The Joy of Serving
Learning to follow Jesus

It’s Monday 8:30 PM.  I’ll be hitting the sack early tonight.  Tomorrow Sharon and I have another LONG day of travel ahead of us; actually 31 hours.  That’s how long it will take us to fly from Portland, OR to Chennai, India.  It can be grueling and expensive.

So, why do we do it?  There’s a husband and wife there we want to meet.  We have been emailing them for months to arrange our visit.  They are a very special couple in India.  They rescue baby girls who face an unjust death sentence.  Babies whose parents have decided to murder them for being girls instead of boys.

It’s difficult for westerners to understand that some people in India don’t see the wrong in doing this.  And I do mean some people because it’s by no means the majority who think that way.  Even so, in the last couple decades it’s estimated that there were millions of girls murdered in India, either as infants or as fetuses.

When I heard about this during my first trip there I asked who or what organization is working to save them.  They don’t have a chance on their own.  Surprizingly, no one I asked knew.

So I began to pray that God would lead me to them, and after 2 more years I found this couple.  And now we get to meet them.

I’m a little nervous about it, since I don’t have our visit all planned out like some experienced planner of such things.  I just feel led to go there.  Then we’ll se what God makes of it.

I continue to thank God for teaching me that there is great joy in serving Him.

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As far as international jet setting goes, both Sharon and I are real novices, and so still somewhat insecure going through customs, immigrations, etc.  True, this was my third trip to India (and Sharon’s second).  But the hassles and confusions at airports of my first two were such that I still refer to them occasionally when bragging rights are in order; kind of like comparing battle scars with friends.  So, when the people from The Airlines told us they wouldn’t allow us to board our connecting flight to Amsterdam, I not only felt anger and dismay, I also felt helpless, powerless and lost about what to do next.

In this last regard, however, the Airlines Officials knew just the thing for us: no problem! we simply call our travel agent and book another flight.  While you’re at it, call a hotel too ‘cause you’re gonna need it, since there won’t be another flight until tomorrow night.  Oh, you don’t have a car and driver to get to a hotel?  You’ll need to talk to someone about that, too, to get a pedicab.  Uh, too much baggage for a pedicab I see.  Well, you’ll need a taxi, then, although they’re considerably more expensive.  Us pay?  Don’t be silly.

The preceding, in a nutshell, pretty much sums up the overall attitude of the Airlines Officials towards Sharon and I and the rest of us that they left stranded in Delhi.  Having to get our own hotel would have been a somewhat costly insult.  But booking another flight on our own would have cost us over $1600.00 alone!  Needless to say, this did not go down well.

Banding and Bonding

During the time I was trying to come to grips with all the ramifications of our new situation it occured to me that at some point an argument had ensued, and now the shouts were starting to cut through the fog in my head.  It seems that Raji (have I still not told you about Raji) was apparently a more experienced traveler.  Being somewhat more sure of herself than I, she was not about to stand for their version of a solution.  As I listened to the argument other voices began to chime in (there were nine of us altogether who were missing this connection).

Sharon and I didn’t really participate in the argument but more or less hung around it all, offering moral support to our side, so to speak.  Those doing the arguing were directing all their energy towards an apparent Airline Official.  It should be pointed out here that there were 3 different airlines and, in our case at least, one travel agency involved in this whole mixup*.  I had no idea which this particular official worked for.  But, since he was standing there taking all this, he must be guilty.

I know I tend to drag some of my stories out a long ways sometimes.  This time I’ll not bore you with more detail than is needed (have I done that already?).  What it amounted to was Raji, her brother Sridar, a couple whose names were Arvand and Iradna, and two other men basically would not stop ranting and arguing and threatening legal action (yes, legal action.  You see, the tide was turning.  It seems that Iradna was an attorney; even associated with a firm in Delhi I think I overheard).  At one point Iradna left the hallway where we had the official cornered, to make a private cell phone call.  Leaving was quite a wasted effort.  Everyone in the vicinity could hear her almost screaming at someone on the other end of the line.  I hope that person was at least guilty, too.  Our group effort eventually began yielding some results, however, and after some time the Airline Officials began to soften their stance.

In the end, we never did get on that flight to Amsterdam that night (did I say night?  by now it was almost 2 AM!).  But because of, shall we say persistence, on the part of these more worldly people we had banded together with, the best of a bad situation seems to have been made.  The airlines did rebook our flights for free (whew), they put us all up in a nice “4-Star Hotel” in Delhi for the night, with breakfast in the morning included (by the time we will have finally made it to the hotel, though, it will be 4 AM).

