me. But I figure if I am going to be made to go through a process, having a great attitude makes it a little easier for me and everyone I come into contact with. It helped that I met some cool people working there - a woman from Togo, a man who went to Fisk (Nashville) and worked as a government contractor in biomedical engineering, among others.

So, thanks for praying for my trip to Cape Town. It turned out awesome, but not exactly as expected! But, I am well aware that the prayers of many helped me to walk in the grace of God through an unpleasant situation. And those same prayers will hopefully help Selena and I to accomplish everything that we need to get done this week - in a different way than we expected.

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