What an ORDEAL!

Friday, March 15:  DAY FOUR

We arrived in Miami late Thursday night. Thankfully, David had some "points" and booked a room in a nice hotel. We slept fine and were at the Passport Office at 6:40 am ...

Oh! I forgot to mention that we had a Plan A, Plan B and a Plan C.

PLAN A:  Everything would go smoothly at the Passport Office. I would receive my Passport Book, we would drive to the airport, and hop on our flight with no problems whatsoever. 

PLAN B:  We would run into a few glitches! We might miss our flight! I might have to fly separately from David ... but we would make it to Nassau one way or the other.

PLAN C:  I would be denied my Passport Book. In that case, we would be in a bit of trouble. You see, David had business in Nassau Saturday morning. He did not have any option to NOT go to the Bahamas. If I was denied my Passport, David would have to fly on to Nassau without me and I would have to drive his truck back to Tampa. Plan C was NOT one I even wanted to consider. David's truck is BIG ... big enough to tow his boat! Miami is a BIG city. It is a 4.5 hour drive back to Tampa. I am not at all good with directions. I have never used a Garman, AND I left my glasses back in Michigan (since I passed my eye exam for my new license without them ... but truth be told, I can't READ SIGNS without them)! 

But back to the story ...

I couldn't believe HOW LONG the line outside the door already was! We were 20th in line. The doors don't open until 7:30, but there were officials that were separating out the people who had appointments, who had flights that had been already missed, folk who had flights THAT DAY, people who did not have an emergency, etc.  We were among the group that had flights THAT DAY, but we were still 17th in line.

At 8:00 am we found ourselves in front of an agent at a window with our documents all in order and laid out for her to see. She asked us when our flight was. We answered that it would leave Miami at 1:00 pm that day. She was very kind and sympathetic, but she couldn't give us any guarantees that we would even GET a Passport Book the same day, let alone make a 1:00 flight. BUT she told us that our documents were in good shape and that we at least had hope. She suggested we take a walk and return there by 11:30, even though they don't usually hand out the Passport Books until about 2:30 in the afternoon.

We left the office and went to Starbucks, walked around a little bit, but then decided to return at 10:00 am just in case my Passport Book actually arrived in time for us to make our 1:00 international flight (having to go through customs, security, etc.).  We sat down in the large waiting room which by now was filled with 100's of people in a similar circumstance. I think every crying baby in the Western Hemisphere was there too. No food or drink was allowed in that room, so these poor babies were probably legitimately unhappy. Everyone there was in a rather desperate situation, so we didn't see many smiles. We made conversation when it was appropriate and sat ...

We waited. We waited some more. By noon, we figured we would miss our 1:00 flight to Nassau. By about 2:30, an announcer started calling groups of FIVE names to go to window 5 to receive their Passports. The office officially closes their door at 3:00 and then ALL business is completed by 4:00. We were definitely a minority down there in Miami. They called all kinds of very long Hispanic names one by one. I was just waiting for JONES to be called. 

At 3:58, my name was called! We received my Passport Book and high-tailed it to the airport. Traffic was horrible, and we got there at 5:15. Would you believe our 1:00 flight was delayed, but took off at 5:00?!?!? David has very good standing with American Airlines, so we walked up to the ticket counter and I let David do the talking. He gave them a shortened version of our very sad predicament. They were SUPER nice about it. The 5:45 flight was already overbooked and boarding. The 8:45 flight was WAY over booked. But there was a 10:45 flight, overbooked as well ... but would we like to try to get on stand-by? 

It was actually our only choice at that point! We walked to our gate, had several hours to waste and so we ate dinner, and then we waited once again. While we waited, David brought up Youtube and showed me failed boat launch videos. They were hilarious. I got laughing so hard I could NOT stop! It was just crazy.

As the 10:45 was almost finished boarding, they called the stand-by names. David's was #2 on the list but I was #7.  When his name was called, he told the agent he wasn't going anywhere without me (what about your morning meeting tomorrow?!?!). Miraculously (because many dear folks were praying for us), we were both allowed to board (and actually sit next to each other) at the very last minute. We arrived in Nassau at midnight, missed our rental car (because that office closed at 8pm), took a taxi to our hotel and ... slept like logs!

There were many ways God showed Himself faithful to us throughout this situation:

(1)  We made it to Nassau
(2)  We were not charged any extra fees even though we missed our flight to Nassau, and no-showed our flight from Tampa to Miami!
(3)  We journeyed safely on the road between Tampa and Miami
(4)  We were not killed on the taxi ride from the Nassau airport to Paradise Island (it was quite a windy road ... and everyone was going the wrong way!)
(5)  David's 10:00 meeting was postponed until 3:00 in the afternoon on Saturday! 

Thank you so much, Lord, for your kindness and provision!