Getting from the airport to the “4-Star Hotel” turned out to be a misadventure in itself (this stuff never ends; I want to sleep!).  There was a new Airline Official out in the parking lot where we all awaited our transportation.  He had been responsible for arranging the shuttle to take all of us, and our considerable baggage, to the hotel.  When I asked this young Indian man his name, he answered, “Warren” (right!)  Now, spacial concepts were apparently not Warren’s strong point.  When the “shuttle” showed up, it was actually 2 very small cars, somewhat larger than one of those Smart Cars we see here.  Here it was, about 2:30 AM.  By now, we have all been wasted and bedraggled for some time.  We’re all looking forward to some rest in this “4-Star Hotel”.  We can’t wait to get some sleep.  Well, we all looked at those 2 little cars . . .then looked at each other, then at all our baggage, and you could sense all our eyes rolling at the same time.  I do not think you could have fitted all of us and our luggage in 6 of those cars.  The couple, Arvand and Iradna must have had 11 or 12 bags themselves!  Well, by unspoken agreement, Raji, Sridar and their mother (who wasn’t well) left in one car, and the other two guys in the other.  This only left Sharon and I, and Arvand and Iradna standing in the, now cold, night hoping that 2 more cars like that didn’t show up again, since there would not be room for all people and baggage.

About this time Arvand really started to come unglued.  He, rightfully, demanded that Warren get on his cell phone and immediately arrange for some appropriate transportation for the rest of us, strongly suggesting he account for all our luggage this time.  Warren argued he had already made adequate arrangements, although when asked what those were it seemed he couldn’t speak much English anymore.  We just wanted to be sure that the next transportation that arrived wouldn’t leave with any more of us still standing there.

At times like these it’s important to keep in contact with people like Warren until the last moment when you get handed off to the next person who will be responsible for your best interests, in this case the “4-Star Hotel” shuttle driver.  And since the shuttle wasn’t there yet we had no intention of letting Warren out of our sight.  But it was a big parking lot, and there were only 4 of us now so we couldn’t exactly corner him as we had done to his coworker.  This must have finally occurred to Warren, too, for presently he made the lame claim that the battery in his cell phone was now dead.  He would have to go get another one, but he would return shortly.  We never saw Warren again.

It was getting noticeably colder and we waited for probably another 20 minutes before our shuttle finally arrived.  Praise the Lord! it was large enough to get us all out of there.  At long last we were on our way to getting some sleep.

A half hour later we did arrive at the hotel.  As we suspected, it was far from rating 4 stars.  But I think even the Airline Officials knew by the time we got here we would only care about mattress and pillows.

The stress and strain had Sharon and I keyed up, and worn out at the same time.  Next flight wasn’t until 11 PM that night.  We would have done well to have slept most of the time before the shuttle was due to take us back to the airport.  There was just one little problem with that plan.  That free breakfast!  We had to get up by 9, or so to have time to clean up and get over to the restaurant for that.  That meant only about 5 hours of sleep for us, who had just gone through a very harrowing 20 hours.  But, get up, we did.  For all that we and the rest of our band of friends had gone through to squeeze concessions out of that turnip of an airline official, Sharon and I were not about to leave that breakfast on the table J

Much Later

So, we did finally make it home, and without further incident, albeit with some more “battle scars” to brag about.

This return trip from India was a trying experience, but I do not blame India.  We had a really wonderful time there.  I love India.  I love the people of India that I have met (well, as a Christian, I am trying to love those Airline Officials).  I especially love the children in India.  Nothing that happened with those airlines would make me shy away from going there again.  The hotel wouldn’t rate 4 stars here in the US, but I will say their staff was not only friendly and helpful, but I believe I actually sensed empathy for us.

And looking at the positive side, which I do more of it seems since I became a Christian, I met some really neat people only because of these problems with the airlines.  Raji suggested all of us band together.  We ended up doing a lot of chatting with her and her brother, Sridar.  Their mother was with them, also.  Although she spoke little, or no, English she knew when she was being introduced and responded with a very kind nod and smile.  I don’t remember all of their names, but we had some very enjoyable conversations during layovers.  I wish them all well and hope to cross paths with them again sometime.

Flyer Beware

So, why have I told you all of this?  I think a good thing to keep in mind in the future is this: the airlines, or the travel agencies make mistakes, too.  They just don’t expect to have to pay for them.  So check for problems with itineraries they offer before you make your choice.  There may be serious consequences.

In our case, the mistake they made was to have an itinerary to choose from which was inherently flawed.  It only allowed 2 hours and 40 minutes after landing in Delhi to connect to the flight to Amsterdam.  The airline industry routinely nowadays suggests, or requires 3 hours time for international flights.  But, when booking our flights I wasn’t on the lookout for itineraries that had built-in problems, who would?  What with the delay in our flight from Hyderabad even a 3 hour margin might not have been enough.  But the point is that the Airline Officials seemed to have chosen to use their own flawed itinerary as their own way out, telling us it wasn’t their responsibility since we didn’t arrive with the required 3 hours to spare.  Lucky for us the resulting argument eventually became a battle of wits.  In this arena the Airline Officials were simply outclassed.

Mike

*Airlines involved: Northwest Airlines, KLM and Kingfisher

  Travel Agency: Expedia Travel

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