The Perils of Luggage!

As promised I will start to write on here about my week and everything that happened during it. But for now lets just start with the travel.

I don't know about you but just the mere thought of traveling for 24 hours makes me tired, add on top of that the stress of packing for a week to go to a country you've never been to before with very limited resources. On Friday night I had my mom and dad over and with the help of my mom and cousin Beth I finished all my packing and triple checked my list to make sure I had everything that I needed. I even questioned whether or not my bags were too big, did I really need that much (and no I didn't), and would my carry on fit?

My carry on was probably my biggest concern. I was already checking two bags. One to completely donate in whatever way I could and the other with my clothing and necessities in it. But I had a nagging feeling about my carry on luggage. On Saturday after checking my luggage and getting all set to go through security I checked to see if my carry on would fit in the little box they have to test it. And behold...it was too big. The wheels stuck out too far and the front pockets made it slightly too wide. I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I really didn't want to check it as well and pay extra money. So I just trusted that the Lord would take care of me and that He had it all under control.

After leaving my parents and cousin at the security check point I began to wheel myself to my gate and walked around a bit. I stopped at my gate but then decided to head for lunch. When I did as I rolled my suit case along I started to notice that it was rolling rather rough. It wasn't rolling very smooth even though the floor was smooth, at one point it felt like I ran over something and when I looked back there was a chunk of my wheel sitting in the middle of the floor. At that point I was a little annoyed but then I realized that the Lord really had a sense of humor. He was causing the wheels to lose the outer shell so that it would fit in the overhead compartment. Both wheels eventually lost all of the outer shell. But God wasn't done yet. I was still concerned about it. Right before boarding they announced that all larger carry on bags would be stowed underneath the plane because the overhead compartments were too small. So once again I need not worry about it.

On the second flight from Detroit to Amsterdam I did have to carry it on. And I learned a valuable lesson, always make sure you can life it above your head before you leave. I had to have help getting it up over head because it was too heavy for me. (Maybe by next time I'll build up my arm strength) :) So then of course I worried that I would have the same trouble on the next flight and I wouldn't have someone kind enough to lift it up for me. But alas God had that worked out too. Once again it was stowed underneath due to the full flight and little overhead space. And after a little worry that it wouldn't make it all the way to Entebbe with me (we stopped in Kigali, Rwanda) the Lord worked that out as well. (Let me just say that I highly appreciate KLM if you are flying internationally, they are the ones to fly with.) So in the end my personal luggage and my carry on made it all the way to Entebbe with me and I didn't need to worry. However my bag of donations was missing! But more on that later. :)